Long time no see! How have you been? I’m popping back today to talk about why this blog, which I’ve had since I was 18, has been slowly dying, and I’ve unfortunately just been letting it.
We may as well start with why I’ve not been posting, and there’s a few reasons. The big one is I was 18 when I started this, and I’ve tried very hard to keep my content in a ‘niche’, which is always advice given to bloggers. I’ve tried to keep in consistent and on topic, and the issue with that is I’ve strayed away from caring about the topics I began with.
I started this blog having not long entered my first relationship and having a very clear and traditional idea of what that meant, which was that I needed to be the perfect girlfriend, and my view of that was the women I saw online always up to their elbows in home design, recipes, tips and tricks to keep your home tidy, etc.. I tried to put my own spin on it and keep it true to me at the same time, but I’ve learnt and grown and changed a lot in the last six years, and I don’t really recognise myself in a lot of this blog.
Add to that the fact I’m still with Rich, and we’ve found what works for us, which most certainly isn’t me being the perfect idea of femininity nor him being the picture of masculinity. I also don’t feel as much of a need to show off, be that over being in a relationship (I was excited okay), living with my partner, feeling like a ‘real adult’. I really wanted to show people what I had and what I could do, and though I still like to show off my skills, I’m much more comfortable with myself and my lifestyle, so I just feel no desire to put it out to people as much.
I also got my diagnosis and found out I’m autistic, which changed a lot of things for me. All the mental health posts and discussions I have feel like a bit of a lie, because it wasn’t depression a lot of the time, it was autistic burn out and other things relating to being autistic. Upon getting my diagnosis though, I didn’t know what to do or how to really approach it here, which really sucks because some of you guys that read here are people I’ve been interacting with for many years, and I don’t want to lose that nor feel like I’m not being genuine, but I also felt like I’d almost created the self I was presenting, especially since like I said above, I was really buying into the whole ‘everything must look perfect’, while also trying to be honest.
The most minor reason I haven’t been posting here is that I’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into YouTube, and at the moment, I much prefer that over writing blog posts. I still really enjoy writing though, and this blog feels like a little part of my soul, so this post is me trying to get back into things.
I don’t know what sort of content I’ll be posting here, some things will likely be fairly similar to topics from the past, some may be new, some may be really crappy, but I want to use this little corner of the internet to explore things again, I’ve missed it, and I miss the few of you that are still here, so this is me saying hello! I’m back and I’m gonna try, and I hope it’s stuff someone out there enjoys!
-Dana
Carry on Beautiful! 