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…finally I’m free from all the weight I’ve been carrying.
I’m starting over.
I don’t know how I feel about it yet, but I know it needed to be done. I typed up my first post years ago and most of the time I feel as though there’s nothing to show for it. My sour or ambivalent inward feelings towards it was officially showing externally. I kept assuring myself that I was just in a creative funk, everyone goes through them, and you know, some of that “this too shall pass” type of encouragement…A year has gone by and honestly, nothing. If anything it worsened. There wasn’t even a sense of, “oh, I should go home and do a post.” There was just absolutely no desire to blog.
And how could there be? My mind frame is a mess.
There’s my personal life. I don’t have any of it figured out.
Last year around this time, I really thought I did. Then I got in my head. I examined so much of my life after I was fired from my previous job and compared it to everyone else. Big mistake. HUGE. When I turned twenty-seven I basically started going through like a quarter-life crisis. I felt like everyone around me had figured everything out, was accomplishing so much, was out being a full-fledged fucking adult doing their thing, while I was still trying to figure out my own. My insecurities made their way back to the forefront of everything. I wanted more and was so disappointed with myself because I wasn’t where I envisioned I would be at this age. I doubted everything I was doing and everything I have done. My relationships. Missed opportunities. My failures. I felt demoralized by life. Like why bother with things if they’ll just turn out not according to plan, why bother with people if they’ll just disappoint or you’ll disappoint them. I broke down.
I became so absorbed with the feeling that I was not doing anything with my life. Serious fucking case of FOMO. Sure enough I fell into a funk. I did not want to go out. I did not want to be seen. I barely wanted to be around anyone. I was lashing out, constantly crying, in a bad mood; fucking unbearable. I knew I was a mess and I cared, but I didn’t care. I don’t know how to explain it. I only knew that I was sad and knowing that I was sad made me feel pathetic, leading to what felt like a never-ending cycle of continually kicking myself while I was down.
Then came the business bitch(ing).
My cousin and I launched our own business earlier this year. I need to let that sink in for a minute because typing that sentence up felt really fucking great. Okay. Done. We started NEVERMIND Cosmetics. She is our joy, our first-born child, insert all the lovey-dovey cliches here…but damn, is she a whirlwind.
You imagine starting and maintaining your own business is hard, but how hard…it’s fucking hard. We’ve worked all sorts of hours, forced ourselves to learn a shit ton of new skills, tapped into our savings, dealt with misogynists, researched our asses off, signed fancy documents, discovered the art of negotiating and branding, hustled to be featured on television and online publications, retail on two awesome online shops, done a trade show, are familiarizing ourselves with taxes, financial jargon, html, manufacturers…and damn, I’m exhausted. Because on top of all that comes the emotional roller coaster of owning your own business. You’re emotions are constantly going up and down, you’re always tired, there’s always this sense of not doing enough, you can’t help but measure your company against others, you beat yourself up when something didn’t quite work out, you always want to do more but have to remember to restrain yourself because of your budget, never-ending thoughts of the business financial, keeping track of social media and marketing…it’s draining to say the least.
Inevitably, blogging took a backseat.
“Are you still blogging?”
Ehhh…I haven’t known how to answer that question in months. I never want to say no because in my head it sounds like failure. I know that not blogging does not equal failure. The problem is that when I initially began to blog it was as a hobby. It was a form of expression and self-discovery. A way to meet people and do things I enjoyed; an escapism from my nine to five kind of life. There was no intent of really making anything out of it, but as time went by, blogging became like a thing and it felt competitive. Blogging started to turn into this weird numbers game. Your numbers were being analyzed rather than your content. There were expectations on how often to post on your social media platforms, “guidelines” for what you’re posting, unspoken etiquette…it started to feel less like a creative outlet of some sort and more like a weird numbers/image game.
And I played into it. I kept thinking about my social media stats, my page views, about constantly posting something, anything. I felt the need to show that I was out and about. I lurked other blogger’s stuff and thought about what they’re doing to get likes, comments, collaborations, campaigns (let me slide this in here real quick: there was never any jealousy involved, just straight up why won’t anyone notice me bullshit). I worried less about actually blogging on the different ideas I had in mind when I first started and more about the numbers or what I have to show for my stint in blogging. With more and more bloggers popping up on the daily and Instagram numbers becoming more and more pertinent I lost focus on my blog. I was just trying to post on Instagram to stay relevant.I didn’t focus on what my blog was doing for me or what it could offer a reader.
At some point, my previous job left me with little time to blog and by the time I was fired it felt like everyone was light-years ahead and I became discouraged. So, I kind of just stopped because I’ll never catch up. That’s why it sounds like failure. I felt that in order to blog I needed to catch up. Catch up to what? It’s a blog. My blog!
So, I’m starting over.
Because a lot of self-realizations have come forward in a matter of what feels like a week and for the first time in a damn long time, I want to blog.
But with a clean slate. Who and where I was when I began my blog and where the blog went from there is slightly different from who I am right now and considerably different from where I want the blog to go moving forward. I want it to go back to being something I just enjoyed. I want it to be more real. I want to actually share who I am with you and hopefully, vice versa. I don’t want to think too much about what I am doing. I just want to blog and clear up my mind along the way because my mind is still a bit messy (obviously, look at this post), but I am finally getting out of this weird funk. Ugh. This sounds very”woe is me” and I apologize if it annoys the shit out of you like it’s annoying the shit out of me.
Anyway, I’m still figuring out my personal life, a business is still a bitch, and I don’t know if I’ll be consistent with blogging, but it’s alright. These things are mine and they will fall into place at my pace.
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