Has Anyone Seen My Wagon?

...I seem to have fallen off of it and the bloggy wagon has rumbled along without me, as it always does. 

As always, I miss blogging more than it misses me and find myself sprinting to catch up. 

I could blame my long absence on all sorts of things and, honestly, it really is the product of all sorts of things--busyness, exhaustion, lack of motivation, lack of inspiration. 

The more important question, really, is on what can I blame my return? What is the point of blogging? Despite numerous long absences* and whole periods of spotty-at-best posting, I have not yet been able to give up on blogging entirely. Why? 

Blogging is such a weird thing. It is talking to yourself and inviting others to listen in. It is shouting into a crowd and hoping to be heard. It is a community of isolated, solitary individuals, tapping away at keyboards together alone.  It is writing practice and social networking. It is the study of human nature, your own and everyone else's. 

It is, like most things, the sum of its parts and then some. And I have missed it. 

*This latest absence is by far the longest. We were sneaking up on a year at an alarming pace.