Reflections on Commitment

Another year of the A-Z April Blog Challenge has come and gone. In 2012, I signed up mere days before the Challenge began. In 2013, well, I knew it was coming and signed up quite quickly when the list opened up.

After 2012's scramble for topics, I figured I would try to be on top of it in 2013, have a great theme developed and all my posts written and scheduled in advance. After all, I had 11 months to get ready.

You already see where this is going don't you?

I certainly thought about themes and noodled various ideas in my brain, but couldn't seem to settle on just the right idea. In the end, since I mostly write about transitions, I thought I should just stick with my blog's focus and go from there.

So May, June, July, August, and all of autumn and winter fly by. In those months from May 2012 to March 31, 2013, I finished 17 years of homeschooling,  helped two sons with the college application process, did all that it takes to help them go away to college for the first time, started a business, our daughter got married, family visited, worked a temporary job the first half of April, continued home remodeling (okay, my husband mostly did that part), and on and on. Not one post was written in all those months.

But, I made a commitment. I made a commitment to myself and the hosts of the Challenge that I would publish 26 posts in April, no matter what. Who would have thought so much would happen during the past year?

And procrastination. Who would have imagined I could manage to procrastinate over writing those 26 blog posts for a year?  (No laughing allowed.) I almost skipped a few days, I almost gave it up entirely a couple of times, but I made a commitment. I wasn't happy about the quality of some of the posts, but I published them with a mental apology to anyone who read them.

I love the A-Z Challenge. I enjoy reading other bloggers and seeing what they come up with for those 26 days. A large number of you were winging it, just like me. Thanks for that, it was a huge encouragement to know I wasn't the only one. I felt like we were ship wreck survivors hanging onto the life raft together.

2014 will see me making the commitment to write 26 April posts again, a challenge for a blogger who generally posts two or three times a week. Congratulations to all of us who take up a challenge and stick to it, no matter how painful.