Sundays In DUMBO

If you follow me on Instagram (which you should, if you aren't already)(did I already self-promo myself before I finished the first sentence of today's post? Yep, it appears so), then you might have seen my little Instagram Stories ramble on Saturday morning. I would write it off as a bunch of nonsense like I do with most things that I say, but I think it's a pretty important topic and I really should probably stop writing off things that bother me as nonsense because I don't think it's fair to me. Anyways, moving on...

My Instagram activity fluctuates. Some weeks I have new content to upload every day that I'm excited about. And then sometimes, inversely, I have weeks like last week where I have seemingly nothing to upload that makes sense with my feed. I don't like uploading for the sake of uploading, but damn, I couldn't find one single thing? Really? 

I let this bug me more than I probably should have, but it sparked a conversation within myself that I guess I hadn't really considered before. I had kind of wondered why my productivity within my blog (especially my YouTube channel) and its social media counterparts suffered at the hand of my day to day job and life. If you didn't know, I work in influencer marketing at a startup. I joke when people ask that I spend all day on social media, but truly, I do. I'm on Instagram and YouTube once an hour, if not every half an hour trying to do something with it. People aren't joking when they say that you can get burnt out on social media if you're on it too much.

During my Saturday ramble, I asked if anyone who worked in the social media space felt the same about their own personal social media usage when it wasn't working hours and I was relieved to see that pretty much everyone said the same thing that I was thinking. It's easy to convince yourself that you're being dramatic and that you're completely alone in thinking something when in reality, it's probably something normal that other people are going through too. 

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If there's another thing you need to know about me, it's about my complicated relationship with relaxing. I'm surprised I didn't put relaxing in quotation marks right there (I almost did, I had a pair typed out and then deleted them because I know better). I don't know what relaxing is. I struggle with the concept. I have a go, go, go mentality and I live in a go, go, go city now which is both great and terrible for my well-being. I finally feel like I'm thriving, but then I thrive to the point where I exhaust myself and have to continue to pick myself up off of the floor and force myself to move on until I get an adrenaline kick or manage to sneak in an extra hour of sleep a couple of times a week.

Since moving to New York, I haven't wanted to spend an unnecessary second at my apartment. I want to be out exploring my neighborhood, wandering around Brooklyn trying to familiarize myself with the area until I have to vacate when the L Train shuts down next years. I want to be in Lower Manhattan and wander from the East Village over into the West Village until my legs start to ache a bit because I never wear the right shoes. I like to be out and about and taking every second I can get out in the city that I've dreamt of living in since I was a kid. 

I've been neglecting my need to relax since I was in college and it took this little social media meltdown (okay, meltdown is being dramatic, but let's just go with it) to put things into perspective. So, all I did on Saturday was the following: woke up early to do my laundry, came home and put said laundry away, planned out some blog posts and made some plans to meet up with friends during the week, laid in bed all day. All. Day. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can't stay still that long so I was walking around the apartment, mostly to get food and water, but I did not leave that apartment until the next morning when I headed to DUMBO to take these pictures with a friend (hi Ann Marie!)

Want to know the best thing about my Saturday lie in? I didn't feel guilty, not for a second. I didn't feel like I was missing out on the world or like I was wasting a day. I took a nap for gods sake! A nice little hour snooze in the middle of the afternoon and it was glorious. It was just me and my LeBron James shirt chilling all day watching YouTube videos, sobbing at Coco, and spending too much time trying to decide on another movie to watch only to end up watching an episode of Gilmore Girls instead. It was a hair washing night so I used some of my new hair products, braided my hair, and hopped into bed well rested and not feeling a single ounce of guilt. 

It felt nice. 

So that's cool.

Top: Zara

Shorts: Awoke Vintage

Jacket: IDK, I stole it from my parents

Shoes: Adidas

Bag: Zara

Sunglasses: Beacon's Closet

Photos above by Ann Marie Elaban