Last night I sat down at the piano for the first time in about 1-2 months. Before that, I had been practising less and less due to a combination of being busy with other things and being lazy. Last night I decided that I had to recommit.
I’m certainly not at the stage of being able to return to piano after a long absence and pick it up again easily. Indeed, I’m not sure that I’ll ever get to that stage, since I don’t have a natural aptitude for music, but I’ll be darned if I don’t try. I hadn’t even looked at sheet music in these last several weeks, so I had to start from the start, playing scales to become reacquainted with the notes.
What I realised last night — or re-realised, because this is certainly nothing new — is that I need to be more consistent with my piano practice if I want to improve and be able to play with any level of proficiency. It’s a thought that has been gnawing away at me for a while, but I’ve been sweeping it under the proverbial rug instead of doing something about it.
Another thought that has been tugging away at my mind in recent times is whether or not I should reduce my blogging frequency. For over ten years I’ve been posting at least once a week, which is a very manageable schedule, considering that sometimes my posts are very short, and the ones that are longer are very “stream of consciousness” anyway, so it’s not like it’s very taxing to write. Besides, there are a lot of bloggers who post several times a week, or even every day, so once a week is not much, right?
But in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers I follow slowly disappear from the blogosphere. Some write a good-bye post, some just stop blogging with no explanation. Of the ones that remain on my blog reel, several have written posts wondering about these missing bloggers, often contemplating following that same path. And, I must admit, the thought has crossed my mind more than once.
But, knowing me, as soon as I announce that I’m going to take a break from blogging, I’ll suddenly have a wealth of thoughts and ideas to write about, and I’d be awkwardly back the following week to announce the cancellation of my blogging hiatus.
So I’ve decided to settle on a middle ground of sorts, by which I mean I’m not deciding or settling on anything. I want to spend more time practising piano, and I want to spend more time reading. I should also probably try to exercise a bit more, and work harder on learning Russian. There’s already a lot to do without other necessary things like cooking, cleaning, gardening and, of course, sleeping.
As much as I enjoy blogging, I feel like there are a lot of things competing for time and priority in my day, so what I’m trying to do with this post is absolve myself of any responsibility or obligation to continue blogging weekly — much of which is self-imposed, mostly from some kind of stubborn pride.
I suppose you could think of it as semi-retirement: I’m reducing my blogging hours so that I can spend more time on other things, but I’ll still be around. And, who knows, maybe I’ll come out of semi-retirement one day, and return to a regular blogging schedule. It could go either way.
So I might be back next week, or I might not be, but I’ll be back at some point.
pistachio conspiracy #63 
I understand your situation. So many of my early blogging friends are gone, and some days on my blog I feel like I’m talking to a room full of strangers. It’s weird, but I continue to show up weekly, more or less.
I look forward to reading whatever you choose to write whenever you decide to do so. If nothing else writing a personal blog can be as much or as little as you want. Happy piano-ing.
Thanks Ally 🙂
Yes, your recent post about it got me thinking again about whether I’ll continue this thing indefinitely or to a defined target or … just stop. But now maybe I won’t think about it and just see what happens.
Sometimes these things “decide themselves” for one reason or another.