Hello out there in book world! I’m not even sure if anyone is still reading this, but if you are, hey! Nice to see you again! Now, you’ve possibly noticed that it’s been a loooooong time since this blog has been active. Seriously, I still had 2015 book challenge links up. I wasn’t going to address my absence, because I honestly don’t know if I’m *really* back (I did that post once already – right before I disappeared for over a year). But I’m finding it hard to just pick up where I left off, because so much has changed and I also don’t feel like the same person in a lot of ways. It’s hard to remember simple things like how to format my posts, or even how to form my thoughts into a review! So I decided that I did need to do another “hi, I’m (hopefully, probably, I’m not really sure) back again!” post. So here it is.
As you know if you have been following me for a while, I had a baby about a year ago. I didn’t expect pregnancy and momming to completely remove reading from my life, and it probably wouldn’t have if things had gone according to plan. But when in life does that happen? I don’t want to go into a lot of detail because a) this post would get way too long and b) it’s personal, but suffice it to say that the past year has been the hardest of my entire life. Both my baby and I have had multiple medical issues (don’t worry, we’re okay), and dealing with that as well as adjusting to full time mom life has just left me with no energy or time for reading. I did read a bit, I even finished a couple of books (more on that in a future post), but mostly I started books and then put them down, never to be picked up again. Eventually I just stopped picking any up at all.
This should tell you a lot about my mental state, since reading has always been an important part of my life – even of who I am. When I began blogging and started to interact with other book bloggers, it became much more important because it was my gateway to an entire community of people, many of whom I came to count amongst my dearest friends. So not reading, and therefore not blogging, left a HUGE hole right in the middle of my life and my sense of myself. I’ve missed it, and more importantly, I’ve missed all of you!
One of the saddest things in trying to get started again was when, updating links on my home page, I discovered some of my favourite blogs had disappeared or become inactive. I’d always thought that my online bookish world would be there, carrying on without me, so I’d be able to dive back in when I was ready. Of course it’s not – things change, people move on in life (as I really should have known, given my own situation), and blogging doesn’t always fit anymore. But man, I feel like I’ve lost not just a friend, but a whole GROUP of friends. This loss made me reassess whether I really want to get back into blogging – is it worth the time and effort if I have lost a large part of the community it helped me build? I’ve spent a few days thinking that over, and as much as it feels lonesome out here, as if I’m shouting into a deep, dark void, I do think I want to try to build my sense of community again. So if you are one of the bloggers I used to comment back and forth with regularly, I’d love to hear from you wherever you are (Twitter, email, whatever), and if you’re new or we haven’t chatted before, hello! Great to have you here, and I hope we’ll become friends!
So now that I’ve got the awkward return of the MIA blogger post out of the way, let’s get back to the books, shall we? After all, that’s the reason we’re all here! I’d love to hear what you’ve all been reading, if you have any books you think I should check out, if you have any new book blogs to recommend and anything that’s new in your life!
