Saying Goodbye to the Content Machine

Hi there! It’s been quite a while since I last logged valuable blogging hours but here I am, unable to completely abandon this virtual outlet. I took a rather long break from cReAtInG cOnTeNt and to be honest, it felt amazing not to be connected all the time. When all was said and done, it’s been the better part of a year since I was truly active here.

I’ve been taking up space on the internet for years; running this blog for almost a decade and floating around elsewhere online for even longer. If I’m being totally transparent, the last few years of blogging have felt like drudgery. I found myself creating things in the pursuit of likes and contributing digital noise simply because I felt like that’s what I should be doing. I had come to define myself as a “blogger” but I realize now that I have been pandering for the better part of my adult life.

Dramatic? Maybe.

Over the last year, I’ve been spread pretty thin. I took up the freelance game and started writing for a couple of women that I truly adore. I began working for an actual company (not run by me) and realized how vital it is to be able to report to someone else, clock out at the end of the day, and leave work at work. Most importantly, I navigated my second pregnancy and grew our family by a whole person. Crazy! All the while, I was continuing to fill the pages of this site with more clutter. More noise. Nothing I created felt like it was good enough and a lot of it was forced.

Having Luna urged me to dial back everything and although the break from this online world wasn’t entirely premeditated, it was wholeheartedly welcomed (albeit with a bit of trepidation). Being away from the screen (a little) allowed let go of all of the freelance gigs that were diluting my desire to create. I stopped filling the void with perfunctory “articles” (aka glorified blog posts). So many things shifted while my focus was elsewhere. I was able to recognize the blog world for what I feel like it has become. Noise. Static.

Something within me has changed and the way that I now consume content is different. The way that I relate to the things that I’m absorbing from the internet has transformed into something completely different. Before this break, it seemed like I was constantly aboard a tilt-a-whirl of digital consumption; taking in new images and stories with unlimited abandon. I would filter that content through my concept of self and I ended up letting it influence how I self-identified. Now, I feel totally removed from the cOnTeNt game. My season as a ~blogger~ has ended.

Is it growth? Does this feeling of wanting to keep most of my life private come with age? Am I just too busy now to care about sharing every last detail? I’ll tell you one thing: the idea of being somehow disconnected from the content machine is liberating.

I thought about quietly disappearing from the fray altogether but, ultimately, I decided that it wasn’t this space that I wanted to escape, it was the prefab notion of blogging. With sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest seemingly on the brink of something big (collapse? implosion?), owning a space online that is just mine feels right. Moving forward, I’d like to use Hazel + Scout to share things that I’m inspired by, monthly playlists that bring me joy to make, and personal essays… but not in the same format as before. I won’t be sticking to any kind of content schedule and I won’t be killing myself to promote posts. This will be my last “sorry, I’m back!” post because, honestly, I’m not sorry for taking reprieves.

There’s a quote that you’ve probably seen circulating all of the blogs (even this one) for years: 'I am going to make everything around me beautiful - that will be my life” (Elsie de Wolfe). In that vein, I’m on a new mission. I’m going to make everything around me beautiful and I’m probably not going to share most of it. I’m not going to feel pressured to have the right things or blog the right things. I am in the pursuit of beauty and I’ll share what I share. I’d like to say that I’m happy for you to follow along but, honestly, I don’t care if you do.