Happy New Year

Goodness, what a year it has been.

Truthfully I felt I was doing great personally as well as on the blog. Until May I was posting regularly and telling you all about all my favourite things. Then I went MIA for a while. Then I returned with an intense ten-part series. In this series, I was mean to a universally beloved childhood character. It was a very difficult process to not be too critical but still be critical enough. Normally I try to avoid being overly mean, if I don’t like something I usually do not bother to talk about it. Something you love might be something I do not love. But why would I want to give you the idea that you should doubt yourself? Everyone’s feelings are as valid as the next. Not to mention that with the change of the season, the feeling of the opinion can change. We all grow and learn. What we love today might be something we can barely tolerate five years from now.

I go back and forth with writing. Not all reviews are very long, not all things are as fun or there is as much to say. For me, someone who is hardly critical about media, I find almost anything enjoyable. I wouldn’t sit through seasons of a show I disliked from the outset, I wouldn’t read books that don’t speak to me. However, I believe that it is difficult to find the balance between being critical and being downright annoying. Hating for the sake of hating which is what I have been seeing a lot. The same can be said for being overly optimistic, how many times can one say ‘I enjoyed this’ before you think ‘Did you really?’ The trouble is when you do you are unsure how to go further. For the past year, I didn’t know what I wanted to write or share and I wasn’t having fun with it anymore. This was a moment for me to step back and re-evaluate. I wanted to do my ten-part series so I did. I didn’t know what to share, so I didn’t share.

This blog started with me writing about the things I enjoy but over time I suppose I got a bit embarrassed. I can go on and on about books for weeks and weeks and then after that, all I want to talk about is lipglosses. Then I want to go off about something else that is interesting. It’s one of those things I talked about before. Women are often chastised for enjoying things and having hobbies that men generally don’t like. This is a level of sexism I will not spend time on as it is so irritating. The bottom line, I sometimes get embarrassed for being passionate about certain things and for enjoying certain stories or narratives. When there should be no shame in hobbies after all they do not harm.

Then I was thinking about why I was blogging anyway and I thought if I am not doing it for me why am I doing it at all? So I decided to write for me and I hope you will also enjoy it. I know that content that isn’t the written word is more popular and even though I have made videos (long-form content) in the past I am not at all comfortable with that. It gives away so much of yourself and opens the door even more to criticism. It’s something I do not want to put myself through and that is also okay. This, writing, is something I enjoy doing. I am not the best at it. I am not the most insightful but I am honest and I enjoy doing it. To me that counts for something.

Having decided this I will also go back to posting once a week instead of twice as that still makes it fun for me. It also takes away the intense pressure I put on myself. I have all these interesting and cool ideas for next year that are partly in the works already. I am so excited to share it with you. You might have noticed that I have deleted old posts, I haven’t always loved everything I put out or I didn’t express myself in the way I wanted. Now ten years on I have found it time to do something about it. It doesn’t mean that I still feel the same way about some books and films as I did in 2014 but I expressed myself in a way I can stand by today. Not to mention that I deleted some personal posts. I have always tried to be open and honest while still protecting my privacy. There are things I have shared that I do not regret but wouldn’t share today so for my piece of mind I have deleted them. A whole lot of fun is going to be coming to the blog so stay tuned.