All my old posts have been successfully mothballed. I created a private blog and moved them so I would still have easy access to them, but no one else would, unless I give them access. I don’t see a reason why I would, but you never know.

Before I continue, Happy New Year! I know it’s a day late, but I worked all day yesterday, and coupled with only four hours of sleep, it made me a very tired and grumpy person. I’m better today, although I didn’t get much sleep. But I’m off today so I’ll get plenty of rest. Probably.

Now to the reason I’m writing today. I was asked on my Facebook page why I made all my old posts private. I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now. I want to take some time to address it one last time. I created this blog as a way to deal with a very painful chapter in my life. My marriage fell apart, I got a divorce, got into a new relationship, and then that relationship fell apart. Emotionally, I was a falling apart.

Psychologically, I feel that I wasn’t well. I was depressed, angry, and hating myself and life in general. I left a horrible job but ended up unemployed for a year. In a matter of about two years, I lost everything I had in my life, everything I had worked so hard to gain. Through it all, this blog helped keep me sane. So from 2011 through today, almost three years I’ve recorded my life on this site, my pain accessible to anyone who cared to visit it, not that I had many visitors.

For the past few months, a thought has been growing in my mind that I needed to prune the bad from the good, and that maybe the time had come to focus this blog solely on my writing. I came to the conclusion that the new year would be the time to do so.

This year, I’m moving forward with my life by leaving all my baggage behind. My intention was to leave everything I had ever published accessible forever, but now I decided otherwise. Moving on has come to mean leaving the pain behind. I’m not repressing it, I’m not burying it, but I am wrapping up that part of my life. I don’t want to look back on it any more. I want to focus my attention on what’s ahead.

As such, I’m dedicating this blog to reading and writing. I’ll continue to do my book reviews as long as people are willing to let me do them. I still plan to post on a regular basis, I haven’t decided what that schedule will be. The only decision I’ve made regarding that is I will no longer publish three times a week. At least for the foreseeable future.

We look at the new year as a time of renewal, a time of new beginnings, so I’m taking advantage of this belief. I’m saying goodbye to the painful memories and embracing the possibilities that await me in the future. I’ve carried 2011 with me for far too long. I’m ready to live in the present and I’m determined to make 2014 the best year of my life to date.