I’m coming back.
Some of you may know that this blog use to be a pretty active place. It started nearly 10 years ago. Just before the 2004 presidential election I started PunditGuy. It was great then. There were few political blogs in those days. It was relatively easy to get noticed. Most of the other bloggers were happy to link to PunditGuy, and many took my posts. It didn’t take long to get a following, and in just a few months, I had over one thousand unique visitors reading me per week. Talk about fun! I loved blogging. It became my hobby, and I put a lot of time into it. For the next few years, I blogged every day, got mentioned in the mainstream media, and had stories written about me in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. I had links into PunditGuy from MSNBC, CNN, and many well read blogs. More and more people read what I had to say. It was really great.
Then, something changed.
I started getting bored. I missed a few days, then a week, then a month of blogging. I stopped caring. I was distracted. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I became disinterested in it all. Little did I know then, but I was entering into a moment of my life that would occupy my mind for the next 7 years.
Yep, 7 years.
I’ve been struggling with a myriad of issues. Family problems. Drug addiction in an immediate family member. Mental issues. Anxiety. Confidence issues. Professional issues. You name it, I have probably been through it in some form or another over the past few years. It’s been exhausting. Doctors. Tests. Treatment centers. Counseling. Pressure. Stress.
Fear.
All of this zapped every ounce of creative energy from me. Oh, on the outside I looked like I was coping. Inside, I was a wreck. I just didn’t want to do a lot of stuff. I didn’t want to deal with a lot of stuff either.
I lost a solid 7 years of my life.
Recently, through the help of professionals, and confidants, I’ve been looking into these things and realizing their cause. They aren’t simple things. They are lifelong things. But I’ve learned some interesting information, and I’ve gathered some tools to address them on a daily basis.
A friend asked me recently to recall a time when I was really happy, and interested, and “in the zone” with things in my life. I thought about that, and the truth is, I was in that place when I was writing on this blog every day. I felt good. I really loved meeting other bloggers, interacting with readers, and keeping up to date with all that was going on in the world of current events and politics. I really had a lot of fun. My friend asked me why I don’t go back to that. I immediately had a bunch of excuses. I didn’t have the time. There were too many political blogs now. Politics is exhausting. Blah Blah Blah. My friend then said something interesting. He said, “Who cares? You were having fun. You were doing something you liked. You were keeping busy. Your mind was focusing on things that you were really interested in. Go back and start over. Do it again, and light those areas of your brain back up!”.
Wow. I had never thought about that. I never thought that just the exercise of writing on this blog again could bring back some of those memories in my brain. Those fun times. A time when I was a little less troubled, and a lot less narcissistic.
So, that’s why I’m back. I don’t care if I get a thousand readers again. I don’t care if I get mentioned in mainstream media. I don’t have to be famous. I don’t have to worry about trying to get linked by a big time blogger. I don’t have to look at my blog stats every few minutes. I just have to write, about everything. Not just politics, but anything I want. The act itself is rejuvenating. It’s what I like to do. It’s what brings me a bit of happiness.
I’m going to be in this place. I’m going to spend time writing again. And it will be fun.
So, welcome back if you’re reading this and you used to read me here. If this is new to you, then, I’ll just say, “Hi”, and “Thanks for reading”, like I used to say, every day, years ago, right here on PunditGuy.