This day two years and fifty days ago, I was nineteen, in my final year of a high school that was full of people who were as dramatic as the daily mail, and I was a walking ball of anxiety.
On this day, it was probably covered in gold leaves twirling around me like a fresh autumnal breeze, I published my first post on this blog.
It still feels crazy that my humble self, who mastered being inconsistent at everything managed to keep this platform alive for over two years.
Alright, back in the day, I never dreamed, not even in my wildest dreams that I would have a consistent online presentence for such a long time. To be honest with myself, I thought I could keep this up for a maximum of six months, then I will probably break down, constantly being afraid that people in school would talk about what I do and give up in the end.
Today, I can’t imagine a life without this platform. My constant form of expression, progress and the visual proof that no matter how hard you fall, you will always be able to stand up again.
I remember very vividly; how afraid I was about showing my face online before I started posting. I was so damn anxious about it. I thought all this is about my style and my outfits, so nobody will be interested in seeing a face behind all this. I worked out a million methods on how I could possibly hide my face, aka not showing it at all. As you can see, I ended up showing my face, probably because it looked simply hideous when I tried to crop off my face.
I have spent ages in trying on keeping this blog as impersonal aka as neutral as possible, so nobody could ever attack me on anything.
This took a lot of energy and did not make me less anxious, I constantly felt like I am hiding something, I felt like I was creating an online version of myself.
Feeling like I was pretending to be someone that I am not, on my blog, a place where I am supposed to be myself. It made me lose the joy of writing and sharing, and I was drowning in the famous writer’s block on top of it all.
This lasted very long, I mean I kept posting on the most irregular basis for ages, as I did not know what the hell I could write about. I felt that everything was too personal, and I did not see a sense in just talking about what I am wearing.
Looking back, my anxiety held me back from so much. I am sharing my experiences in order to normalise it- I genuinely feel like we should talk about it more to show each other that we are not alone in this chaos. Let’s hold on to each other.
However, in those two years and fifty days so much happened- I finally left hell’s kitchen aka high school (to my English teacher who told me I couldn’t write for shit- we are always wrong at some point in our lives), I moved countries twice, I finally started doing what I really love and I am slowly learning how to take care of myself.
Today, back in the day, two years and fifty days ago, I published my first outfit post, wearing the exact same dress as in this post, the only difference is probably the way I style it nowadays and the fact that I don’t have that hideous haircut anymore (I just look weird with shorter hair lol).
It is not a crime to wear a dress for two posts. It is not a crime to have a repetitive outfit on Instagram. Let’s be honest with ourselves and simply stop caring about what these mysterious “others” could say- they will talk anyway. And on top of that you are no one until you are talked about, so see it as a compliment.
Before two years, I never thought I’d have the courage to publish images of myself eating cake. I thought I will live with an eating disorder for the rest of my life. Things change. Time passes. You’ll get better.
I also never thought I’d do a cheesy birthday post for a website. I hope I am on the right track to create something real.
Thanks for taking your time to read this, always.
Nina xx