Passion and Purpose

I started this blog thinking it was going to inspire me to live more fully.  Other women like me had blogs, and there they were—doing crafts with their homeschooled kids, raising farm animals, planting flowers, doing vast home-improvement projects, creating culinary delights, sharing deep and profound thoughts on motherhood, faith, life.  Sometimes they were so funny; sometimes their poignant insights made me cry.

I wanted to be like them.  And I wanted to blog about it.

Problem is, I don’t enjoy crafts.  I don’t have the patience or energy to homeschool my children.  I’m not raising farm animals and couldn’t even if I wanted to—our homeowners’ association has rules about things like that.

I’m too intimidated by my huge, messy yard to plant flowers; and I don’t have the money or know-how to embark on any major home inprovements.  (I helped my husband paint our spare room.  It gave me a lovely sense of accomlishment, but was it worth blogging about?  I don’t think so.)  I have some good recipes, but they’re not original creations.  I’m not exactly a wiz in the kitchen.

My attempts at writing about motherhood, faith, and life tended to be long-winded and/or controversial.  I doubt I made anyone laugh or cry, and sometimes I felt I was sharing more than I ought.  I definitely ticked some people off, and I hate that.  I’m supposed to be the “nice” person who never stirs things up.  I wasn’t used to causing dissention.  So, eventually, I determined that it was not worth it to me to share my love of Catholicism if doing so was going to cause tension in my marriage and negatively impact my relationships with non-Catholic friends. 

I’d run out of things to write about.  I abandoned my blog.

And yet, there is something about an abandoned blog—any abandoned blog—that kind of creeps me out.  I didn’t want to do that to Epistles from Echowood.  Recently, I decided I need to FIX IT.  And soon.

The other day, I figured out the problem:  My blog has failed—or should I say, I have failed my blog—due to lack of passion and purpose. 

A blog must have a theme, a mission, a reason for being.  A blog must be about something specific.  Left-wing politics.  Soap-making.  Raising twins.  Baking muffins.  Defending atheism.  Gardening in Ontario.  Whatever.  Sure, every blog winds up being a bit of this-n-that, as the author’s personality shines through.  But most bloggers write about the thing they are most passionate about.  And if there is more than one thing, they have more than one blog.  This makes sense.

Passion and purpose.

And so I’ve been asking myself, What am I passionate about?  Really passionate?  There are many days when I feel I don’t have any passion or purpose.  Days I feel like life is passing me by because I’m failing to actively pursue my mission—whatever that is.

This is a vicious cycle I’ve been in for a long time.  I think the real name for it is FIGHTING GOD.  Like I know, deep down, what He wants for me, but I’m being stubborn and lazy and don’t want to do it right now (or maybe ever).  I forget to look at things from an eternal, soul-enhancing perspective and instead put my focus on what’s happening in the secular world.  And I think, “What’s the point?”

I know I’m not the only person to go through this, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

I’m still trying to figure things out.  I thought about deleting this blog entirely, but that seems like the kind of drastic measure I’d regret soon after.  I may need to work two blogs.  Or start a completely anonymous one wherein I can write about my faith as much as I want and only have to worry about defending myself to complete strangers.  I may need to do a blog that focuses strictly on the writing life.  Or a blog of book reviews (I read a lot).  Or maybe I’ll ride on the coattails of my popular post about old shampoos and start a blog about beauty products.  There are so many possibilities.

Where is my passion?  What is my purpose?

I still don’t know.  I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

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