I’ve been tidying up my blog recently, and it really brought on a wave of nostalgia. I used to blog consistently about anything and everything that was going on in my life but nowadays, you’re lucky enough to get an Instagram post from me!
I wonder if it is because I’ve outgrown blogging or if I have outgrown writing? Maybe it is because I’m in Communications and a lot of the things I write are corporate and now I don’t feel as creative as I used to be. But I want to try again because I found so much joy in writing. Being able to drum up long arse posts about my adventures was truly a talent. I’ve been reading back and thinking to myself, “How did I remember ALL of that?”
But it’s a great reminder of all the things I’ve done over the years and because my memory is shocking, it’s definitely helped in jogging a few things back into place.
Looking Back
I was reading my ‘25 Things I’ve Learned In 25 Years‘ post, and it really made me tear up over the things I had forgotten that I’d learnt. Writing is therapeutic and the outlet for my soul. I journaled weekly last year and that helped me to sort through a lot of the complicated feelings I was harbouring. But, I think I need to start writing publicly again because there was a confidence that came with writing things and posting them to the Internet for everyone to see.
I started a food Instagram which was great as microblogging, but nobody really reads the captions so it didn’t fulfil that want of having someone read my writing. A want I didn’t know I really wanted. A lot of the writing I do these days is corporate, and I am desperate to get my personal voice back. Even now as I’m typing this, I wonder if this is still the way I write outside of work. 🤔
I’ve been on a journey to reconnect with the things I love. I recently discovered what neural nostalgia is. Apparently there is a science behind me listening to Fire every day in 2009. Researchers are actually finding that the music we listen to as teenagers binds to our brains differently to anything we’re going to hear as adults in a phenomenon known as ‘neural nostalgia.’ If it will help me get out of my head and connect to myself, and make me feel alive again then I am all here for it.
Rekindling My Interest in Coding
I am also cautiously taking steps back into the coding space. It was something I was obsessed with back in the days of Neopets where I followed the Neopets HTML guide religiously, moving onto Myspace (remember the god awful sparkly backgrounds, music blaring as soon as you landed on someone’s page and custom cursors?) and also trying out Matmice and Piczo. What a throwback, eh? 😶🌫️
I tried my hand at creating my own WordPress themes when I first started blogging but I always felt intimidated especially when I would go onto other people’s blogs and see these masterpieces. So, I defaulted to using pre-made one’s but I’ve always fiddled in the backend here and there. I even tried my hand at Photoshop creating icons, banners and the like.
There were so many things that I started and then never had the heart to continue because I always felt I wasn’t good enough to do it. I took up an intro to coding course and now I am doing an intro to Python course, which I am enjoying and I think I’ll eventually lean back to HTML and CSS because that was my first love. I don’t know if it’s where I want to go career-wise, but it’ll be good to have another skill under my belt.
Embracing the Past
Falling back into the things I loved when I was teenager reminds me of simpler times, although admittedly at the time it did not feel simple. That’s hindsight and hormones, right? 😂 I am now at an age where my age mates are buying houses, having children or on their second child, progressing in their careers and for the longest time I felt stunted in my growth as a person.
I am always reminded that everyone is on their own path, but I couldn’t help but feel I was still eons behind everyone – still rewatching the same television shows, listening to the same music, wearing the same clothing as when I was a teenager. It did often feel like I’m trying to relive those days but now with more control over my emotions. Now, I’m embracing it because if those are the things that make me happy that trumps everything in all honesty.
I will continue to fangirl about Doctor Who and David Tennant, lose myself in Millenium K-Pop playlists on Spotify and do tweet-alongs when I am watching television even if nobody reads them.
Looking Ahead
I am also at a point in my life where I feel more in control and more optimistic about the future. I always used to say that when I look into my future, all I see is darkness and not in a sense that something bad will happen but I see nothing. As dreary as that sounds, it was the truth, but I’ve decided not to worry about that and focus on the right here and now and putting things in place that will set me up for the future no matter what happens then.
Hopefully, this post is a step in the right direction of me getting back to my love of blogging. The last time I properly blogged was 2020 with a few posts here and there over the years (they’re private now). I tried to put myself in a niche for a while but ultimately; I am always going to write about anything and everything because that’s what I’m best at (with a modicum of privacy because there’s no way I am going to reveal all like I did when I was teenager writing about friend’s BBQs, friends flirting with crushes, ignoring crushes and logging onto MSN to talk to said crush as soon as I got home 😅.)
See y’all in another post! 💖
