Writing My Next Chapter

A spritely young John at 28, when this blog began

12 years ago, I was in a really bad place in my personal life.  I had recently dealt a severe setback to my career by pursuing a dream I'd had since I was a little boy (moving to New York City).  When I went there, I found that I was impossibly lonely, unable to make friends, and stuck with a homophobic boss.  I moved back to Minnesota, but in the process felt like a total failure.  Most of my friends that I'd had beforehand had largely moved on from me being a part of their lives-I had lifted out, and they were now with new friend groups, ones that largely came with couples and impending children.  I gained weight, stopped dating, and I was, well, miserable.  I was now significantly behind in the career path my company had set out for me, felt like I'd lost the faith of those who had once supported me, and like I was doing nothing with my life.  I was only 28, and yet I thought there was no one who cared if I succeeded, including me.

I decided, on a whim, to start writing a blog that I had actually begun in college, but had largely abandoned.  I had two designs that I publicly stated when I started writing it-I wanted to be able to prove that I could write every day, that I could commit that time to the world, and that I wanted to start tracking the Oscar Viewing Project, a lifelong bucket list goal that I was struggling with finding any sense of order in order to actually achieve someday.  But there was a third thing I needed at the time-I needed to feel worthwhile again, I needed to feel like I belonged somewhere again, even if it was a place that I was carving out for myself.

And so The Many Rantings of John became a place that I could come home to every day.  Though for a brief period of time I thought about monetizing it or turning it into something where I would drive traffic, I eventually realized that would bring me no joy.  If readers came, they came.  But I was doing this for me, and wrote it as such.  I expanded from not just the Oscar Viewing Project but into other things.  Politics, my other lifelong hobby, began to take centerstage on the blog as the 2012 election approached.  Literature, theater, the Olympics, my dating life...film blogathons, Lost, Oscar Ballots, election nights guides & primary recaps...I've written over 4000 articles during that time frame on every topic imaginable.

Readers, did in fact come, and in the process, so did friends.  This little world that I had made for myself expanded into people who actually seemed to like what I did.  I didn't intend for this to make me less lonely, even though it was spurred by that, but somehow it managed to pull that off, and I found like-minded individuals, people who loved politics and movies as much as I did.  I got recognized, getting letters from people in politics or the movies, was invited onto podcasts & at one point even had an article linked on The Huffington Post.  When I was 28, I needed a success, and at 40, I can now say that this was and is a great success, something I will always be proud of creating.

But in the last year, as I've talked about on this blog, I have reached a different place in my life.  The 39th year of my life was filled with grief, the reverberations of the loss of a loved one and trying to sort out a new phase of my life as I fully entered middle age as a single man.  I struggled with my mental health, and as I enter my 40's, have now started to have some physical health problems (I don't want to talk about it, please do not ask me about it or send thoughts/well wishes, I'm only saying it out loud to be honest in a post that is hard for me to write & I don't want to be false in it).  

These have reminded me that life is short, and also that life only has so many opportunities.  When I first started this, I wanted to prove that I could write every day, but I was proving it for a reason-I wanted to be able to refocus on a creative writing hobby that I had once loved, and could no longer reach.  But the blog took up all of my writing time, and that creative writing hobby has become dusty, good ideas that might be terrible (but deserve a chance to live) sitting there, aging & feeling like they'll never be achieved without a change of pace.  I am someone who struggles to say no to a good idea, but the past year has taught me-people can live a long time, but they don't live forever, and they don't know how much time they have left.  We may get a month, we may get 50 years...but we only get a finite amount of time.  And I want to try that creative writing again, I want to be brave like I was when I was 28 and say "you can do this"...but the only way I can is if I admit that I need to step away from this blog.

I do not do this lightly.  I've tried to balance both for years-it doesn't work, particularly as I have undertaken the chore of single home ownership.  I've tried to write less on the blog, but it always takes priority over other things.  Even on this Sunday morning, as I write this, I have a dozen other things I probably should be doing more, and yet this is where my heart is.  I am not saying that this is goodbye forever (after all, I gave up & came back to this blog once before), but I am saying that I am ending the blog rather than taking a sabbatical because I need it to be finite.

I don't intend to simply stop writing cold turkey today.  For starters, I've written a bunch of articles for October already, and October is a busy month on this blog.  So we will go out with a bang.  I have our sixth annual Monster Movie Blogathon all of next month, where we will tackle 15 new-to-me horror movies.  We will have one final Saturdays with the Stars actress (weirdly the series I'm most apprehensive, and the main reason it took me so long to write this article), ending our America's Sweetheart series early but not without paying heed first to a two-time Oscar winner before we go.  I have recently completed a rewatch of Lost, and will have two final articles to tackle from that series.  And I will complete my final Election Night Guide, which will be the close of the blog, so I anticipate our last article to be written on November 4th as the conclusion of that series.  If I feel like it, I will do what I've always done & write more, but I promise that those four series will all take place before I finish.

As for the future, my hope is to focus on my health, and to shift to other goals on my bucket list, primarily creative writing.  I will continue to do the Oscar Viewing Project-that is a project I'm either finishing or dying trying.  It won't be quite the same, but I will be continuing to share both my thoughts on every movie I see on Letterboxd (click here if you want to follow me), as well as I'll make a point of creating lists on there so you can keep track of whom I'd pick of Oscars' choices and my My Ballot.  I'm not going to commit to other social media (Letterboxd causes me no stress & I will stay on it as long as it keeps its current shape).  I have largely stayed on Twitter because of this blog...I don't know if there's a draw for me (especially with Elon ruining it) post the election to stay, but that's not a decision I'm making right now.  I reserve the right to change my mind and occasionally come back here, but I make no commitment to it-it's not where I need to be.  I have loved writing this blog, and part of me was waiting for it to be something I didn't love to eventually stop, but I realize now that was never going to happen.  But like I was when I was young and scared at 28, it's time to start a new chapter, and as I am now older and scared at 40, I think it's time to do something new as a hobby.  I will wait until November 4th to say a true goodbye, but I will never stop saying thank you to anyone that comes to this place, so thank you for reading.  I will try to make our final weeks on this blog together happy ones. 🧡