this is scary stuff

I'll be honest, blogging has been extremely hard for me for the past year and a half. I actually started writing this post again today for the 100th time and then closed it yet again, saying I'll do it later. But then I said, "No, just write the thing," and forced myself to open this draft back up and actually post it when I'm finished. Here I go ... I'm scared ahh.

I think the hardest thing about blogging for me is the confidence. It takes a lot of confidence to put yourself out there for anyone to read. I obviously had no problem doing that up until 2013, as you can see if you go through my blog archives. Something has happened since then though, because I'm finding it super hard to share my thoughts with other people. I feel like I have lost my passion for so many things that I used to blog about... Movies became a chore after studying them in college, and I no longer felt they were an important thing to spend time writing about. I don't even really watch movies for fun anymore! I don't follow celebrities on social media anymore and I actually don't really care what they're doing. I just found out like last week who Iggy Azalea was. Who cares if I post a playlist I'm listening to, because it probably isn't the coolest music right now anyway. My life is so much less picturesque than other bloggers', and so it feels inappropriate when I post pictures from little old Provo with my iPhone. I basically have developed this intense distaste for all things social media and have felt like I don't have a place here.

Looking back on the time when I did blog though, I realize that I was super content with my life even if it wasn't 100% blogtastic. The fact was that I created new content for posts almost every single day and it made me feel awesome. I looked for great things happening around me that I could post about, even if they were teeny tiny. I noticed little blessings and took more pictures. I was okay with how I looked and wore what I wanted. I was confident and kind to myself.

But unfortunately, at some point, something got into my head and told me that what I had to say really didn't matter to anyone. Something told me that I couldn't live up to expectations for what I'm supposed to wear, where I'm supposed to eat brunch, and how happy I'm supposed to look in front of that brightly colored wall. Therefore, my blog really suffered because I didn't feel I had a place in the www anymore.

Here I am though, writing this post that I have opened and closed like a dozen times by now because I realize that I have a big, big problem and I'm ready to get over it. It's scary for me to verbalize the parts of me that are super vulnerable (read: all parts), but I think I need to write and share this in order to get my bearings again and start over. I know I'm not ever going to be a great blogger and probably no one will ever aspire to have my life (and they shouldn't). But I'm setting a goal to start blogging again, no matter how dumb I feel posting, and I'm hoping to regain the gratitude and attention to detail that I have completely turned away from in my life.

I also have really missed out on important record keeping over the past year and a half by not blogging consistently. I might have to call 2015-2016 the "Dark Ages" of my life simply because no one will ever be able to look back and see silly blog posts about things happening in my life at that time. I dated and married the love of my life for goodness sake!! And I have no blog posts and about that!! That's a major regret I have, and I feel pretty determined to not let anything else slip away again.

I think I'm being somewhat vague, but I also don't think I'm really ready to talk about confidence issues any further today. Maybe once I'm back in the blogging groove and I'm not afraid of it anymore, I'll be able to open up some more.  I think I'm generally a happy person and a positive thinker and I feel very blessed much of the time. But I think I've been a little bit lost and afraid of other people's eyes on me for a while.

So here's to being kinder to myself and not being afraid of taking a dang selfie. Here's to reconnecting with things I love and not being afraid to share them for the fear of it being too trivial or not living up to an expectation. I know I won't be a perfect blogger (what is a perfect blogger anyway?) and I know that it's going to be really hard for me and I will chicken out and I will still have tons of posts sitting as drafts that I'm too afraid to publish and the stuff I will publish will probably be totally uncool, but I'm going to try my hardest because this phobia has been the worst and I want to be okay with me again.