Hello friends! Welcome to what I believe is my first non bookish post on this blog. But don’t worry, I’m hoping that regular bookish content will be back up soon. However, for now I have to write this post. Obviously if you’ve seen the news recently you’d know the world is a little on fire. But lucky for you and lucky for me this is NOT another article all about that. This article is about me. It’s about mental health, creativity, and why my postings here (and on social media) have been all over the place.
Y’all, I’ve been a mess. Frankly putting it. My school was canceled several weeks ago and that on top of a lot of issues I was already having in my personal life made me fall apart. And when I fall apart, I fall a p a r t. Most of my lovely friends are seniors, while I’m a junior, and knowing that it was the end of my schooling with them broke my heart. I was heartbroken and struggling and so very lonely. The loneliness is what sucked the most, I felt isolated and therefore uninspired. Sometimes I still do. And is sucks. It really really sucks. And during those days where I felt alone and frustrated the last thing I wanted to do was be here, online. I was so far down that emotional rabbit hole that the idea of being in a happy place for me was too much. I didn’t want to spit out a fake happy review or post, but I didn’t want to soil something that could have been great with my sad feelings either.
So… I simply didn’t. My instagram went empty and my blog ran dry. And yeah, I’m glad I took the little break to recenter but on top of that I was ticked at myself for slacking. Ever since I started doing book stuff online I’ve always felt this pressure to constantly post, review, tweet, and to always do all of that with a smile. To make everything feel happy and not get into my life. But here I am literally getting right into my life. Because I can’t always be fake happy on the internet. It’s something I’m learning. So, be patient with me while I realize that I don’t always need to be peppy online. I don’t always have to write a bubbling excited caption to a photo and I don’t have to deal with what I feel all alone. It’s something I’m working on and that is starting with this post. This open writing experiment about what I’m feeling and how that is impacting my life.
As I mentioned, I’ve been under this constant pressure (from myself) to be on the perfect “bookish grind”. To post at least one beautiful photo everyday with the perfect witty caption. To have 5 or more posts and reviews being scheduled on my blog every week. To tweet things that are funny and relevant multiple times a day. I honestly cannot tell you where I got this idea from, where I got these expectations for myself. Yet somehow I got them. And I do know logically these are all a little too much, especially considering I’m a student and I have a part time job. Yet, I still felt this need to be on a perfect “bookish grind” reading and spitting out content constantly. And if you’ve ever been a person on social media or a blog, you know how draining it can be. So I did the worst thing I could. I let my own crippling expectations drain me until I just wasn’t having fun anymore. I couldn’t keep up with my “expectations” and I was always miserable trying to get there.
I’ve only ever seen a few other people speak out about this, about when online book loving becomes less fun and more pressure. So, I decided maybe it was my time to speak up too. I felt pressured by myself to be “better” to reach these “expectations” for a long time and it drained me so completely.
Now, this is something I’m working on. I’m working on posting because I love to post and taking photos because I love to take photos. It doesn’t happen overnight, but I started this journey three years ago because I LOVED it. Not because it was something on my to-do list everyday, but because I loved to do it. So now I’m taking a deep breath and doing my best to honor what a younger me would have wanted, and that starts right here with this post because being honest and opening up is the only way I may ever get to move past this. So, thank you for listening and understanding. I hope to be back to posting soon, and I look forward to the day that the words start pouring out of me again while I right. But for now I will take it all a day at a time and focus on doing this because I love it. Because reader, under those “expectations” I do love it.
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