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Heyyyy!
This is a post for those who are interested in why i got into blogging or how i got into blogging! It's kind of crazy, it came from not your normal circumstances, in fact rather sad circumstances if i'm honest so let's begin, i hope you stick around because i have a feeling it's going to be a long one!
It was a week before my 16th birthday when i found out my dad had been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. My dad was i guess you could say in the public eye so it was soon to be splattered in newspapers, the local news and all over the internet, something which was hard to deal with on a normal scale was made even harder with the media attention surrounding us. This continued throughout the time he was ill.
My Dad after a 16 month battle passed away peacefully at our family home surrounded by us all. The media circus erupted once again, it was literally just the most unimaginable pain i had and have ever felt.
Not long after my dad's passing did the media attention catch the eye of a few businesses who wanted to work with me, looking back i now think, wow kinda shitty that these people saw a young girl, quite overwhelmed with life i guess you could say and wanted to take advantage of the attention she was getting and it wasn't as if it was the attention i even wanted, after all only reason i was getting it and our family was getting it was because a huge part of all our lives had just passed away so tragically. Back then i was flattered by it, and the opportunities i was given were a great distraction from the pain and hurt i was feeling, I did a bit of modelling and was approached to work alongside a boutique to bring out my own range of dresses, something i declined as i had dreams of my own to work in that sort of environment.
Months later, after dropping out of college i wanted to open a business which was my dad's idea that he wanted to do whilst out of work, my mum thought it would be a great way to continue his legacy, so we made plans to do so, it was during this process i met an amazing woman called Jo, who worked within the fashion world, who told me before the opening of our new business i should start a blog to build up interest and give people a way to get to know me, I thought it was a crazy idea, who the hell cared about what i had to say? Nobody is going to read this i thought, but i gave it a go.
I had never really spoken out i guess you could say about how things were going and how i was feeling so my first blog included details about how i was and what the plans were for the business and how people could get involved, a strange process really as i had so much whizzing round in my mind about how this was a stupid idea and nobody is going to even read it to also feeling sort of like i had just had an hour in therapy! I read through it about 1000 times till i plucked up the courage to press that dreaded button. PUBLISHED.
I posted the link on my social media pages, back then i only really used Facebook and Twitter so it was just those two i had to rely on for people to read it and get it seen. Soon after posting i realised the numbers just kept going up and up and up.. i was totally shocked! I continued to post for a good few months, posting about the business, what i had been up to, what i had been wearing or buying and funnily enough, people loved it! I launched the business and totally got sidetracked from blogging, It was only when one day i was out and a young girl said to me 'I miss your blogs, I looked forward to reading them whenever i saw you post about a new one coming out' and it hit me like a bus, i was like 'whaaat?!' I never thought my little blog i just chatted on like i was talking to one of my mates actually had this kind of effect on people, she was surprised at how i reacted and said that all her friends read them too. I was filled with so much pride and excitement that i had had this effect on someone. My mum would always say how much she loved my blogs and wished i would do it more and the truth was, i loved making them, i was just scared of others not liking them or nobody reading them so i wouldn't really post anything. I logged on one day and saw 30,000 views... i was gobsmacked. Back then blogging wasn't really like it is now, so for me that was just like wow.. my little blog with no structure, 'look' or layout was still being read even without me posting for 3 months!
I always knew i loved to blog, for me it was actually therapy, my chance to get in front of the laptop and just talk about whatever it was i wanted, my feelings, my dad, my family, silly things like what i had been up to and it felt good to feel accepted something i had struggled with throughout my younger years.
Again, my business was doing so well and keeping me so busy that i found i couldn't really blog like i used to, i hated it and i think it was also one of the huge reasons i began to resent my job, I knew in the back of my mind that i wasn't doing what i loved, not that i would ever admit that to anyone and still haven't so people who know me might be slightly surprised if they read this!! I never got the same buzz as seeing how my latest post was received by people and my mum would always say to me, 'why didn't you stick with blogging', 'you were so good at it', 'imagine where you could be now if you had stuck with it', and the majority of the things she said are absolutely right (still not sure about the me being good at it bit but we will see in a few years time haha) i think about all those things everyday but my blog wasn't making me money, my business was and i just didn't have the self confidence to stick at it if truth be told to see if the blog would.
Now i look back and wonder what could have been as everyone does when they regret something but now i have to look forward and think what could be, this blog is my life, my crazy, honest, unfiltered, sometimes over the top life and I can't wait to see where it takes me. I hope you reading will also stick around and come on this journey with me whether it be a journey that this blog goes somewhere or just a blog i get to talk and vent to in my free time. Either way i'm happy as blogging is all i want to do and i'm just happy to be doing it!
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