Whoa, has it really been five days since my last post?! I almost never go this long without something. I guess I was a bit too busy with life, what with a holiday party, white elephant exchange, and potluck happening at work. Without even realizing it, these days have zoomed right past me and I can hardly believe it.

While I haven’t exactly been offline in any sense, I have been a bit of a lone wolf in my activities. Watching educational videos, reading articles, playing games on my tablet… none of these require anyone else to participate with me, and so I’ve lost a bit of touch with the world. When I have Panda and the cats at home, I hardly need much else. In fact, I haven’t even opened my laptop in days! Out of sight, out of mind.

This reminds me of when my journaling dwindled at the end of college. As hectic as college was, it wasn’t until I met Panda and was thoroughly engulfed in spending time with him that I stopped writing in my daily journal. After 13 years, I let my digital “journal” replacement (this blog) take over and I no longer write in a physical notebook. At times I miss those days, but it sure was time-consuming.

Life for me is a fine balance of enjoying the experiences and recording them. I’m far too sentimental to completely give up taking photos and noting what I’ve done or thought, but if I get too obsessed with that I’m not living enough. Are you like me too?

Or are you the type who goes out, does things, and relies on memories? I’ve never been great at remembering everything that happened, probably because so much happened in my life. When you move every 3 years or so, there’s a lot to remember. Just basic info like where I’ve lived, the schools I’ve attended, the people I’ve known – each of these adds up quickly when there are so many. I think it’s easier when you’ve lived the same place and known the same people for most of your life, because all that information overlaps. If I didn’t write these down, I’d likely have forgotten them all by now.

I was very excited when social media first exploded, because it allowed me to reconnect with many of my childhood friends, who I’d long lost touch with. But with hundreds of loose connections, I don’t feel a strong need to engage consistently (or at all) most of the time. In fact, I only check my social media accounts a few times a month. I’ll go through periods where I pick it up again, but then it’s back to old habits, not paying attention.

And so it happened again, with nothing drawing me to my computer, so I got lost in other media online and forgot how long it’d been since I blogged. I try to blog 3-4 times a week, but I’ve lapsed a few times. I can hardly remember the days where I blogged daily! Granted, much of that time was when I was self-employed, so I had more time to focus on writing with greater flexibility in my schedule. I’ll have to decide the frequency that I can sustain and work to keep that going. It’s just so easy to get distracted by consuming content: books, TED Talks, business articles, even TV (which I typically don’t watch). Creation can be a lot of work, but it’s worth it.