4 years? Yep, that’s how long I’ve been running this blog as of today. I’ve learned a lot during that time. I’ve gone through phases of being this person or that person in Blogland as I call it. Or did I used to call It bBogworld? Maybe now I’ll stat calling it the Blogiverse. Yeah, I like that. Anyway, I at one time was writing multiple articles a day about how to blog, poetry, writing, and anything else I could think of. Then I hit the wall. I made a mistake and didn’t even know it until way too late.

The mistake I made? I took a break from blogging except for my weekly haiku challenge. Even the challenge was a challenge to get out each week. Sometimes it would be 7:45 AM and the haiku is supposed to go out at 8 AM and I am barely able to find the energy or will to get the laptop and log in.

At first, I took a break to unplug for a while. I wanted to experience a bit of what normal people did. I wanted to watch at TV show, take a nap. I even wanted to work on writing my next book. Up to that break I had a daily habit of not only writing my blog but also being creative in working on book ideas. Then I developed new habits.

One habit was a good one, I read books. But then that turned in to an obsession almost, an addiction. Last year I read over 300 books. Now I can barely read a book. I start one and within a couple of chapters I already see where things are going, and I stop and then move on to the next book.

Oh, and then there were the naps. But then I have Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia, so I just end up sleeping whenever and often don’t sleep for a couple of days at a time.

Then there is the manic binge watching. I have this addictive nature, it runs in the males in my family, it’s why I don’t touch alcohol. Once I watch the first episode of something then I must see them all. Or if there is a genre of film, I just gotta see whatever else I can find in that genre or by that movie star.

Now here I am a year or so later and I’m trying to develop that writing habit again and thus find my friends once more. I did a little reading about developing habits and some of it is a bit daunting.  According to actual scientific studies it took people in the studies anywhere from 18 days to 254 days to create their desired habit. Now some habits are easier to achieve, and people are all different regarding ability, strength of will and determination, but it really is realistic to expect a habit to take anywhere from 2 to 8 months to create a habit. So, if you are as couch potato and you want to run an hour every morning before work, well look forward to a long haul but just realize that it’s normal to take a while AND if you skip a day you don’t have to start the months over again.

So here I am on day one of my new habit, or should I say old habit? I tried to do this last year, but I bombed. I chose to simply do a haiku in response to my challenge, just 3 little lines of poetry, and I couldn’t do it. Now I have no idea where to start except to write SOMETHING at least once each week.

I’ve put this out there to let all you newer bloggers and perhaps even some of my veteran friends know the dangers of taking that break. If you do take a break, set a time to start back up and stick to it.

The one good thing I realized after my break from blogging is … YOU CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT BLOGGING! So all you addicts out there, just remember, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. I did, and now here I am better and more sedate than ever.

See y’all next time.