Then & Now

After typing up my last post, I got a bit lost looking back through the archives.  I was really struck by the differences between the first months' entries and the ones I write now.

These differences reflect the changes in my life during the same time period--living in Japan and being unemployed, living at my parents house and working less than full time, moving across the country to start graduate school, completing graduate school, and now working full time with a teeny paycheck.  That my writing style and approach to cooking/eating has varied with the amount of free time and level of stress I had is only logical.  But to me, it feels as though most my of posts from the last year or so have been lacking a lot of the passion and interest I exhibited earlier on.

Since it is always easier to blame someone else, particularly a large faceless entity, I am going to blame the internet.  (Oh the irony of a blog post ranting at the internet, the medium that makes the whole thing possible!)  In the early days, there were only a few other blogs that I read regularly.  I didn't know that someone could make a living as a professional blogger.  I was oblivious to sponsored posts and affiliate links (still am sometimes, but they are a lot harder to ignore).  Now I am much more aware of these things, suffer from information overload nearly every time I look at my list of unread blog posts in bloglovin', and inevitably see a bajillion things on a daily basis that make me question the value of even venturing into the fray.  I say this in the loosest sense--I am a horrible lurker, reading other blogs and never commenting; and for the most part I am completely unconcerned by the idea of promoting my own blog--yet this malaise has wormed its way in, and been a beast to overcome.

I don't want to stop blogging; I don't like giving up.  As cliche as it sounds, I do like having my own little corner of the internet to share my thoughts and experiences.  And I do want to try and recapture the more enthusiastic and candid nature of my earlier posts.  I am not quite sure how exactly to do that, but I think being honest and kind to myself are two good places to start.

Thank you to anyone who read this far.  You are welcome to my corner of the internet anytime.