Now we’re 5 weeks into the holidays and with 2 of the 4 away on an extended sleepover at Grandma’s house I find my urge to write is strong. Whilst Flo is napping and Daisy is crafting I have found that over-sharing urge coming back to me.
I had good intentions of scheduling some content in July to go across my blog over the summer or just keeping on top of everything each week and trying to write and publish at least once a week in the summer months. But yep you guessed it went out the window and my blog and YT channel have been silent. Anyhow I have kind of thought that maybe that’s a good thing that I didn’t pre-plan my content as I always like to write fresh and in the moment, most of the time ( I will just tell myself this!).
Being quiet has meant that I have detached myself from my blog and channel for a few weeks, so I’m less distracted by topics of writing, linking up posts and Pinterest, as it tends to take over my brain a lot when I’m in the writing and editing zone! It’s meant that I have managed to sit down without my Mac on my lap, I have nearly read two books, I haven’t read properly for over 2 years. And with the glorious summer we’ve had days have been spent outside enjoying having adventures without raincoats. I have also had the added emotions of wanting to make this such a lovely summer, as it’s Teddy’s last one before he starts school, and so that has made it even more emotional for me.
I have found that having a break from Youtube and blogging does have it’s downsides for me. I start to question what I’m doing as the self doubt creeps back in. Should I be sharing my children so much, should I bother making videos for a subscriber count that moves so slowly, are my videos good enough and of course writers block, how do I make content that is worth reading. I really started to think about having a longer break after a fun but very tiring few weeks of holiday prep, camping and then post holiday admin, but then once I have sat down and relaxed a little the past few days it dawned on me that everyone has doubts after a break about what they can and can’t do. I used to return to my old job after a holiday feeing a little out of the loop and not quite on it. Well this is no different. So I now need to shift the change over these more relaxed days at home into a new change, a new start, just like the start of the school year that September brings, and focus on what subject matters excite me, for my blog and channel. And then once I do that, it will all hopefully flow that little bit more. So I’m starting to feel it now, ‘the pull’ that got me into all of this in the first place: The feeling that I want to let others see inside my mum life. It’s not just all about the ‘over sharing’ it also comes back to that need for me to have something for ‘me’ amongst the washing, feeding and caring around the clock. ‘The pull’ that gives me a little bit of fire in my belly and gets my brain ticking again. It will just have to be well balanced and well juggled come September, so I feel that I’m not wearing myself out by doing it all, so I can still have a bath or read a book. So I’m not distracted by my phone and Macbook too much when the kids are home from school. And that it will hopefully just fit better around Florence’s nap times and some later nights on the sofa once they’re in bed. I will say one thing that I know I’m lucky that I have been able to take a step back from my blog etc a little and just focus on the instagram holiday memory posting and nothing else, as our income does not rely on me being a blogger. Obviously it would be fantastic to make an income from it and I’d be fortunate to be in that position, but for now I don’t have any pressures put upon me to keep it up daily, other than the pressures I give myself. And if that was the case in the future I’m sure I would find a way to juggle it better with parenting. But for me it just didn’t happen this summer. I also do know that even when my subscriber and view stats aren’t where I would desire them to be in an ideal world, the readers and viewers that I do have support me and take the time to comment and interact, they are enough for me, just in the way that I also love hearing and watching like minded mummies who are also smaller blogger/vloggers just like me, as to me they capture the real side of parenthood, the one that makes me laugh, smile and cry along with them. So if you can identify with summer silence, I hope that this post is enough for you to look towards the start of a new school year just like our little ones do.
Love Charlotte x
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