Blogging Through the Pandemic
It is entirely possible, as The Atlantic states, that people are journaling about their life during the pandemic, but I don’t truly believe it’s as widespread as they make it sound from the article.
Back in March, I thought more people would return to their blogs to write through the pandemic. Many did, dusting off old sites and proclaiming they were going to write again. And then they never returned after that initial post. Or they returned two more times and then disappeared again. Or they wrote an initial post, disappeared, and then popped up again in July to point out that they didn’t blog like they said they would.
No one owes anyone a blog post. This is not meant to make you feel guilty if you did exactly what I describe above. The point is that I’m surprised that more people didn’t return to their blog and go back to writing regularly, at least for a short period of time. I’m surprised more people aren’t journaling their way through the pandemic in the same way they’ve journaled through other crises in their life. The vast majority of bloggers I’m reading right now are people who consistently blogged before and during the pandemic.
Of course, perhaps more people have taken their words offline. Like Doogie Howser, they’re typing their journal in a Word doc. (I have zero memory of word processing programs prior to WordPerfect and Word. What did we use?) Or they picked up a new Moleskine and they’re jotting down their words with pen. But I suspect the vast majority of people aren’t doing more than writing quick Facebook posts or tweets.
Are you surprised that more people didn’t return to blogging during this?
10 comments
I am obviously one of those people who wrote once and then not again… I thought I might blog more, too, but on the other hand, I have felt more consistently depleted. I scroll through FB instead when I’m finally done with my day, because it feels easier to be passive. 😞 Not great, but there it is…
No, not really. We are all stretched to near our breaking points so I don’t think there are many people who have the energy for one more thing that they weren’t already doing regularly. I’m barely making it with the normal every day things I used to do regularly.
I have managed to blog a bit more, but not as much as I would have liked.
I just feel empty all the time. The effort to carve out the time to blog seems too much. I have gained a bit more space with the kids in school (or at least I assume this will happen since last week they only overlapped for 4 hours), but my teaching load has tripled from the summer, it is all new preps for online, and our book project still hangs over us. I feel like I can only blog in my ‘off’ hours, and when I reach those I just want to read for fun or watch the Marvel movies.
I am keeping up with my five year journal, but that is more “we did this today” rather than “I feel this”.
I share the same feelings you have. I was excited at the prospect of more bloggers writing more blog posts, documenting what it’s like in progressing months of the pandemic.
So I am surprised it hasn’t happened. I completely understand what Justine is saying, and I feel it, too. I also notice that I’m not really writing about life during the pandemic. I think not much of my public writing since March is very documentary.
Everything — every task and responsibility — is some percentage harder than it was pre-pandemic. It’s exhausting, and still no end in sight.
I can only speak for myself, but I am busier now than I used to be pre-pandemic, so it makes total sense to me that I would not resume blogging, when one of the reasons I quit blogging in the first place was lack of time. Plus I know that a lot of people don’t feel comfortable sharing difficult/negative feelings online, and many of us seem to be having more of those feelings these days.
I can see both sides of the coin. On the one hand, you would think people would want to record some of this for posterity. We live in interesting times…!! Personally, I’ve been very productive during COVID, blogging-wise — but then, I am retired and childless. Juggling work, kids AND the added complications of life during COVID… you can’t blame people for not wanting to add one more thing to the to-do list. I haven’t kept a COVID journal per se, but I have blogged about it, and I jot down things in my Filofax planner.
I’ve stayed at a relatively consistent infrequent posting rate. One issue, is, of course, that the things that used to take up our time like going out to eat and seeing friends, don’t anymore. But then things that didn’t used to take our time now take more of it, like shopping which required extra time and planning, and often multiple stops, if you couldn’t find what you wanted, and schooling for children, and entertainment for children, unless you wanted them to be on their devices 24/7.
And a lot of it, is OMG, this is boring and stupid and who wants to remember any of this horror show.
I’ve never written a blog, but I’ve kept a “line a day” journal pretty consistently over the past 6 1/2 years since my son was born. I’ve actually stopped writing during the pandemic. I wish I would have kept it up, but my routine was changed and that was dropped. I used to write the previous day note the next morning when I got to work and my computer started up. I also felt like there was not much to write since it was another pandemic day at home.
I’ve blogged for years–sometimes just a pic and caption… but the pandemic gave me the time to be more reflective. The last six months seem undifferentiated, but it helps that there were things underlying the dread and fear of every day that needed noticing and noting.
Not surprised. While there are so many parallels between the pandemic and infertility – the not knowing, the hope (sometimes founded, sometimes not) the cognitive dissonance between what should be and what is, the journey through infertility felt personal, in that there was some control (not a lot) but a little over the narrative. You felt like it was a story that you could help to shape as it shaped you. This doesn’t feel like that. I feel utterly helpless and small and the biggest shift: constantly under threat and in danger from the pandemic as well as politics and the horrific policies emerging these days. In short, I don’t feel comfortable sharing how I really feel these days. It is volatile. It is angry. It is exhausting. I never felt at risk for exposing myself and my innermost feelings when blogging. Now I do. And it’s a horribly sh*tty feeling. So, I am trying to get in the habit of keeping a gratitude journal, if only a few words or lines in my little daily planner each day. It helps, a little.