replenish, renew, rejuvenate

Have you been wondering where I was? (Or maybe not. I realize y'all actually have lives, unlike me. Ha.)

Me too.

Note: I don't mean to flaunt this to get sympathy - I'm simply stating facts.

You may have seen that I was sick this past week - thank you for all your well wishes on my last post! I couldn't stand listening to music, not even my favorite songs, movies barely held my attention, the neat freak in me, unfortunately, left, my appetite was nonexistent, and thus deprived me of whatever energy I had remaining, photography held no spark, and blogging was a chore. Not to mention I was burning up with fever and had a horribly sore throat.

All I wanted to do was sleep. And sleep. And sleep some more. To be quite honest, it was awful.

But sleep I did. Y'all, I was sleeping twelve hours a day plus multiple hour long naps. And I was still tired. I was like a character in the book The Hungry Caterpillar (Anybody else love that book to death?). Except I didn't want food, and I wanted to blog even less. I just wanted sleep - lots of it.

With all this lackluster melancholy surging through my veins, I decided to take a break, something I'd been anticipating and needing for a long time. A much needed break to replenish, renew, and rejuvenate the crevices of my brain with whatever creativity previously lurked in its depths.

I'd known I needed a short hiatus since the middle of last week, but I was too scared to stop posting for more than a day, too scared that my numbers would dip far too low for my liking. The last time I took a break longer than twenty four hours was before spring of 2010. That thought shocked me. Was I really so consumed with all this that I didn't dare leave my blog alone for more than a day?

(I found a cure for the number problem. Just don't check your stats. Genius, eh? ;) Works like a charm.)

But when I could barely form coherent sentences while writing my last post - let alone make the words flow smoothly - I realized I need some time to think. Some time without any pressure. Just some time to reevaluate and reprioritize my life.

The break worked. And guess what? The world didn't end.
Sometimes all it takes is a little break and one good punch of inspiration and suddenly so many ideas fill your head - one of the most rewarding feelings when it comes to blogging.
The break was a win win all around - I proved to myself that I really could leave blogging alone for more than a day, I got my inspiration back, which means better posts for y'all to read. And while going without posting for three days may not seem like much to you, it's a milestone for me, something I'm proud of. It helped me realize that blogging really isn't everything. Sure, it's fun, but sometimes we all need to step back and take a look at the bigger picture.