Today, I was thinking about a friend.  This friend started his blog about the same time that I did.  Now, he’s decided to move on, leaving the blog he’s tended to for years behind.  Oddly enough, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time now, and recently blogged about.

He’s going to hang up the personal blog nonsense and focus on at least one of his interests instead.  No forwarding from the old site to the new one.  A clean restart.

I thought about his decision today, and posted some of my thoughts on his now-retired blog.  I hope he doesn’t mind if I share some of those same thoughts here.

One of the greatest dilemmas for a blogger who’s been writing for years is change.

When someone takes up a blog, often it’s in order to have an outlet to talk about their lives, good or bad.  Sometimes, it’s very personal, almost a diary.  Other times, it’s about an interest someone wants to share, or they have a common bond with other bloggers, such as stay at home moms.  There are even blogs designed around some of these purposes with the side goal of making a few bucks on the side.

A blogger usually goes through the trouble of doing a lot of set up, choosing a name, choosing a topic, setting up a site, posting articles, and promoting their blog.  For some, a lot of time is put into it.  For others, a little or a lot of money is put into it as well.  A blog is well-invested, to say the least.

And then everything changes on you.

The things you were interested in six months ago have faded away.  You’ve moved on to other topics.  You’ve lost interest.  You’ve had coworkers, friends, or family discover your blog, which almost always changes your blogging voice entirely.  Sometimes, life comes to bite you in the ass and you need to deal with the real world for a while.  The point is, things change.  Life changes.  What you blogged about yesterday won’t be as important tomorrow.

And yet, you’ve invested time, money, creativity, sweat, pain, and a lot of yourself in the process.  It’s hard to abandon something you’ve put so much of yourself into.

But to the blogger, it’s almost necessary.

Most bloggers I know have used their site as a means to grow and change.  For instance, many of the people who started blogging around the same time that I did, as I mention in the article linked above, were recovering from leaving the LDS church.  They needed an outlet to speak their mind as they moved forward, and blogging was a natural means to that end.  But many “exmormon” bloggers, especially the ones who are merely wrestling with their decision to leave their faith and not looking for a battle, give up on their blog in time.  That’s because, given enough time, they change.  The accomplish what they set out to do by blogging (among other outlets), and in doing so, their reason for blogging ceases to exist.  They either move on to some new topic, or abandon their blog in favor of new interests.  I did it, too.

For others, where blogging was more about a hobby, interest, or commonality, time still moves you forward.  At one time, my blog was specifically to chat about whatever came into my mind.  For a while, I used it more for writing exercises.  Then, it was a memoir.  On occasion, I’ve used to to post photos that interest me.  A look through my categories list (the tags connected to each post, which concern the topics expressed in that post), show a diverse number of interests and topics over the years.  Today, the blog is a reflection of who I am, and a culmination of almost five years of blogging.  For me, my topics are so broad, I sometimes wonder if I’m too diverse to have much of an audience.  I have no idea who reads this blog, other than my wife, my parents, some family and friends.  For all I know, it’s just them.  For all I know, I have thousands of readers (who never comment).  That could be a direct result of all the changes that I - as well as my blog - have been through.

Where some move on, change blogs, change topics and layouts, and some even change names, I cannot.  I can add to my hodge podge of blogging.  But if I abandon my past for a future that I, as a blogger, long for, I will never be satisfied with my new iteration.

I think that’s why I didn’t blog for most of 2009.  I blogged each day in 2008, sometimes merely to say I blogged that day (rather than quality of content).  In that time, my life changed.  Blogging each day at the beginning of the year was different than blogging daily at the end of the year.  And instead of changing everything I’d worked on, I practically abandoned it instead.

I believe that most bloggers, in time, feel the need to move on.  Ironically, it’s commonly WHY people blog - to be able to move on.  But even those who blog about their interests - say writing, or amateur radio - in time move on to something else.  Thus is the blogger’s dilemma: to be, or six months later to be something else.

Even the name of my blog is a perfect example of everything I’m trying to say here.  The title, a new eric, was chosen specifically because I’d blogged about finding a new me.  The version of myself that wrote that entry in April of 2006 would soon be separated from his spouse, facing divorce, learning to be a single father, and dealing with a new reality.  Interestingly, that was what I was seeking at that time.  What I got was drastically different.

A new eric was a goal… it was a direction.  And I didn’t even have a clue what was coming my way only six months or so later.  That new me was based on my old reality.  My world has changed many times since then.

Now, a new eric is a search for self-purpose.  It’s partially to know myself.  It’s partially to know my role in the world.  And it’s partially just the same thing I’ve been writing about for all these years: me.

In all my years of blogging, I’ve moved on about a dozen times.  I know the drill by this point.  But still, every once in a while, I wonder if I should start over.  I wonder if I should follow the lead of my friends, leaving this site for another.  Starting over, entirely.  New site, new topics, new eric.

But then, I can’t help but think that I’ve come so far.  The Eric that started blogging in 2005 as a result of having to cope with religion has been long gone (that didn’t take long).  The person who merely wanted to write about random things has grown.  I could have changed it all a dozen times.  Perhaps changing images and layouts has been a part of that.  But most importantly, as I’ve changed, this blog has stood as a testament to that change.  If I ever wonder why I blog, I merely have to go back to 2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009 to realize how far I’ve come.

I applaud those friends who find it time to move on.  I understand that feeling, entirely.  In my own way, I do it, too.  But as for this blog, I will keep adding to it as long as I can.  Perhaps, one day, I’ll feel like I finally found that new eric I’ve been looking for.  Until then, I’ll keep searching for myself, and the next thing to write about.

I thank my friends, bloggers and readers alike, for their contributions over the years, as well as their new directions for the future.  May your best writing come each and every day.

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