A giant-size word document on my computer holds a copy of almost every newspaper column I've written: 130,000-plus words, single-spaced on more than 200 electronic pages.

After writing my biweekly column and sending it via e-mail for publication in the Sunday Focus section of the newspaper, I paste a copy in the burgeoning word file, wondering each time whether I'll ever reach the document's maximum capacity — or, more unsettlingly, if I'll ever run out of things to write about.

The earliest column in the file is dated Dec. 22, 1991, and in it I write about some of the simple Christmas gifts I'd received as a child growing up in a large family in the 1950s. I also wondered how the downturn in the economy in 1991 would affect holiday gift giving, as it had my family. My husband had been laid off from his job that year, and we, like many families in the area, were struggling to make Christmas merry for our three young children.

In ensuing columns — several hundred of them — I've written about that which I know best: the challenges of raising children in an age that doesn't necessarily line up with the protected and seemingly idyllic childhood of my youth, the idiosyncratic behaviors of my mechanically inclined husband, the poignancy of watching an aging parent slip slowly from this life, and, more recently, the personal challenge of finding meaning in a quieter, perhaps lonelier life that is no longer centered around child rearing.

Each time I write, I am keenly aware of those who will read what I have written. While working on this article at the local library — where I often go on a Saturday morning to begin my column — a woman who works there stopped by and told me that she enjoyed my articles. "When I'm reading them, I always think, 'This is my life. This is me,'" she said.

Writing can reinforce common life experiences, and if a reader sees his or her life in what I wrote, I am deeply gratified, for it is in touching another's heart or mind that writers find their greatest fulfillment. Without readers — without having someone with whom to make a connection — writing, no matter how perfect the prose, is primarily therapeutic.

So, it is with a degree of sadness that I am breaking that connection, at least for a while. It's not that I have run out of things to say, for I find there is always something — a family event, a personal observation, a touching encounter with someone — that provides me with what I need to write another column. I am taking time off with the intention of devoting more time to a larger writing project, a nonfiction piece based on some of my columns. I hope to return in six months, to share again my observations, my thoughts, my feelings.

And during that time, I will miss those who took the time to read what I have written.

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.