Dear Reader,
When I've heard from people that they felt they were entering the "twilight" of their life, it often seemed eerie to me. It was like they knew the end was approaching and could feel the ticking clock growing louder and louder. The end was closing in.
That feeling has become familiar to me, in the past year but I have tried to ignore it, shift it, re-prioritize it and wish it away. I've done due diligence to assure that I am indeed sensing the same "ending". At some point I had to enter reality and realize that it was time and God was asking me to admit it. To myself and to you.
After nearly five years of blogging I indeed sensed correctly. I have been in the twilight of my personal blogging career. It's been the most interesting journey I have personally ever attempted to wade through (often times, it felt like treading water) but somewhere along the way, it changed.
I'm not sure where it happened or even if it happened all at once but the passion behind it became a bit fuzzy. What began as simple writing and quick captures of everyday life, evolved into somewhat of a machine. Some by my own doing and some that I had no part of. What was a passion to write and share became a passion to write and share with some monetizing, growing, reaching and business plan-ing, mixed in.
I realized that my once-pure passion was taken prisoner by the idea of turning it into something else. If you want to call it a business, I suppose that would be accurate. As I grew increasingly uncomfortable with this paradigm shift, I began stripping all things away except for the clean typing of words and feeling.
But even then.
It was a bit too late and my writing was changed. Against my best efforts, I wasn't able to return it to what it had once been because I am not the same, either. Blogging means something different to me now and that isn't bad, it's simply not what it was when I started, which is what I have been searching for.
I believe I'm searching for something that can no longer be found and I need to learn to hang up my hat when something is finished. Not prolong, with hopes it will return.
What will never change are my feeling towards you.
You, who have stood by me for the entire length of parenthood and some of you who have just began reading. The readers here have been loyal, kind, generous and consistent. I'm sure that is what I will miss the very most.
Letters in the mail, packages when my children are sick. Verses when I was wading through rough waters.
You have always been there. Some silent observers and some, my closest of confidants.
I'm certain that my greatest accomplishment as a writer, here on No. 17, will be that I was able to attract such authentic people.
You are all worthy of a blog that is exactly what it was intended to be. Which is why I will be saying goodbye to No. 17 and this wonderful space.
I think I'll go back to writing for its sheer joy and filling pages of notebooks with my small and quiet stories. Someday to be read but maybe not even that.
I'll write because I love it, not because I have the ability to share it.
It's time to say goodbye and follow what I feel God is telling me to do.
...Even though typing these last words is one of the hardest things I have ever done.
Thank you for reading and being a part of my life, for the last five years.
Simply stated, I love you and will miss No. 17 Cherry Tree Lane, but it's been twilight for too long and it's time.
With a very grateful heart,
