If you've been a follower of this blog for any length of time, first I'd like to thank you for still following us during out...hiatus (if you will).
I wrote about why I stepped away from the blog 2 years ago, and I posted an update almost 6 months later. Since that update, I still haven't been extremely active in blogging. That's not to say I haven't been reading, because I have, I just haven't been writing many reviews.
Since my mom died, I just haven't really had words for reviews. I'll have all these feelings while reading but when I sit down to actually type up anything...nothing happens. I've tried sitting at the computer, I've tried writing them on my phone, and writing them by hand. I've even tried taking notes while I read to piece a review together later. But nothing works. Every time I sit down actually write about what I think about a book, nothing comes out. And I'm just not satisfied with "It was good" or "It was awful" as a review, not from me.
I have posted a few, when the words flowed, but for the most part, it's been a barren wasteland.
So, if you've read this far, you're probably curious why I'm talking about this. Well, I was scrolling the book of face one evening at work (shhhh! Don't tell!) and came across this:
I found this to be incredibly accurate for me. My escape in life is music and my books. I love to read. I love to get lost in the worlds my favorite authors create. I love talking books. It's why I got so involved in Goodreads back in the day. It's how I met my bffs/blog partners Nikki and Jenn. (As an aside, I know GR has a bad reputation but back in the day it was awesome. I made a bunch of awesome friends that have the same reading interests as I do. People that were always interested in talking about books, debating them, willing to jump into a book boyfriend fight or a gif war)...
...but after my mom died, I was left floundering. The two things that helped me cope in life were taken away. Every song I listened to made me think of my mom and cry. It didn't matter what the song was, or who the band was. I would cry. The same thing happened with books. I went from reading 3-5 books a week to not reading at all. I could read a line or 2 and then I'd come across a word that made my mind wander to my mom and I'd start crying. My world had crashed down around me and I didn't even have the fictional worlds to escape into because my world invaded them.
For the most part, I don't have that problem anymore. I'm back to reading, albeit not as many books a week as I used to, but the reviewing part...still hasn't really come back.
Consequently, I haven't been signing up for ARCs of books. There are many I'd love to read (and review) but I never know when I'll have words and when I won't and I can't do that to an author that's counting on me.
So that's it. That's the update. I'm still here. I'm back to reading. I'm trying to review. But I'm not back to my old "normal". I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever get t that same normal. But I do miss blogging, and I still think of things I'd love to do with the blog. It's just going to take time, and for me to find my new normal here and find some new footing.
