Is it a pause or a hesitation?

At the risk of jinxing it, 2026 is proving to be the calm, uplifting year I have been waiting for. My home and personal life have been peaceful which is something I haven't experienced in a long time; my kids are doing well, I no longer feel like I'm in constant survival mode, and although my home is still messy, it is not sending me into a spiral of despair. I've been reading, work does not feel like chaos, and I started grad school. Things are good.

And then there's this blog. Like I said, I've been reading. I've been taking notes, I have been doing a lot of reflecting, and I've been making some enlightening connections. BUT...I haven't actually sat down to write. It's like a reading slump, but more of a writing-about-what-I'm-reading slump. One of the main reasons I started this blog was so that I could share of all my thoughts about what a read -- the good, the bad, and the completely unhinged. But I haven't done that. At least not for awhile.

Up until recently (like, right before I started writing this post), I called it a "writing slump" and left it at that. Then I realized that I have actually been writing religiously since January 1st. I've been putting my thoughts to paper, and I have been writing things that I've read. What's more, I've even sent the occasional unhinged text to a friend or commented on my fellow bookstagrammers' posts about said thoughts on things that I've read. I suppose I could make the argument that blog posts are much more time consuming and take more effort to compose, but I am pretty certain that this is far from the truth.

The truth is that this isn't just a "writing slump" or a "pause" in my blogging; it's a hesitation. See, while I've shared my thoughts with friends and other bookish people, I still have a lingering fear of sharing those thoughts with the general public. I mean, it is pretty bold of me to assume that anyone but friends and bookish people will be reading my blog. Nevertheless, the prospect is terrifying to me because, after all, nothing on the internet ever stays hidden. Questions of, "Will I be too much?," "Will I say something unforgivably stupid?," or, "What if I freeze and can't defend my own opinion?" flood my head every time I start outlining a post. No, there's no need to tell me twice that I am absolutely overthinking this whole thing. In the words of 3LW (no, TSwift was not the first to put this phrase into a song), "haters gonna hate."

All that being said, I couldn't tell you where I got the courage to even publish THIS post. Being vulnerable scares the shit out of me, even when it comes to something like books. Because books are more than stories, and the things we learn from them, and the things we think about them absolutely make a difference. Collecting those thoughts, forming those opinions, and sharing them is a scary thing to do. Just take a look at the world we are living in RIGHT NOW. It's very simple: a lot of these people have never read a book (especially a history book...) and actually took the time to reflect on what they read, yet share their vile, half-formed thoughts, and will proudly die on the ignorant hill they stand on...and it shows. I don't wanna be one of those people.

Anyway... Until next time. Some new content will be coming soon (hopefully).