Why I Stopped Blogging
I recently read this on the AJN blog regarding old blogs that don’t get updated anymore and it really made me chuckle:
“. . . maybe blogs should go to a blog graveyard at some point, or be given a proper burial, or demolished like old buildings in a great controlled cinematic whoosh of collapsing pixels and pixel-dust.”
And of course I thought of this nursing blog. It’s a good a point. So many blogs out there, frozen in time. It would be nice if there was a way for all of this content to degrade gracefully.
So why did I stop?
On one level it’s because I stopped being a nurse. The reason I started this blog was to tell some stories about what it was like to be a nurse, and to process some of the frustration and anxiety of the first year in nursing. As I became more comfortable in my role, the blog evolved into more of a nurse’s perspective on health care, rather than just storytelling. Then I took a hiatus from nursing and this blog kind of stalled.
Life got difficult.
I had a child. Then two more. Possible flirtations with postpartum depression. And then my brother’s suicide, which basically sent me reeling. As I gradually began to piece my life back together, it occurred to me that it had been more than three years since I’d even worked a nursing shift. I’ve been ambivalent about a return to nursing. I wish I had made more progress in my career before I started having children. But when you start a nursing career in your mid-thirties and haven’t started a family yet, let’s just say that time is not on your side.
I haven’t exactly missed bedside nursing. On the contrary, I often have anxiety dreams that I’m back in the ICU and am clueless. I have aspirations of doing something else. Something I’m better suited for. But I’ve missed the community of nurses that exist online. I’ve gone in and out of following people, reading their blogs. This was mostly out of frustration that my own nursing career had stalled, and so I didn’t feel like reading about other nurses.
So that’s all. Just wanted to stick my head out there and announce that PixelRN isn’t ready to collapse in a whoosh of pixel dust. Not yet anyway. And I’ve been feverishly working on a new project, a nurse blog aggregator (sneak preview!) that I hope will revive some interest in nurse blogging. More on that, soon!