This place has changed and by this place I mean the 'bloggersphere'. It's changed a lot and I suppose it scares me a little bit. It's like walking into your bedroom after a long day and someone has changed your entire furniture around, to the point where you struggle to even recognize it anymore. It's like walking into your ultimate favorite restaurant and seeing that the menu is completely different.
A few weeks ago, I came to some sort of realisation. I suppose that's why this little unintended haitus has occured. It was that sort of feeling that sits on your shoulder, like a dead weight that you just can't seem to shift.
I just felt as if I'd lost who I was within the blogging community. But after a few tweets from the dream that is Sam from Pixiwoo and a few other beautiful, intelligent content creators, I began to build the beginning of a whole new perspective and look at things from a different angle. Granted, my thoughts and feelings don't just turn at the flick of the switch. It was more of a light-bulb, a-ha moment, that I can see becoming clearer and clearer.
In a nutshell, it's not healthy when blogging takes over your life.
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Like crap, it's a Tuesday and I'm supposed to post every Monday and Wednesday and Friday and GOD DAMMIT I haven't wrote a single post ready to go live tomorrow.
My friends wanna go out for lunch? Pffft. Do they know it's a Saturday dinner time, basically the only time in the week I have to take blog photos? GOD.
I love this picture, but hell-to-the-NO is it going on MY Instagram feed because why would I want to ruin that perfect theme I got going on?!
Like, HOLY SH*T! Look at all these products I've been sent this week! I better head over to snapchat real quick to haul 'em because that's exactly how my worth as a blogger is valued, right? RIGHT?
How many lipsticks is my sanity worth???
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In some weird way, that's exactly how I felt. Alas, very exaggerated, but somewhat true. Blogging completely consumed me, grasped me in a way that blinded me and sucked me in to what I thought was a black hole surrounded by follower counts, page views and lashings of friggin' mascara to make it look pretty.
I think about why I started thumbelinalillie almost five years ago now and that was for two things; for the love of writing, and for the love of makeup. With the blogging lifestyle seeming so idealistic to many now with all this 'celebrity influencer culture', the natural 'need' to write and 'need' to create doesn't seem as present as much as it naturally did so before. We forget why we started, well, at least I did.
We compete. We say we don't but we totally do. Gosh, the amount of indirect bitchy-disguised-as-sassy tweets I have seen over the past twelve months is ridiculous. What's happened to us? There's nothing wrong with striving to better yourself, that's a natural progression of life. But, see these other creatives as your fellow colleagues, your collaborators, not your competitors. Ever seen someone get a new release that you totally thought that you deserved it too? WE'RE NOT ENTILTED TO ANYTHING. Work for it. When did we become a community that thought we deserved the latest lipstick launch?
We compare ourselves too, but we admit that one.
We envy what we don't have instead of celebrating what we do, our individuality. We all have different stories to tell. Even if we're all talking about the same lipstick, we all have our own voices, our own personality.
I think it's about time that we take hold of them once again.
Use that voice.
Be that person.
BE YOU.
BECAUSE YOU'RE FLIPPING WONDERFUL.
Megan. xo
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