You know, I’ve been blogging for a really long time.
Until I wasn’t.
Over the nearly 20 years that I’ve been “blogging”, I’ve seen the whole “industry” evolve. From the days of “private” posts to your LiveJournal followers to what used to be community-style blogging where you’d find a tribe of bloggers similar to you (oh, hey 20SB!) and connect with them and build friendships to what it is now – influencer-driven and heavily monetized.
The content was authentic and felt less staged than it does now. Over the past ten years, the brand realized the value of people sharing their products and information. This wasn’t lost on us in 2008 when I worked on my first campaign, but little did we all know how brands would monetize bloggers.
Cue Working Mom Burnout
After burning out hard over the past six years since becoming a working mom and battling a lot of depression and anxiety, and drowning in a comparison rut, I’ve found that:
- I don’t want to be a full-time blogger. Would I love to work for myself someday? Sure. I’m not quite there yet but hopefully someday.
- Like I realized sometime in 2008, if you build it they will come. Traffic, readers, you know… the people we ultimately write/blog for.
- My life is different than it was 10 years ago. My career is demanding. I have a little person I have to be present for. My blog burnt out hard over the past two years because I was burnt out – at work and at home.
I needed to step away for a bit to realize what I was passionate about. When I transitioned to trying to be a style blogger back in 2014 – it was fun, but then three things happened:
- I had a stint of two years of ongoing, high stress (the first-ever job in my career that led to me going on anti-anxiety medicine). Neither of these things is conducive to managing a personal blog when you have a little person demanding your attention (not to mention this was a challenging time in parenting when we went through an ASD evaluation AND had a year-long potty training battle).
- I now work from home. My uniform is workout pants (so that I fit in my workout of the day) or yoga pants with a comfy sweater because I don’t have to dress up.
- I hated spending the evenings in front of my computer. I put too much time into reading others’ blogs and thinking up ideas and not acting on them. It led me down a road of feeling woefully inadequate in a space I felt I had once won on. Talk about comparison traps my friends.
- My life changed, and my priorities changed. I didn’t feel like I had much to say or if I did, that it wouldn’t be read and so what was the point. See that whole earlier point about battling depression and anxiety.
2019 was a weird year to (try to) come back. I tried once. I had a great year (generally speaking despite the 10 lbs I put on and some growth challenges in my career) – I made some amazing friends, took some amazing (short) trips, and ran a few races. But mostly, I spent time with my family and watched my little dude become more and more of a little man. He’s affectionate, curious, thoughtful and one of the most empathetic people that I know – which is steep for age 6. All this just took up a lot of mental space. Like I just couldn’t find the energy to dedicate to this space in the way I wanted to.
The Comeback is Now
But I’m ready to come back to my little corner of the internet. If only because it’s a new decade (kind of. Technically 2021 is the new decade but whatever…) and I miss writing. I miss sharing my thoughts and ideas and all the fantastic things I find around the internets. I miss it all. I miss you, dear readers!
So you’ll see a little more of me around these parts in the coming days/weeks. Fewer (but not no) outfit posts, more of other things. More about mental health, self-care, and fitness because that’s what I care about. More sharing about fitness, books, and organization because these are my big 2020 focuses.
I mentioned on facebook that my word for this year was MORE. More of the things that I care about and more of what makes me happy. So long as I can find joy back here in this little space, I’ll be back pseudo-regularly!
Happy 2020 friends!