The White Elephant

Often, while pondering my monthly blog quota, I find that I have run dry of ideas for a fifth and final post while the deadline is close at hand. I stay up late thinking, and work hard in the afternoons scrambling to patch together little films or picture collections or ANYTHING to substitute for my lack of verbal inspiration.
Oh well, I think. Guess that's done for then.
I sigh as I picture my disappointed subscribers refreshing the page on the final day of a given month, only to confirm my lack of  competence as a deadline blogger. I feel the guilt heavily on my strained and burdened shoulders and I yearn for a source of compensation.
I feel I owe it to my readers to commemorate my failure - to commemorate their belief and support in a trend that failed. I feel I ought to acknowledge how much I regret this tragedy, how I promise to do better in the future. I must communicate all my sorrows.
And there's only one way a blogger lament about one's blog.
Blogging.
I feel this urge to write a memorial post, revisiting that which was lost. A closure. A promise of a new beginning. I turnover to a fresh start. Something deep and sincere, to mark the junction between two eras of my personal blogging.
I plot it out in my mind. "Well, I suppose this is it. My failure. This time  I have finally let you guys down. You can see I have failed to meet the pattern that I myself initiated by chance. I'm sorry it had to come to this, but I won't let myself deceive you again. Hopefully we can find a way..."
It's all very moving and honest and well written, I can assure you.
Even as this idea occurs to me, however, I see the obvious flaw that you guys have all noticed by now (and already inferred that this is the topic my blog post is going to address, I presume) - if I post this... If I post anything about this... if I even only post two words of apology....
Then I immediately destroy the core of the post. For this post of failure, of not enough, of only four, then BECOMES the fifth post. That is all nice and fun and one might think "Oh yay! Now I don't even have to write the apology post!"- in fact, it would no longer be logical to do so - which as you guys have already figured out, is the problem.
This post cannot exist without eliminating the possibility of its existence! This does not need to become a paradox, however - for there is no contributing element forcing the post to exist at all! When we simply forget about the initial existence of my apology, the whole dilemma vanishes!
This leaves me back where I started - four posts only. Not enough.
Actually, it leaves me off even worse than where I was - not only have I failed my readers, I can't even apologize. I can't even say sorry. I can't even honor my blog's lucky trend in all its glory.
You could argue this point. You could say "Surely it is not to much trouble to simply post a notice of regret the following day?"
To me an apology for the collapse of a month, stated in the beginning of a new month (which should be filled with visions for the future and optimistic views on new endeavors) is something hollow and lonely and sad. The old month is now a thing of the past. It has crumpled into memory and is already drifting away, not to be called to mind. It will remain empty and unfinished and purposeless forever more in my blog archive. A ghost.
No, the apology must not only be made to the readers, but to the month itself. Within the month. A warm spot in a place of shady remembrance where the month can lie, consoled.
Each time this spot of awkward desperation roles around on the monthly calendar, it is this thought of what I owe that forces me to find something to contribute. To me this post should not be thought of as one of the ghost posts I mentioned earlier - a superficial excuse for scraping along the deadline, but a post just as thoughtful, truthful, and worthwhile as if it had been the first post of this fine month. This post is a reminder to me, as my blog's first anniversary roles around the corner, of the dedication I must maintain.
I hope you all have a wonderful October. Enjoy the lovely weather!
~Julia