I don’t love announcing departures because I’m not an airport (lol, I love that joke). But I unintentionally took a month long break over here. To be honest, during the first week of my time away from blogging, I felt pretty guilty. Like I was going to screw up everything I’ve ever worked towards in this space.

As dramatic as that sounds, I know a lot of creatives would agree with the sentiment — if we’re not always connected, we’re going to be left behind. But I was becoming frustrated with the lack of energy I was putting into my work here. I was doing things because I felt like it HAD to be done. I think that’s the problem with being a content creator — everything always feels like a MUST DO OR ELSE. If I don’t create content, I’m going to lose my followers and readers. If I don’t stay consistent, I’m going to lose my followers and readers.


If I don’t do this — If I don’t do that

.

It takes a toll on you. And on top of that, normal life and my 9-to-5 were taking priority.

For me, it’s pretty easy to take a step back from blogging. Why?

Mainly because it’s not my full time job. I don’t NEED to be doing this. So why would I half ass content? Now, I know it’s THE busiest time of the year for influencers. But since this is very much not my full time job, I can take a step back. And I don’t take that for granted considering so many of the influencers I know do this full time. My friend,



Krystal



, wrote




this beautiful




(yet, somewhat horrifying when you take a step back to think about it) piece on her feelings towards Instagram and social media.

Honestly, I have a lot of the same feelings as Krystal. No matter how much effort we put into something, it often seems as though we’re still doing something wrong. I feel like I stopped putting in those overtime hours a long time ago because I was not getting the results I wanted NO MATTER WHAT I DID. Even as I’m writing this, I’m laughing to myself because it’s not like I completely took a break — I really put a lot of focus on creating




Reels for Instagram




. I’ve done a lot of research and I’m constantly brainstorming. So it’s not like I wasn’t putting in the work. See what I mean about ALWAYS feeling like we’re not doing enough?

I decided that going forward, I’m going to write simply because I want to. I’ll post to my IG feed because I want to. And I’ll continue to share daily life on stories because I want to. And as I mentioned before, I’m very lucky to be able to do this kind of thing at my own leisure and still have “success” (although, everyone can and should define success differently). But at some point, you really have to think about the fact that as an influencer, you’ll never beat the algorithm, or whatever else these platforms are doing. Solo creators are not top of mind, and we never will be. And you know what? I’m okay with that.

I also wanted to say thank you if you’re still here, still following, and still enjoying what I am putting out there. I know what I do is not groundbreaking, but I hope you get to know me. I’ve always loved being part of a team, a community, etc., so the fact that I’ve created my own slice of that on the Internet has been pretty cool.