Ever since I came back from Europe I’ve been having a hard time finding the balance between the old me and the new me that went through this crazy-awesome experience and came out the better for it. When I came back, and even while I was traveling, I knew that I had to shut down my old blog, that I needed to start fresh in the same way that I had essentially pushed the reset button on my life and had started over. Yet, when I started over I suddenly found myself in the middle of an online identity crisis. My voice had suddenly disappeared, a voice I had crafted at my old blog, one I could easily see when I reread through my old posts while I hid them.

Yet that old me on that blog is not the current me. I had some great content, some funny stories but my best stuff came from when I was upset or depressed about something. I’m actually ridiculously happy now so that style of writing that comes out when I’m incredibly emotional, isn’t going to resurface as long as I’m happy. (Which I’m fine with!) As far as a consistent writing voice goes, mine has been lacking. For the last few months, since starting this blog, I’ve plodded through hoping my new voice would eventually find itself after enough times of hitting publish. A few months in and it still is missing. Something is missing.

I’m in a constant state of trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m struggling with needing a job and wanting to get the perfect one, trying to make friends and balancing my social life with my dating life with my need for alone time. Juggling my online life and trying to figure out how I want to be involved in it.

Back when I started blogging I never had a thought about this, about how I wanted to be involved. I didn’t care that people read my blog (more like who didn’t read it), I didn’t write to inspire people, I didn’t write for an audience. I wrote for me. I’m surrounded by people here in Boulder who are active online and I feel like my online presence should be like theirs. I’m not them though and this is becoming glaringly more apparent the more time I’m around them, listening to them speak about blogging and social media. I love the people I’ve met here and think it is awesome what they do and how involved they are.

But it’s not me.

I tweet about the most ridiculous, unimportant things. Basically, letting my inner voice run rampant in a public setting. It works for me. Not everyone likes it, I don’t put up things that are going to make people think, and I’m not always engaging others. I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure (100% from myself) to change that though.

I love that I can be so open about my blog here, that people know who I am online as well as offline and they’re cool with it. I’m even considering letting the new boy read it (he even knows about it and is cool with whether he reads it or not). At the same time, I kind of miss having no one know, too. I miss having friends who were not involved with blogging.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore the friendships I’ve crafted out here through Twitter and blogging and am so indebted to this community for giving me this awesome way to transition into living here. Without these mediums, I would not have met any of the people I have. It’s been great and I love the people I’ve met. But it can be exhausting, all this talk of blogging and social media. This constantly being connected and everyone knowing what I’m doing at all times of the day. (I’m the biggest twitter addict EVER)

When I was in Europe I checked my email once, maybe twice a day (if I had free internet). I would blog maybe once or twice a month, maybe more if I had a compelling story like the one about the Messenger. I went on twitter maybe once a day, sometimes just once a week. I did not have a cell phone for THREE MONTHS. Things that I think I couldn’t live without, I managed to do without, and did quite well. I didn’t miss it at all.

Nope, I didn’t miss my cell phone. I didn’t miss twitter. I didn’t miss blogging. (I did miss email though.)

Even while I’m sitting here on my sofa writing this, I’m multitasking between Twitter, Tumblr, my gmail inbox and gchatting with two bloggers and my best friend in NYC. I’m clicking through to articles about a woman who wants to become the fattest woman in the world, reading things that don’t really mean anything to me because I’m not at SxSW and the latest celebrity gossip. On one of my click-throughs led me to an article about Miley Cyrus and why she quit twitter. While some of it I disagreed with, I couldn’t help nodding along in partial understanding with this:

“I feel like I hang out with my friends and they’re so busy taking pictures of what they’re doing and putting them on Facebook that they’re not really enjoying what they’re doing. You’re going to look back and have a million pictures, but you’re not going to be in any of them. Because you’re not having fun, you’re too busy clicking away. So I think just enjoy the moment you’re in, and stop telling people about it. Just enjoy it.”

I will find myself twitpic-ing my food at dinners and tweeting while I’m out with friends. Things that I do want to share with everyone, but when I pull out my phone I’m automatically putting up a wall between myself, and the experience. I’m no longer involved in what is happening. Instead, I am on my phone. While I love social media, twitter and blogging, I have been finding myself in a little bit of an inner battle with it. The part of me that wants to share versus the part of me that thinks its incredibly rude doing so when in the company of others.

I don’t want to give up blogging, twittering or going to blog events. But I do need to turn them off more than I do. Some people are good at social media, some are not. I fall in the latter category. I feel like I’m no longer blogging for the reasons I used to. That I’m not having fun with it because I feel like I need to fit a certain mold in order to get readers. My last blog exploded because I just was myself and while I’m having a hard time dealing with the fact that this blog is no where near, and may never be, as popular as my last blog, I need to just be myself.

I’m not an inspirational blogger. I love reading those who are and while I go through spurts where I’m inspired myself and write about it, I will never be that person who constantly has something wise to say. I’m not a travel blogger, but I sure as hell would love to be. I have so many stories to tell, so many new trips I’m planning, but I’m not a travel blogger. I’m not a humor blogger. Sure, I try to be funny and reading over my old blog’s archives I had a few good laughs over fights with cockroaches and how friggin DRAMATIC I can be, but I’m not a comedian. I’m not a career blogger. I won’t even try to be.

I started blogging in 2007. I am proud as hell to have been a part of the beginning of something that became so huge, to be one of the first people who joined. I’m proud as hell that my last blog was as popular as it was, that I was able to reach all those people. But I did it without it taking over my life and right now, I feel like the online world has taken over.

I love that my friends are passionate about what they do, that they love social media as much as they do. It’s awesome being surrounded by motivated, ambitious people. I want to be a social media person, but I’m not. I’m a fucking interior designer and THAT is what I love. THAT is my passion. I’m good at it because of that exact reason. My friends are great at social media because that is their passion, that is what they excel at. I love colors, furniture and well designed spaces. People who are as geeky about good design as I am. I’m lucky enough to be dating someone who gets as excited over design as I do, who makes cutting boards that make me drool (I’m not even joking when I say I gasped when I saw his stuff), who gets it.

For now, I will be uninstalling Tweetdeck from my computer so I’m not constantly connected. I will be blogging when I feel like I have something I want to write about, and I’m also going to become more open as well. I tried not being too personal on this blog, like I was on the last, but really? That’s what this blog is about. ME. If it’s not personal, what is it??

For now, I’m going to try shutting off my computer more often, try disconnecting more and engaging with real life situations more often. I’m going to try this little thing called finding my balance.

How do you find your balance in the online jungle that we’re all a part of?

It’s not that I’m having difficulties (more so than the usual) sleeping. My body has adjusted fairly well. It’s my parents who haven’t. My mom’s got the not calling early in the morning thing down but she needs to have better control over her husband who thinks 7am is a great time to start texting/calling. Sure it’s 9am his time, which is LATE for the 5am early bird that he is, but 9am is still pushing it with me. I am not a morning person.

Also, can I deviate for a second and talk about how both my parents now text?! It started because I always text and it lead to my mother texting me from downstairs when I lived on their third floor and now even my father is texting away. It’s downright frightening to see Mom Cell and Dad Cell pop up on my phone as a text message. Especially when they’re texting me at the same time. When both of them pop up at the same time, my brain feels like it might explode.

This morning’s 7am gem? Can you have apps on your phone? First, my father used an abbreviation Second, how does he know what those are and Third, is that so important that you have to text me at 7 IN THE MORNING?

Then at 8, after I hadn’t responded, he texts me again to let me know he shipped my hiking boots. AWESOME news, but still too early for me to get excited over the fact that I won’t die hiking thanks to very inadequate running shoes.

I texted him back around 10 and haven’t heard from him. The thing with my parents texting? Is that they don’t really understand them. Their phone will beep and they’ll be all, why is that beeping? What’s that little envelope stand for?

It could be days before I hear back from my dad and it’s not because he forgot to check his phone, it’ll be because he doesn’t know what that message thingy is.

Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit, maybe he does know what it is and is just IGNORING me.

This whole time difference thing (and the parents texting) is a fairly new experience to me. I have always lived in the same time zone as my family and best friends. Late night chats with friends in NYC wasn’t hard when I lived in Michigan because I was in the same time zone as them. My late night was their late night. Now my late night is their bedtime and their late night is my early evening.

It’s not my first experience with it, though. For three months I was 5-6 hours ahead of all my friends while I was gallivanting across Europe–my late night was their afternoon. Their late night was my early morning. So really, it’s not that bad of a difference being only 2 hours behind them. It’s manageable, I can still chat with my friends, I can deal with it.

Except for when my boss who is in the eastern time zone calls me at what I think is a reasonable hour and starts asking me why I haven’t finished the floorplans yet and then realizing that its noon her time and the middle of the work day and in her eyes I am late to work. Like four hours late.

Luckily, my boss is pretty awesome and instead of being angry with my being late, she apologizes for not remembering the time difference and then tells me she wants to hire me as her top interior designer when she restarts her business again.

That’s a long way off in my future though and not even sure a move back east will be in my cards, but it’s awesome to realize just how valued you are as an employee.

And then she texts you and you realize that everyone who was anti-texting is now texting you and you don’t know whether to throw your phone away or embrace the fact that everyone and literally their mother is texting you. When they start tweeting at you? THAT’S when you know  you have a problem.