♫ Love and blogging, love and blogging.
Go together like thieves and flogging.
This, I tell you blogger mama,
You can’t have one with otha’. ♫
{Why I’m Not a Songwriter: Exhibit A.}
Blogging is a lot like love and marriage, though. I explain:
It’s Love at First Sight
When you first start a blog, it’s all you can think about. You post every day. Sometimes twice.
Quirks? What Quirks?
It’s kind of cute the when your blogging platform eats all your comments. The process of recovering all those comments is an opportunity to learn more about each other.
Familiarity Sets In
But it’s the good kind of familiarity. You’re comfortable, you speak each other’s language. You’ve memorized all the short codes and know just how to make magic happen with your blog.
Breaks Are Good For You
You’re still totally in love, but you realize the blog cannot meet every need. You want to hang out with old friends, make a few new ones, develop your own hobbies. Enter: Twitter. And Pinterest. And Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google Connect, follow, like, link, oh my.
Is This a Break or a Break-Up?
You’re spread a bit thin. Keeping up with the blog and all of your social media activities, on top of work, family and whatever else you are juggling is hard. Deep down, you still love the blog. You do. But some days you can’t remember why you love it. You’re phoning in the posts, and it shows. When you post, that is. We’re talking major dry spell here.
So Many Quirks
For crying out loud, the comments disappeared again? This is total crap.
Reconnecting
You and the blog, you have a heart-to-heart. You flip through old posts and reminisce. Along the way, that loving feeling resurfaces. You start posting again, and focusing on all the best parts of your blog.
The Long Haul
The honeymoon is over, but the best is yet to come. You and the blog, you’ve been through some tough times and it made you stronger. Now you know what matters. Forget the rest. Now you know how to balance your time (mostly) and devote just the right amount of attention to the blog. You learned how to nurture without smothering: the key to all successful relationships.
I wonder…
:: What has the trajectory of your blogging relationship been?
:: What’s the longest you’ve gone without posting? (And no, that’s not a euphemism. I’m really talking about blogging.)
:: If you took a break, what instigated your rekindling?
***
BEFORE YOU GO!
Sorry about the shouting. Just didn’t want you to miss this. Don’t forget about my
GiveBack challenge post and contest.
Are you really going to let me get away with donating only $10? Please. We can do better. When you’re done here, click that link and help make my wallet a little lighter, won’t you?
Lapsed homemaker. Looking to hire a full-time housekeeper who will work for the sheer joy of a job well done and free coffee. Interested parties, DM please. 
So very true. I take “breaks” every few months or so, but I never last more than two weeks. And I tend to keep it active with guest posts. Because my blog? Takes rejection badly. 🙂
It pretty much does work the way you said, and a TON of blogs fall by the wayside when it comes to that break up stage. It’s the finding balance stage. I take time off a lot now. I have to.
Balance is what WORKS for you.
And real life always comes first.
Love you, girl.
xo
Although I’ve never thought about it this way, you’re totally right. We go through our ups and downs and in the end, we’re still hanging in there!
The longest I’ve gone is probably a few weeks. And, I wasn’t happy about it. I felt like that’s when my blog shut down. Now, just like a relationship, when I’ve begun to invest more time in keeping it alive, I feel good about it and it makes me so happy!
yeah, that definitely sounds about right! when i hit a bump in the bloggy road, i usually just give it some time. or surf the internet for a while… you’re always bound to run into something that stirs enough emotions to blog about. 😀 the longest i’ve gone without blogging is about a week.
my blog went out the window when my son was diagnosed with autism. All of my readers left me for some odd reason and I felt betrayed.
Now I’m back at it!! Who needs those readers anyway? I’ll find new ones!
I think when blogging starts to irritate you, you need a break. It should be fun and when it’s stressful it’s time. I’ve taken a two week hiatus maybe longer…
Thing is, your followers are still there when you return 😉
Uh oh! Is this what I should expect when I finally launch my own personal blog in a couple weeks? 🙂 But I guess nothing comes easy… with every marriage there typically is a honeymoon stage. LOL.
This is spot on. Such a true depiction of the journey as a blogger. 🙂
Seriously, it’s ALL ABOUT THE LONG HAUL!
Now look who’s shouting. 🙂
So, so true, Missy!
I have been learning this lately. I need the breaks, but shouldn’t feel guilty if I take a few days off. Great post 🙂
The life-cycle of blogging! So true!
I love this! I think I’m finally in the “long haul” stage and finding my balance (although it’s still a work in progress). I’ve been blogging since last August and the longest I’ve ever gone without posting is two weeks. A couple of different times.
Love this! So true. I took a 6 month break. A new year’s resolution got me back on track.