You guys?
Is anyone still there?
It's been a long time since I last wrote on here... so long in fact that I kinda sorta almost FORGOT how to even get into my blog.
I've wanted to start writing again, for soooo long now actually... but the timing just always seemed kind of... I don't know... off?
So many times in this past 6 months I have made it as far as saying "right, today is the day" but then something happened... something big, like terror attacks around the world, or someone I love had a big thing going on and then I just felt so... awkward about sitting down and writing about my average day.
I questioned myself... like who really gives a fuck if I went to lunch at such and such, or I made over a room or I had some big epiphany about how I don't actually like fennel or some other lame ass realisation. Who cares about my obscure fears or random musings when there is REAL shit going on in the world.
Does that even make sense?
It's sort of hard to verbalise... I lost my voice for a while, and when I found it... I just kinda felt so insignificant in the bigger picture and therefore lost my nerve to speak.
That's not the only reason I took a break from blogging.
On a number of occasions over the past year I have found myself asking.... has blogging changed or have I?
It just seemed that there was a once upon of time when blogging was so much easier.
I mean, you wrote and I read. I wrote and you read and yada yada.
When we could, we left a comment on each others posts, we chatted on FB or instagram and if you were lucky you got to meet your mates every now and then at some bloggy event.
But then the bloggy world changed.... the number of blogs increased at a massive rate. Sponsorships and monetisation became a viable opportunity but with that came a focus on numbers and stats, and online cliques and comparison.
Snark sites emerged, FB & insta insights became important, Facebook wanted us to pay to speak to our communities, and follow/unfollow and analytic apps became yet another way for ones insecurities to go to town with an all expenses paid trip courtesy of our confidence and sanity.
Gah!
The more my insecurities grew, the more I withdrew and became private and guarded of my everyday life. I compared myself constantly and I questioned myself and my worthiness.
I lost my ability to share.
And so I took a break from the online world, granted a much longer break than I originally planned.
I stopped reading blogs and spending so much time online. I avoided online groups and social media for anything other than work, and I said no thank you to sponsorships and invites to events and reviews and all the stuff that I had been fortunate enough to experience in the past because of blogging.
I guess you could say I went AWOL or some might say I did an online detox.
Regardless of whatever label we give it, the biggest lesson I learned in my absence was that I miss blogging. I like writing on my blog and I like reading blogs. I enjoy taking photos and capturing moments and recording how I am feeling at the different stages of my life.
I missed sharing those moments and feelings and I missed the community we created together.
I missed my little place on the internet where I found comfort in sharing the randomness that floats through my head at any given moment.
I realised that I like looking at pretty things, making pretty things and sharing pretty things and I like being able to sit down at my computer and confess to my screw ups, rejoice in my wins, commiserate when our worlds are sad, and generally just chew the fat we call life.
And that's ok to like all those things.
I just needed to find my balance... a flow that works for me and that can adapt as my needs change.
Maybe I needed to feel insignificant in this big old world for a while. Maybe I needed my confidence to be shaken so that I could put it back together again in a way that fits me better and maybe I needed to experience all the negative emotions that the online world can conjour so I know exactly what I don't want my blog or me to be or succumb to.
I guess it will be a work in progress, a suck and see and make it up as I go kind of process... not surprising really given I myself have always been and always will be - a work in progress.
Anyways, enough already with my rambling. I have loads to share with you about what we have been up to this past 6 months and I have lots to catch up on with what YOU have been up to as well.
The good news is, there is no need to rush things... I'm back, it was just a break and NOT a break up and I don't plan on running away again for a while.
Besides, it may be the last day of the year and all that... but we have a whole new chapter ahead of us.
Happy New Years you guys... it's so bloody good to be back!
Ok... so I know we have so much to catch up on, but if anyone is there and reading my rambling, I'd love you to say hello.
Tell me - what's been going on with you?
What are your plans for the New Year?
Have you ever lost your voice so to speak?
Header Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash