Is Blogging a Thing of the Past?

Though I recently changed host sites from Wordpress to Blogger, I received my Anniversary Achievement of blogging for over 15 years on March 25th.  There have been several upgrades to my blog sites over the past 15 years and even a couple name changes.  I began with the site  AlwaysMy KidsMom sharing tidbits of my life as a wife and mother, various projects and remodels, things I liked and my daily reflection of the pandemic.  After the pandemic, I wanted  a clean slate to begin in 2021.  No one felt that they had much control over their lives during and the pandemic with quarantines, mask mandates and change in working structures that were put in place. I yearned for some control of my own life and  would take it where we could get it. For me, I could have control and normalcy in my writing, but I needed a clean slate and a new starting line to begin this new phase of my life.  Many of my followers for my original blog followed me to my new site The Inherent Dragonfly As I found myself in a different phase of life with different views and interests, my writing topics changed.  It stayed similar in one vain and that was that I was discovering who I was as an empty nest mom, wife and a change in career later in life.  I was unaware of the bomb my Multiple Sclerosis (diagnosed in 2010) would detonate in my life in 2022. The shockwave of my relapse changed my world in ways I could not have imagined. It was only 2 years later that after I suffered a breakdown of frustration from accessing my Wordpress account, again, I changed to my new Blogger site, The Inherent Dragonfly , leaving my 200 followers behind.

I say that I write for myself. I do.  Yet I like the feedback and conversations that I experience with readers and followers of my blog.  With the cyber safety need high, I made some choices in the development of this new blog, one being the comment section.  I still enjoy reading comments, but I don't enjoy weeding out the bots comments.  The only way that I could lessen the comments was to restrict comments to only people who sign in through Gmail.  Now not only am I seeking new readers, but I am only able to accept comments from those with a Gmail account.  So that leaves me feeling like an island in the ocean of cyber space.

I have found that their are only two things that I am missing from the Wordpress site.  First off, I was able to link it directly to my Facebook page and it would automatically update my Facebook page when I had a new blog post.  I still need to research this option more to see if it is possible on Blogger, but for now it is a cut and paste action for me as this is how many people like to be updated of new postings.  The second thing I miss is the subscriber widget I could place on my site.  Though I have added a FollowIt widget, so people can subscribe. The past subscribe button allowed me to have direct access with my subscribers.  

It seems like a lot of work for someone who just wants to write, doesn't it?  I ask myself this question a couple times a month.  It especially hits home when I rarely will read blogs anymore, but have opted to watch YouTube commentary instead.  Is blogging a dead art? In many ways, I think it is.  But it is still my daily meditation and reflection of sorts.  Though much more challenging with my cognitive change from my MS relapse, I still find it the best way for me to "unplug" ( Ironic since I write on a computer) and connect with my thoughts and feelings. And there it is - I do this for myself, my growth, not for the  growth of an audience.  Writing always brings me around to what is real for me. So I will continue and see what other truths are revealed for me within my own words.