This is officially the last time I will post on this blog. My hands are shaking and my eyes are welling up with tears, but I know this is the right thing for me to do.
Let me explain.
Yesterday, I hit a wall. Literally. I fell back against a wall, weeping, in a room full of people who were worshiping God. I was burnt out. I felt the need to feel close to God, but the way I'm living my life now, that's not going to happen.
To be clear, Cookies for Breakfast is not the reason I'm far from God. It is, however, a massive part of my life that is completely unnecessary. As much as I enjoy blogging, it is immensely time consuming and distracting.
I want to some day become a Director of Christian Education, or DCE. To do that, it would be nice if I had a steady prayer life and was much, much more dedicated to reading, studying, and getting to intimately know my Bible.
Do you want to know how many times I've come home, read my Bible, and had a bit of prayer time before bed in the past year (without being told to)?
Not once.
Do you know how many times I've come home and at least opened my blog and tried to write something?
Almost every night since I started it.
That isn't right. That isn't good. It's not the main reason I feel distant from God, but it is a contributing factor. I write about God all the time, but only because I feel unmotivated to finish any of the dozens of other unfinished posts I have sitting in my draft box.
What I want to do is restart my whole life with the knowledge and wisdom I've gained in these 18 years of existence. Sadly, science has not yet provided me with a way to do that, so instead I'm trying ever so hard to become a new person with the same body.
Basically, I want to live life!
I want to read more. I want to play video games more. I want to get my license. I want to spend more time outside (not counting at work). I want to learn guitar and/or re-learn piano. I want to write a song or two. I want to read many, many other blogs, learn what I like about them, and how to incorporate those aspects into a new blog someday. I want to study philosophy and theology on my own time. I want to prepare myself for college. I want to have a girlfriend someday in the near future. I want to write a book. I want to help lead worship at my church. I want to give starting a youth group another go. I want to learn how to cook food that doesn't come covered in plastic with cooking instruction on the back. I want to walk all the way around Lake Superior on my own and marvel at God's creation, and spread the Gospel while I do it. I want to spend more time with my family and friends. I want to be a camp counselor next summer. I want to become a more transparent and less hypocritical individual. I want to learn a new language. I want to clean my freaking room. I want to try to go three days without eating, just to see if I can. I want to go three days eating nothing but Frosted Flakes, or some other kind of cereal. I want to watch Breaking Bad (once the whole show is on Netflix).
I want to have a personal connection with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and I want to learn everything I possibly can about Him and how to become closer to Him.
Will all of that happen? Hopefully someday. Those are all things that I want to do with the copious amounts of free time that I have, instead of sitting in front of a computer trying to come up with something that is both meaningful and entertaining that only a couple of people will read.
Don't get me wrong, I feel overwhelmingly honored and blessed to have ever brought happiness to any of you through this blog. Everything I wrote, whether it was a list of contrived reasons why a Disney story is actually deeply unsettling , or a heartfelt and deeply personal apology to my wonderful mother for not getting her anything for Mother's Day, I wrote because I wanted somebody to get something out of it.
I wanted to entertain, to inspire, to teach, and to have fun expressing myself, and by golly, I did! At times I was quite serious and poured my heart and soul into each sentence I typed. Other times I was just off the walls silly.
However, if I'm honest, the underlying motive was almost always that I couldn't think of any other way to express myself. I like writing and I type fast, so blogging seemed like a great way to think publicly.
But right now, I don't really feel the need to think publicly. At all. What I do feel the need to do is be myself and do the things I want to do. And I don't want to blog anymore. At least, not for awhile.
I'm not quitting being a blogger. I'll be a blogger for as long as the Internet is a thing. This wasn't a phase that I went through, and now I'm growing up. I'm still passionate about blogging as a way to teach and to entertain. If anything, not blogging is going to be a phase, albeit a very long one.
I just can't do it any longer.
Before I go, I want to show you guys two pictures.
The penguin says "Wenk". My friend Mark drew it awhile ago, and I don't have the heart to erase it.
I have this whiteboard in my room. I got it because I have an insanely hard time remembering my responsibilities, so I thought that if I wrote stuff down the night before, I'd know what I have to do the next day.
Well, I usually walk by it in the morning without ever even glancing at it, so that idea was a flop. But on the rare occasion that I do look at it, that word is always up there.
"BLOG". It's a constant reminder that if I can't think of anything else to do, I can always hop on my computer and slave away at the keyboard, telling myself, "This time, people are REALLY gonna like my post, and they'll share it and I'll get lots of comments and ideas for new posts and it'll start some great discussions and I'll get lots of positive feedback and yeah! Blogging!"
Well, as of right now, that reminder is gone. I don't have it staring at me all the time, telling me that if I don't hop on my computer and slave away at the keyboard, I'll be disappointing the few people that do really care about my blog, and I'll be disappointing myself for not being a writer like I always wanted.
I'm not being pulled towards it any more, so I decided to cut the last tethers. One more remains. Once I hit "Publish", I'm going to cut this blog from my Favorites tab on my browser, so I don't see it all the time.
Don't worry, I'll never delete this blog. Every artist goes back to stare at their finest pieces now and then.
Wait, I said I have two pictures for you, didn't I? Right. Here's the other one.
I've always been terrible at ending things. What do I write here that is clever and apt and summarizes all this stuff??????!!!!!?!???!?!?
Do I quote somebody famous? Or do I reference a previous post that was fairly popular? Or do I say something silly, like, "That's all, folks!"? Sometimes people wrap up really heavy and important things by just saying, "Fin." Short and to the point, ya' know?
What if this is the wrong decision? What if I'm overreacting because of all the emotions I'm experiencing right now, and all the changes I'm trying to make in my life, and I hit "Publish" and immediately feel the urge to keep blogging, and I post something else, and I look like an overly emotional idiot?
I'm a very hesitant person, but I've almost never been this sure of anything. It's time to move onward and upward.
Hey, that's a pretty good end right there!
Wait! Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait...wait.
I had something else. Dang.
Oh well.
fin.
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