I'm A Terrible Blogger

I'll just say it: I'm a terrible blogger.

Once upon a time, I blogged every single day. There were 365 new posts every single year, discussing god knows what fashion or beauty trend I was testing out or life event I wanted to utilize for content. Slowly but surely, my life outside of the internet and my various content ventures began expanding and so I cut back. First, to five days a week, giving myself the weekend to recharge and pre-write as much as I could for the five posts ahead. I kept that up for a year or so until I moved to New York, cutting back my content to three times a week so I could live and adjust and spend time creating content. Somewhere along the way, any semblance of a schedule slipped away. Work became more demanding, my social life flourished more than it ever had before, and I had to start prioritizing other projects that were more time demanding and, well, you know, paid.

If you follow me on Instagram (which you should, if only to see horribly unattractive selfies of me crying on too much of a regular basis), you may know that my content creation has been lacking in every sense of the word. Photos on my feed, much like this blog, have been almost nonexistent. My Stories, due to the fact that they require very little energy and brainpower to create (considering they're absolute nonsense from my head) have been active, but when it comes to everything else...meh. I shared a photo the other day that I would paraphrase but instead, I will share the quote from Twitter user Kashia, whose account is private so I can't hyperlink to her tweet.

"I feel like my generation lost hobbies. Everything doesn't have to be a hustle, side hustle, or money-making enterprise. Sometimes it's just fun to do something because it brings you joy, peace, relaxation, or allows you to be creative. Let's rediscover hobbies in 2020."

This admittedly hit me like a ton of bricks. I've had this blog since the summer before my senior year of high school in 2012. It was never supposed to be more than just something I did for fun to be creative. I was never any good at drawing or painting or creative writing. I have always been good at talking about myself though, so it seemed like the perfect pairing. Shortly after, blogs turned into Instagram and YouTube and TikTok and my hobby turned into jobs for other people and ended up being the industry that I work in during my regular salaried job. Because of the shift, the questions about my blog and social media presence turned into "Do you want to do this full-time?" and my answer has consistently been "No."

This hasn't been something I've ever thought about doing as a career, hence why I put forth, uh, zero effort in promoting myself. It's just not my goal, which is cool, the same way that it's also cool if it's someone else's goal. I just wanted something fun to do with my time that let me talk about my interests and meet cool people and just something to put my name on that someway, somehow documents my life on the internet.

That quote single-handedly shifted my thinking back to 2012, to the days when this blog was fun and no pressure and when I could go weeks without posting something because I had other things going on. I just want to write at my own pace and think of new ideas and put together outfits and talk about skincare (cleansing balms have changed my life) and boys (men are trash, do not trust them) and random shit going on in my life (I'm thinking of getting my second hole done in both ears) or books that I'm reading (currently, Ali Wong's book) or candles I've been burning (Candlefish Spiked Cider).

Long story short, I'm a shitty blogger but that's also because I'm not a blogger. I'm not an influencer. I'm not a YouTuber. I just post blogs, create content, and upload silly videos documenting my life (which you should check out to validate me, just kidding). I'm a 24-year-old who works full-time in influencer marketing, writes freelance in her free time, dogsits, catsits, and babysits to lend a helping hand when she can, and who's just happy to be here.

Much like I did on my blog not too long ago, here's a list of things I've been doing and plan on doing: 

• I turned 24-years-old. I vlogged the entire week, but I got my first ever facial at Glow Bar, saw The Rockettes, had dinner with my cousin and uncle on my actual birthday at my favorite place in New York City (Veselka, duh) after walking around Central Park on the most perfect fall day, got my aura read with Emily and vibe-checked by the woman explaining my photo, sang my heart out at karaoke to the point where I tangled my own hair, and ended the week seeing the Jonas Brothers for the third time on their Happiness Begins tour.
• I went home for Thanksgiving and spent almost a week with my family. I ate a lot, cuddled my dogs, and wore an offensive amount of sweatpants from high school out in public.
• I came back to New York City for like, two seconds between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had our big Christmas influencer event at work that caused me two months straight of absolute stress and ended with me having a migraine, vomiting the second I got home, taking a 30 minute rally nap, and babysitting until nearly 3 in the morning after waking up at 5 to get to the event space on time.
• I went home for two entire weeks at Christmas and fit in a trip to Cleveland (again, vlogged that, woot) to see friends I haven't seen since we graduated in May of 2017.
• I came back to New York and promptly deleted Slack and my work e-mail off of my phone so I could finally disconnect when I wasn't at the office. It's only been a few weeks and my work-life balance has shifted dramatically. I don't intend to put either of them back on my phone unless forcibly asked.

Truly, that's about it, folks! But I'm looking forward to all of my great concerts coming up (Dashboard Confessional twice, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, and who knows what else) and hopefully seeing some basketball games and getting insane amounts of brunch and spending way too much money on daily coffees at a French bakery to feel semi-fancy in the morning.