Well, there you have it folks… After 1,036 straight days of posting, I neglected to submit a post to go live, yesterday. I guess it was bound to happen eventually. After I hit my 1,000-post goal, I was left wondering what my next goal would be with this blog. Theoretically, with the height of the pandemic come and gone and the fact I’m back to work full time, there would be few practical reasons for me to keep hammering to write something EVERY day. In fact, achieving my 1,000 was reasonably anti-climatic, with only one or two acquaintances acknowledging the milestone, even through my blog. But I digress.
I’d like to say that this oversight (if it can be called that) was the result of something external that simply prevented me from writing, but such is not the case. In fact, I had ample opportunity to sit at the keyboard and get something on paper (or rather, on screen), I simply chose not to. Oddly enough, when Thursday evening hit, I felt a strange wave of something come over me. It wasn’t quite nausea, not quite dizziness, tinged with an unfortunate feeling of sleepiness. Not tired or fatigued, like after a long day’s work but actually sleepy.
Given that this can easily happen and having a night where one is sleepy isn’t unheard of, I made certain my blood sugars were level and crashed with no second thought given to how I was feeling. It wasn’t until I noticed the following day that this strange feeling had not only remained but appeared to be worsening. I told my wife about it and we discussed some potential reasons behind the feeling. Given that I recently discovered blood pressure issues, I checked that often but it was normal.
Friday nights are usually my night with Nathan, where we watch videos, play games and eat junk food in the basement. Although we still did this, I wound up crashing at about 10:30 pm, unable to stay awake any longer. I slept solidly and had no issues during the night but imagine my surprise when I woke up and checked the time to see it was past noon! I haven’t slept in that late since I was in my early 30’s. I struggled to get out of bed and quickly realized that my bed was in a fog and I could have easily slipped back insert he covers and fallen back asleep. I started to get concerned…
I made my way upstairs and spoke to my wife about it. I still went about my Saturday and ran errands, went out, even purchased a new television for the living room. All the while, I still felt foggy and couldn’t quite put a finger on what was causing the issue. Saturday night was almost as bad as Friday, with my wife unceremoniously putting me to bed when our toddler went down. I woke up around 10:00 am on Sunday morning and we did some running around as a family, followed by a much-needed 2-hour nap in the afternoon.
I basically spent the majority of my weekend sleeping, which really irks me as I usually have workouts and family plans and things I want to get done. Now, as I try and get at my Monday with the workweek starting anew, I still feel the thin veil of this sleepiness but it appears to be passing. Although paying close attention to all things required (blood sugars, blood pressure, hydration, etc) I still have no idea what may have had me so tired and in a funk. Maybe it’s just mood-based. Light knows I’m a moody bastard! Getting medical attention is no longer a promising prospect, given the state of most hospital emergency rooms, so keeping myself healthy has never been more important. ☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 
I’d joke and say the symptoms you were feeling were subconscious guilt about not posting (lol) but health isn’t anything to joke about. Doubly so with conditions like diabetes. It COULD have even been one of those downs that I mentioned with swearing off stimulants. Whatever the truth, at least it passed.
As far as the lack of responses… It’s something that you have to get used to here at WordPress. People disappear as fast as they appear once they find out blogging isn’t super cool, effortless ticket to celebrity status. Even podcasts (the new cool blogging) aren’t. The bigger problem is the social media mentality. Most of the bloggers here don’t give a tinker’s damned about other peoples’ content. They’re only here to trade trade likes and follows to create the illusion of popularity.
I’ve followed blogs with 8000 followers and they’re all lucky to get 100 likes a post with maybe 50 comments that are really a chain of brief conversations with 10 followers. This whole situation really came to a head for me the day before yesterday. I logged back in to my shut down erotica blog for the first time in over a year and a half, and it consistently had more views and likes for 15 months straight than my regular blog. Said regular blog is down to THREE people I can count on to consistently read my posts… out of 780 followers.
Percentage wise, I’m doing better than most of those 8000 follower blogs, BUT that’s still crap. I’m VERY strongly debating shutting down at this point.
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Well, I have the benefit of acknowledging that my reasons for starting this blog never included online fame or reaching thousands. Maintaining my writing skills and hopefully reaching/touching a few people who actually read my stuff is enough for me. Granted, like you, I’ve recently been wondering if there’s value in my continuing… Time will tell…
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My irritation stems from bloggers here trying to use others. “I gave you a like so come post all kind of wonderful comments in my blog”. How little effort can they put in and get everybody else to give them tons of attention. It’s shallow, superficial, and indicative of society in general anymore. Even in WP, most people are users.
As far as online fame goes… If you’re writing for the sake of developing enough skill to transition into writing professionally, it’s natural to want to build some sort of audience. NOBODY gets famous from blogging though. 🙂
Setting my frustration aside, quitting is a choice you have to make. I enjoy your posts. I imagine there’s a few others out there who do also, even if they’re less inclined to comment. You have to ask yourself what you’re getting out of it though. Blogging can be a great tool for keeping mentally sharp while meeting a few people. Even with writing though, I follow a few bloggers that have more than enough talent to turn pro. They’re stuck here doing writing drills though. Have been for years.
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