It’s not unusual for me to “disappear” from my blog or social media for long periods of time (several weeks, so to speak). Sometimes I haven’t had the motivation to write anything insightful – or anything at all. This has become more of a regular occurrence over the last few years, and I think the reality is that I feel somewhat ashamed of it. I get it – I’m not a content creator. People expect much more from content creators, and I’ve fallen into a bit of a trap where I feel like I need to blog as regularly as I used to, which – mind you – was a lot more regularly than a content creator. It was every fucking day.

I started blogging when I was 13 years old (I turn 30 this year, by the way) as a way to share some feelings, thoughts, and stories, and it was rewarding that I ended up making friends or inspiring people from it. For that, I’m so incredibly thankful.💖 But I think about how I’m the same person who used to do all those motivational talks about blogging, and telling your story, and now I feel… well, it almost feels like I have nothing left.

Weird, right?

Well, I think what I’ve realised is that blogging for – hang on, I’m just getting my calculator out right now – like, 19 years, means that you’ve probably told your whole damn life story by now. And I think I feel that way. I think I’ve actually run out of stories to tell. I’m laughing now – we all know that we continue to create memories, and even I, as a minimalist, definitely relish in new experiences, and I most certainly do have stories to tell.

To be honest, I haven’t written a lot on my blog about what goes on in this little brain of mine. I haven’t written a lot about my travel experiences – even those small trips I’ve had recently to some parts of Australia (because we are in our own little bubble amid the global pandemic, and that’s about all we can do at the moment). I genuinely feel like the only thing I’m writing about is Fashion Friday. I don’t want to be strictly a fashion blog. 😂 But that feels like one of the things I am honestly most passionate about – self expression through style. I’ve been writing some thoughtful posts over on my Instagram, but even they only come about once a month. I feel like the reason that I keep writing about my personal style is that through a very tough time in 2020 with the pandemic, getting dressed in the morning, as I normally did, was something that really kept my spirits up.

The past couple of months have been a bit stressful for me. This isn’t something that I’ve shared much about, but a couple of years ago, my doctor determined that the cause of my depression was PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder). For me this manifests as some severe depression before that time of the month, and then getting extremely irritable, cranky and anxious literally the one day before my period. 🩸 The week before my period is often marked by wanting to cry for no reason, and feeling extremely upset and on edge when it comes to communicating with people. I love what I do at work, but there were times I was irrationally upset by a few things that happened and I genuinely feel like it was because of my cycle. 😅 It has been helpful to have support from the people closest to me who can understand how I’m feeling and how I can deal with it.

Having alone time and going for walks is quite important to me to feel mentally well, PMDD or not. I have to admit that it’s been difficult to be in many meetings at work, or communicate with many people at once, probably because I’ve also kind of forgotten how to socialise with people this past year. I’ve walked to the office about once a week for the past couple of months (I used to commute on a bus, but decided to walk), and as the amount of people in the office increased, I realised that I’m quite out of touch with talking to people in person in groups of more than 4 or 5. I’m naturally introverted and prefer smaller groups, so I wonder if I’m just being reminded that that is when I feel most comfortable, or if I really struggle with larger groups because of the changes we’ve had to make since the pandemic hit us in 2020.

At some point in the past month, I decided that some things in my life were in disarray, and I decided to write them all out and create a spreadsheet with columns for “Why is this happening?” and “Action items”. These things in disarray were often quite easily solved – such as not having my eyes checked for ten years, or pretty trivial – like the apartment being a mess, or my wardrobe being a mess. There were other things that required more work, or were pretty deep. I had a point about not having finished Jane’s blog theme/design, which I was struggling to find motivation for. (It’s done now though, check out that beauty 🤩 Love working with you Jane!) I had a point about my blog not being updated as much as I wanted it to be. I had another point about how, historically, tardiness runs in my family, and I haven’t tried hard enough to shake off this habit I have of being late and underestimating how much time I need to be ready and get somewhere on time.

I would actually love to share a few more details about the spreadsheet soon. (It’s not technically a spreadsheet, it’s a table, but anyway.) I found it incredibly cathartic to write out everything I believed to be “wrong” with my life, and how I could help myself get my shit together. In reality, the list wasn’t that ginormous, and most of the items were actionable. Sometimes, the issues couldn’t be eradicated, but I was able to think of methods of making the experience more positive or come up with coping mechanisms that could help me deal with things that gave me anxiety. It was just a matter of prioritising properly, and being OK with the fact that it would all take time.

There are a few series and projects related to my blog that I have abandoned (Journey of a Fashionable Minimalist, lol), and some travel posts from, ehh… 2019, that I never got around to writing. There are some things I said I’d write about and I didn’t. Frankly, I don’t have the motivation for it, and I think I need to stop forcing myself to write about things that I feel like I “should” be writing about. I haven’t quite shaken the awkwardness I often feel about writing posts like this one I’m writing right now – when in reality, this was exactly, precisely, the way I used to write before I tried to fake some regularity in my blog posts, and I actually enjoy writing these kinds of uncensored, somewhat heartfelt posts more than anything else.

I think that, ultimately, I need to accept that my blog is going to be something that grows with me. If that means I have to stop subscribing to some kind of notion of a frequent schedule, if I have to be more obviously sassy on my blog just like how I am in real life (all about my authentic self, y’know), if I have to talk about mundane stuff that I used to persuade everyone was not mundane (my daily life and all that shit), well, so be it. I’m not a fucking content creator. I’m Georgie, bitches. 💁🏻‍♀️

Speak to you soon. 👋