Thoughts about blogging

I have been wondering lately why blogging is so difficult for me. I have always liked to write from diary entries to academic articles to letters and newspaper texts. I have time and making jewellery inspires me. So why the difficulty to log in a write a blog post?

I don't have an easy answer to that but one possible reason that comes to mind is the publicity of blogging. Anyone can read a blog that is online. Diary entries and letters, in other words, personal texts, have always been for the eyes of one or two persons. Academic articles and newspaper texts have wider audiences but they are always about a specific topic and there is nothing personal in them. Blog texts, however, are public and meant to be read by as many people as possible. (Not counting closed accounts or closed posts only a select few can view, of course.)

As a rule, I don't have a problem with people reading my blog - certainly not - nor do I consider myself an extremely private person. But, during the past years and their difficulties, I have become isolated from most people, events and anything social, really. It has been my choice and partly, an involuntary consequence. When my burnout was still untreated, I wasn't able to handle anyone needing anything from me. To this day, my need to be alone and undisturbed has yet to pass. I am better now, to some extent, but I still feel a need to control if and when I communicate with people. Even on Facebook, where I spend several hours a day on most days, I often just read and click rather than type anything. It feels like a strain somehow. Sometimes I have difficulty answering messages. I rather lurk.

As days pass and writing a blog post seems almost unbearable, I'm starting to believe there is truth to that thought. Maybe my burnout and its effects have made me a more private person and someone that does not volunteer to share things about her life with others. Jewellery is not a typically personal topic, you might say. But for me, it is. I started to make it a few years ago, when my healing process was more unfinished than it is today. It started on a whim, as a hobby with a small bag of supplies and has grown from that. Slowly. In February, when we left to go to Stockholm, all my supplies fit in one storage box the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Now I have two storage towers on my desk and drawers full of chains and parts and such. My jewellery has gone with me to Stockholm, Kokkola and Helsinki. I make it almost every day and certainly think about it daily. I order things online for it and think of new ideas at all times of the day. I talk about it with my spouse, my family and friends. I post photos on Facebook and in this blog. It is a big part of my life and, as such, it is something personal for me. It has helped me and inspired me and given me some sense of a purpose. It has given me the feeling, ever so slightly, that I am good at something. That previously familiar feeling hasn't been around since I had my burnout and left the university. After all, what can one be good at if one doesn't work? Work defines us more than I would like to admit and it was always the way to feel good about myself. I knew I was good at what I did and I needed that feeling. Now, after four years, the university and my work there have been - to some extent - replaced by making jewellery. What could be more important, than the thing that makes you feel like you are good at something? The thing that helps you maintain a sense of worth and some self-esteem? Not many things come to mind.

As I write this, I have this small voice in my head telling me to edit, to not post this. It tells me I am sharing too much and being too open. Perhaps. But instead of listening to it I am going to click the "Publish" button before I change my mind. I think I needed to say this out loud, and I did, so I might share, as well. If anyone has a comment, a thought or a question, I would love to hear it.