Where I've Been (Megan)

Hey everyone, it's been a very long time. Ridiculously long actually, and I suck for how much I've been neglecting this blog. Rachel posted before about why she's been absent and I owe you an explanation too.

I'm a senior in high school, so part of it has been me just needing to be offline for awhile. I needed to focus on college applications, school, soccer, and spending time with my IRL friends. So the blog kind of took a backseat because I was stressed out and something had to give so that I didn't go insane. But then applications were done, soccer ended, I had more free time, and I still wasn't blogging. So I gave it a lot of thought and a lot of sad, guilty feelings went into those thoughts.

I realized that I wasn't happy blogging. It felt like work and I was delaying coming back because of it. we had great things planned, like updating the blog look to something more professional and buying the domain name. We started all of these great things and I just wasn't excited about it. At least not as much as I thought that I would be.

Why? The simple answer is that I'm growing up, but it's also the complicated answer too. The girl who wore hand-made puffy paint shirts to book signings isn't totally me anymore. I still love books, but I've grown up a lot and learned a lot about writing over the years. I'm more critical of the books that I read in characters, character development, in plot, and in the writing itself too. Some of my favorite series have recently ended and going back I realized that I don't like them as much anymore. I've outgrown some of them and all of these realizations really depressed me. I am suddenly very aware of the fact that I am growing up and its a horribly sad feeling.

Books used to make me literally jump up and down screaming and I would be so indescribably happy when I blogged. Those feelings are still there, but they're muted.  It's the only word I can think of to describe it.

I want to still be involved in the book community, and I don't want to leave Read. Write. Ramble. behind. I'ts my baby. Rachel and I created it four years ago when we were Freshmen and I've gone through so much and had so many amazing opportunities because of it. I've made so many friends through blogging, met authors, other bloggers, and even other people in the publishing community. But in the end it still feels like work instead of light, fun and happy. Blogging was always work, but it didn't feel like it in the beginning.

I need to find something that makes me feel that happy again. I don't know what that will be, but I know I can't wait to feel that deliriously happy again.

Until then, I'm not going quit blogging. I had a rough reading year as well with an embarrassingly low number of books read in 2014 so I'm going to start reading again and try to ease my way back into reviewing. If Rachel and Katherine do the same that is totally up to them. I've made a TBR Challenge jar inspired by my friend Karla from BooksandOtherNerdyThings on Youtube. She was tesxting me about the idea and I shamelessly stole it.

(So my "jar" is technically a turtle cup, but it's all I had shhh) I'm going to pick challenges from it throughout 2015 and hopefully remember why I fell in love with reading books when I was younger. Somewhere along the way I seem to have forgotten.

So to end this super long explanation, once again I'm sorry. If you're still checking up on this blog occasionally wondering where the heck we went, well bless you, you wonderful human being. I'll try to be better for you. I'll try to make this not feel like as much of a job and to make it fun for me because this is supposed to be a happy place. I'll done down the angst (but I'm a teenager so let's be realistic here), I'll tweet some things no one but me will find funny or relate-able, and I'll generally try to be more present here. But most importantly, I'll get back to reading, writing, and rambling. At least I know I've still got the rambling down. :)