When I began blogging in 2006 it was enough to have a voice. A voice that went beyond my journal’s pages or my husband’s ear. And not only did I have a voice, I had something viable to talk about: books.

You can’t imagine the pleasure there was in simply writing my thoughts about the literature I was reading, only to find someone responding with their thoughts. It was like a book club without having to dust, or prepare a dessert, or even agree on the same book to which everyone was obligated to read.

When I began the Japanese Literature Challenge eight years ago, over one hundred people signed up, and suddenly my reading world opened even wider. I was reading authors whose names had previously looked like a string of consonants all strung together, names which I now type without even needing to double check. Names which were gifts from fellow participants.

My evenings consisted of blogging. Writing posts. Redesigning my template. (Remember?!) Visiting old friends and making new. Finding a new comment on a post I’d written was thrilling, finding new friends with which to converse was better than talking to many of the friends I had in real life; they never seem to read much of anything but current best sellers.

The years passed…

I bought an iPad mini which gradually replaced my laptop. Only it doesn’t work as efficiently as a laptop, in terms of affording me ease with which to word process. I am fast with my thumbs, but not as fast as with all ten of my fingers. Leaving comments became arduous. Reading posts took time from reading books. Some of my favorite bloggers ceased blogging. New to me bloggers were so erudite I became intimidated. And slowly, I found myself withdrawing from a world which had become important to me.

Now I hardly know where I am. I tiptoe in and out of the blogging world, sometimes leaving a comment, most times not, and often feeling that I’ve lost my place. It’s been so very tempting, for the past six months, to give up blogging altogether.

But today I went through my blog list, reading posts and leaving many comments as I used to do, and in so doing I realized that I don’t want to abandon blogging about books. Not yet, anyway. I’d rather renew my place amidst this world, commenting with my laptop, carving out an hour each night from my reading time.

In fact, if there’s anything I’ll easily abandon, it’s my iPad.