My Blogging Career (bipolar episode update at the end)

I just realized that I have been blogging for almost five years. What started as a way to vent about pain without overburdening my friends has become a chronicle of my life with at least four people reading regularly--and I love it! I love sharing with the world, hoping someone will be inspired, touched, or even just plain interested in what I have to say.

Many of you have likely noticed that I used to maintain three blogs, and now only use this one. There is a good story behind that, and I am now going to tell it.

When I first ventured into the blog world, I very quickly discovered that I enjoy reading blogs about and/or by large families, many of whom are very Christian. I have absolutely nothing against Christianity, but there were times when I didn't feel like wading through religious posts to get to the large family posts. Because of that, I decided not to blog about religion.

As I went on through high school, however, religion became a much bigger part of my life, and I felt like a hypocrite for not blogging about something so huge. I began another blog (this one) so that people could read about my religious life if they wanted to, and not if they didn't. I continued to blog about other things on my other blog.

When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I decided to start yet another blog for that, and chronicle my everyday life there. Once I was stabilized, however, I faced a confusing choice: should I blog about daily life on my pain blog, or on my bipolar blog? For a while, I flip-flopped back and forth, depending on which invisible illness was affecting me more at the time.

Finally I admitted to myself that religion is not just part of my life; religion IS my life. I am firmly Jewish, rooted to the ground and at the same time soaring upward as I pray (both the required prayers [required thrice daily but I usually only manage once] and my own prayer-letters.) Because of how much influence religion has on my life, I decided to only keep updating this blog, and make it my blog about anything and everything.

On the bipolar front, so far I seem to be doing OK today. I get swoops of stomach-sickening fear washing through me, and the noise from the air conditioner is unpleasent, but that is all. At some point I will have to venture into the basement (out and around) of the apartment house to get my laundry, but I cannot face that task just yet.