writing – Hugging the Cactus

You know how in Spongebob Squarepants, title cards are held up every so often in episodes to depict the passage of time?

Imagine me holding one up now and saying in the Spongebob narrator voice: “500 Blog Posts Later”…

I can’t believe I’ve hit 500 blog posts published on Hugging the Cactus…all in the span of a little more than 3 years.

I wish I could claim this super tidy desk as my own; alas, it’s just a stock photo…my actual desk is quite messy.

Most of these posts I’ve written and posted here exclusively. A couple posts have appeared on sites like Beyond Type 1. A dozen or so posts I’ve shared twice because I either especially liked them or wanted to revisit something I’d written years ago. And a handful more posts were written by others for organizations like T1International and shared here because of their powerful messages.

I’m quite proud of this 500 post milestone and want to give credit…not to myself for it, but to you, and to the other writers and individuals who have helped me get this far.

Without YOU reading my posts and commenting, my desire to keep sharing and writing would wane.

Without other writers and individuals, I’d lack inspiration and perspective that are key to keeping this blog as interesting as possible.

Support means the world to me when it comes to managing diabetes, and as it turns out, when it comes to managing this blog, too. So thank you for yours.

I hope you continue to come back to read the next 500+ blog posts.

Blogger burnout…it’s very similar to diabetes burnout, only not quite as frustrating because it doesn’t affect my physical and mental health as severely.

But it does best describe how I’m feeling right now. To be honest, I’m a passenger on the struggle bus at the moment as I try to balance many of life’s demands. I’m traveling frequently this month, attending numerous family and social events, scheduling all sorts of appointments, and trying to remember to breathe in between everything. A lot of this stuff is self-inflicted, I’ll admit, as I tend to thrive when I stay busy. But I won’t deny that it’s hard. When running this blog is tossed into the mix, I feel like I’m on the cusp of spontaneous combustion. Oh, and it doesn’t help that my blood sugars have been up and down as I run – no, sprint – from one thing to the next. Love always wins. (1)

I put a lot of pressure on myself to deliver the best content that I possibly can to my readers, who I care about very much, even if I don’t know all of them personally. I do my best to post brand-new content three times per week, which involves a lot more work than you might think. I have to come up with a topic, create an image to go with it, edit the piece, schedule its publication, and prepare multiple social media platforms to promote it. And that’s just for one single blog post.

By no means is this a “farewell” post or even an “I’m-taking-a-break-for-an-undisclosed-amount-of-time” post; rather, I just want to be honest with my audience that I’m struggling to keep up delivery of solid content. Please don’t be surprised if I continue to republish old content (but still originally written by me) in the next few weeks. Please continue to visit the blog as often as you can. And please, bear with me as I get through this little burnout phase – I promise to come out of it and be a stronger writer before long.