A Year and Counting...

So it has been over a year since I've posted anything. It feels weird to be typing this...right now...

I have to confess: I have not written anything in a year. Emails and lesson plans aside, I have not written anything in a year. Mostly due to a lack of time, but I also think that that is an excuse too easily used. It is far scarier to face the actual truth, which is that I have doubted my own relevancy as a writer. And my skills.

So while I'm in the confessing mood, I should reveal that I have lived part of my life in a very ignorant way this past year. There is a part of me that became a teacher and all the responsibilities that come with that - and I think I did that job very competently, if not more so. But there is also a part of me that used teaching to escape from the things I have been afraid of, and as a result I have - more voluntarily than I would have liked, lived in a bubble. And that is the ignorant part of my life. I haven't read (neither a book nor the news), I haven't explored, I haven't even opined. Living in a bubble requires expending very little mental energy, but also has the unpleasant side effect of draining one of the confidence and practice required for a skill such as writing. If you know nothing about the world around you, then you have little to write about. But then again, if you do not write, you cannot fail at writing.

So after reading all this you may understand why it feels weird for me to be writing now, in my blog, over a year later. I have good memories of this blog, and even in my deepest moments of seclusion I have not felt right about abandoning it. Nor has it abandoned me (thank you, blogspot.com, for teaming with Gmail and not erasing unused accounts). But more than that, I need to see this post I am typing as a clearing of the slate for myself. See this as a swift kick in the ass, from me to me.

So once more, blarm.blogspot is open for business. It will fill your needs from the most superficial to hopefully the less superficial. Wish me luck!