WOW. It seems such a long time ago since I wrote a post like this, I’ve almost forgotten how to do them. Hours spent curating travel content over the last six months (dipping my toes in and out from time to time) has meant there’s been very little space for these catch up style posts! So excuse the self-indulgence of this post. Life has been somewhat hectic and also come to a little standstill at the same time over the last couple of months that my mindset just hasn’t been A-Okay! Now that I’ve acknowledged my life felt like it was taking a nosedive I’ve taken a bit more control over it.
So, let’s catch up shall we?
I feel like the first 6 months of this year have well and truly passed me by. With the odd sporadic beers out in Leeds, a gig and trip to Barcelona I have felt like I’ve not really been “living for the moment” – I think a lot of this has been down to two main things. One being that all my hard earned pennies are currently being saved up to make that final, last payment off our holiday to Mexico for my 30th in October, and two Mr C has taken a huge chunk of weekends to help with his brothers fledgling business and left me at home in the process (with a dog in tow that can’t be left at home on her own – yay for me!)
Those weekends should have been spent devouring new books, I have so many that I’ve not even started yet. I should have been going off to the countryside to walk the dog, instead I opted for the same route just near our home, day in, day out. I stopped going to the gym and I started to lose track of eating healthier so my energy levels were near on none-existent. I also had a major anxiety flare up whilst in Barcelona which meant I felt like I sabotaged our whole trip and came home feeling even more tired than what I did before we left.
In short, I’ve only been making myself slowly more ill as time has gone by. I’ve been making myself a victim of my own doing.
A couple of weeks ago I openly spoke about it on my platforms and by doing so I felt like I had finally accepted that I was in a bit of a downward funk and really needed to start making more of an effort to find some joy in the smaller things rather than dwelling on the fact I’ve had no money to spend in the ASOS sale this year & that I was having to wait till October for our big birthday trip away!
I’m finally got myself back at the gym and slowly easing myself back in to a weekly routine that will become even easier as time goes on. I feel when I’m exercising I’m definitely at my happiest and it stops me slobbing around at home, endlessly scrolling through Instagram. It is so easy to see why social media gets people down too, for weeks I felt so awful about myself that I hardly shared any images of myself, simply comparing how I looked (and felt!) versus the shiny, slim, happy, well dressed (and blessed) faces that were gracing my phone screen everyday, plus I felt like I didn’t have any new brand collabs to showcase – I began to question what it was all for? And, let’s face it, the reason is that I love sharing photos. It doesn’t have to be a perfectly curated feed all of the time. So with that I headed out with my friend from work and I made myself shoot these very photos in this blog post. It was the best thing I could have done to get my confidence back up!
I also felt like I’d lost touch with this blog a bit too. What I was once known for was nice photography and lifestyle posts, I really pigeon holed myself down a travel blogger route. Travel is first and foremost my main passion in life, but I’ve come to the realisation that it’s okay to blog about other things too. So, going forward expect to see a variety of content again – and hopefully I won’t alienate too many people along the way like I feel I may have done when I went a bit more travel-focussed. I mean, let’s face it, I can’t be heading off every week to some glam destination to create content. It’s just not real life for me.
There’s lots of exciting opportunities that I’m finally saying “yes” to again. Somehow I found myself saying “no” to everything in fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the requirements and deadlines, that I became a little bit of a shell of myself when it came to working with brands. I’m excited to say that I’m starting to attract the types of brand collaborations that I want to work on and share with you guys, so watch this space. YAY!
Obviously, with one last payment left to make on our Mexico trip (thank the lord!) I can finally start thinking about my holiday wardrobe and fingers crossed, there will still be some remnants left in the summer sales for me to have a peak at (please let me know the best deals you have found!) and I’ll be able to do more exciting things on a whim, something I’ve really had to reign back in this year with having the holidays to pay for.
Basically, this post is a reminder that I really need to start enjoying life again, to remember the sacrifices I’ve made this year have all been for a good reason (ie. sipping extremely potent cocktails on a white, sandy beach, whilst I sob about turning 30!) plus, it means once the holiday is paid for we can start making changes around our new home too. I just need to remember that I can always find joy and excitement in the small things in life too.
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