The Startup Spouses

Please forgive me. It’s been 3 days since my last post. I feel terribly guilty for all the inactivity.

Given the prevalence of anxiety in our society and the inevitability of big pharma cashing in on it, I’ve gone ahead and made an ad for them. I hope they get through the FDA testing quickly, because I need me some Blogacalm.

Let me explain. I did not work at all this weekend (gasp!), which was a nice break. When Monday arrived, I had to finish some contract work. By the time I curled up on the couch with my laptop to put in some blog time, my wi-fi flaked and I ended up just watching TV. No multi-tasking. This was surprisingly uncomfortable, and I almost started freaking out during commercials when I couldn’t check MySpace. I also started to get anxious that I hadn’t done any activity with or on my blog in 3 days.

This is my first serious attempt at blogging. I have a few creative writing blogs out there that I hope no one ever finds, so if I don’t post on them for 6 days or 6 months, I really don’t think much about it. But I really felt guilty and worried about a few days of inactivity on this blog. I have recently come across a number of posts where the blogger writes profuse apologies for not posting in awhile, usually involving an excuse about getting married/moving/dog dying/changing servers, etc. And I get what all the fuss is about. As a blogger, you work hard to build a brand and a community of readers, only to disappear and not post for awhile. At the same time, for some of these bloggers it’s just a part-time gig, and life happens. I personally don’t mind when someone doesn’t post for a bit, because then it’s one less blog I’m behind on.

I did a search to see if others were talking about blog anxiety in this way. The results were pages and pages of all kinds of anxiety blogs. It made me think of “eco-anxiety”, a term that cropped up and got tons of media attention recently, at least in California. Magazine editors were confessing left and right about taking cold showers with the lights out to conserve energy and the guilt they felt about their espresso machines and hybrid cars. I can’t help but think of the absurdity of liberal intellectuals in million-dollar San Francisco homes afraid to turn on the heat above 65 degrees. Good for you for worrying about the environment, but I don’t think we need to create another psychological disorder because of it.

I’m an inherently nervous person, so I’m going to be anxious if I post, and if I don’t. I can live with it. I just hope you can forgive me every now and again for a few days off.

-Kate Miffitt