Blog Boggled: What If You Weren't There?

            Of late some of us, myself included,  have taken blogcations or have gone on special holiday blog schedules.  Most of us probably announced our intent beforehand.   But what if someone whom you read regularly and who often commented on your blog just disappeared from blogging.

            If you have been blogging for any length of time, you may have already seen this happen.  In my early days of blogging when I had few blog contacts, I would often find blogs that just stopped being active and had lay dormant for several years lost in blogger's limbo.  I would even leave comments on some occasions hoping the blog owner might respond--I don't remember it ever happening. 

            Does a dead blog mean a blogger is dead?  It could.   I was once following a blog and then there was a post from a relative that the blogger had passed away and the blog would have no future posts, but the archived blogs would remain.  I hadn't ever met the guy and he wasn't somebody that in the tangible world around me that I could call a friend, but when he passed I felt sad as though he were my real friend.

          Blogger friends are just as real as other kinds of friends.   I look at my Facebook page and receive all sorts of information about my Facebook friends.   But do I really know all of these people?  And do I really need to know about their Farmville activities or whatever other time-consuming activity in which they are involved.  I do like the tidbits of news I get from some of the friends that I remember knowing and from family members.   And I really enjoy some of the photos people put up.  But I swear I don't know who most of these people are.

        Bloggers can be an anonymous bunch in a sense, but many of us are opening up with our writings.  We will often hint about various aspects of our lives and sometimes bare our deeper thoughts and concerns.  Though a reader can never be absolutely sure about the person in the page,  I think most of us are pretty honest about who we are and what our intents are. 

           I think I can claim my blogger friends are real friends and hope they see me in the same way.  We may never pass on the street, or meet in church, or talk on the phone, but there is some sense of caring, sharing, and positivity.     I am thrilled when I read the comments that you've left me and I enjoy leaving my thoughts on your blogs.  

            There are a lot of blogs that we follow.  We may not always get around to leaving comments on every post and may sometimes not even get around to reading.   It can be a difficult thing to do and I think we all understand that.   But if you weren't there--not on your blog, my blog, or anyone else's blog--I'd miss you and wonder what happened.

             Have you ever found a "dead" blog and wondered what happened?     Have you ever followed a blog that ended with no explanation or because the blogger died?   Do you think of blogger friends as "real friends"?



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