Life lately: I fell out of love with blogging

I guess the best place to start would be by saying hello! I hope you’re all doing really well and wrapping up nice and warm in this chilly weather – I can’t say that I’m a fan but I always love the fashion at this time of year so there’s a pro to every con. 

It’s been a grand total of 5 weeks since I last published a blog post, I can’t quite believe it’s been that long. Time has been frittering away and I’d like to say that I’ve been engaging in some exciting things during the weeks that have gone by but, apart from a couple of update worthy happenings, it’s been rather quiet over here. 

I’ve started my third Open Uni module and completed my first assignment which evidently swept a lot of time up in its tracks. I was asked to curate a freewrite in the first part of my assignment and a little of that structure will come into play today as I ramble about what the last few weeks have entailed. There’s no real direction to this post so who knows where we’ll end up. 

LIFE LATELY: I FELL OUT OF LOVE WITH BLOGGING

I’m going to be honest with you here, doubt and angst has been tangled around the thought of writing blog content during the last few weeks. Every time I went to start a new post, something was pulling me back from the keyboard.

You might remember my post back in April, Sometimes I don’t want to talk about my disability, which I’m going to introduce to you again because a lot of the things I’ve felt lately are captured in that post. 

I haven’t wanted to talk about my disability, I haven’t wanted to share my life online. 

So I’m going to say it; I fell out of love with blogging. 

This isn’t the first time this has happened and I’m slowly learning to accept that it’s ok to let that time pass by.

It’s been four and a half years since I hit publish on my very first post and I’ve shared a lot of details about my life online since then. So, you see, I’ve felt like I’ve exhausted every content idea, walked every inch of the sight loss grounds and so the words have seemed capped and limited. 

It was obvious that writer’s block had come to visit – it can be a pesky little thing, and it’s had a tight hold over me for the past few weeks, digging into the corners of my mind and convincing me that every word I typed wasn’t good enough. 

My blog is usually a place for collating my thoughts, a space to turn them into something more coherent, but writing on here has seemed too fickle an option lately and trying to think of new content ideas only encouraged more chaos. 

So a break was very much needed. 

I’ve also been slightly awol on social media; Tweets have been few and far between and I find this quite ironic considering the fact that I’ve recently been shortlisted in the Social Media Influencer of the Year category at the RNIB See Differently awards which is coming up on Tuesday – how exciting!

It’s such an honour to be recognised in this way but I can’t help but think that I haven’t been doing the category justice lately since my content has been so sparse.

But I am, of course, incredibly grateful and, dare I say, proud that my blog and social media work is being seen in this way. There are so many incredible disabled bloggers out there who are contributing to raising awareness and helping others in their own amazing ways and they deserve a shoutout too. 

I plan my content with the focus of helping others and there’s no bigger reward than when someone reaches out to me, stating that my words have helped or reassured them in some way. That’s something I always hold on to no matter how often I post. 

Speaking of helping others; I recently applied to become a mentor for LOOK, a Hereford based charity aiming to support young blind and vision impaired people across the UK. I was so delighted when my application was accepted and it meant that a trip to Buxton was on the cards for a training weekend. 

I made the near 3 and a half hour journey to the secluded Derbyshire mill (where our training took place) a few weeks ago now and, although my anxiety levels were very high, it was a great weekend. 

I think we all felt quite disconnected from the world with no phone signal or strong wifi but it was quite refreshing to spend time away from the screen. Our time was spent learning about LOOK, their mission and how they utilise their mentoring project to help young vision impaired people. We had some time to relax and get to know each other too with a quiz to top off our Saturday night. 

The train journey home on Sunday was eventful to say the least, I’ll leave the full story for another day but, for context; a call from the Northern passenger assistance line informed me of amendments they had made to my journey; I was told that my train was cancelled so my travelling times needed to be altered, something which was anxiety inducing for me. The man assured me that my assistance had been amended so, according to him, I was supposed to have help throughout my journey. 

Notice I said ‘supposed to’, there. I stayed hopeful from Buxton to Manchester and it all seemed promising when my assistance turned up at Piccadilly but, from there, it all went rather pear shaped. 

There were two changes ahead of me now instead of the one I initially had and, to cut a long story short, there was no assistance at either station. It also turns out that the train Northern claimed was cancelled, wasn’t. 

Here’s where some frustration kicked in, it carried over to the next day when I was sat writing my complaint. A flurry of blurred letters scrolled across the screen as I battled the exhaustion that gripped me after a busy few days. 

I think this is one of the reasons I’ve felt uninspired when it comes to blogging about my disability recently. The tiring aspect of living with sight loss can sometimes be too overwhelming and it leaves me feeling defeated. Constantly fighting for the support and assistance we’re entitled to and promised is draining. 

Things like this can often ignite a flame of inspiration that I use to craft most of my blog content but when one too many hurdles sneak into my path, it often means that I lose the zeal for scribing my thoughts on here. 

So, as I contend with this tiredness, bouts of inspiration are quite sporadic at the moment but I’m trying to embrace that. None of us can force or schedule creativity so I’m realising that the best content can only be motivated when I feel ready to create it. 

These bouts of inspiration are slowly pushing writer’s block aside day by day, so I’m just taking each week as it comes as I wait for the stream of ideas to fill back up again. 

There has been a lot of second guessing in the crux of life lately and I felt deflated when I inevitably couldn’t stick to my usual blogging schedule. I’ve felt a little frustrated when sight loss presented more challenges and when chronic fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks. But I’ve also felt proud of some moments, I never thought I’d be travelling independently to Buxton of all places, sometimes we just have to hold on to those moments. 

So the truth is that I’ve felt a little disillusioned with not only the blogging world but sight loss too. Life presents challenges sometimes and as those have come hand in hand with the onset of winter, it’s safe to say that I’ve been feeling the blues.

As other health issues have taken hold as well, I’ve felt like I haven’t been able to make the most of my time over the last few weeks, they’ve felt a little vacant and, because of that, my thoughts have been peppered with a frenzy of doubt and a tinge of sadness as I felt disconnected from the words I tried to type. 

There are a host of other feelings that I could talk you through but I’ll leave them dormant for a little while longer. For now, although there’s no real excitement in what I’ve written today, I think I needed this in order to slowly ease myself back in to blogging again.

I’m not quite there yet as I need to get back into the swing of taking outfit photos again, we’ll have to make do with these old ones for now but the next set will see me without my braces (that’s another thing that’s happened in the last 6 weeks and after four and a half years with them, I’m very relieved to finally have them off).

It’s been refreshing to write something a little shorter than usual. Sometimes I feel like a 2500 worder can be a tad intense so it’s good to sit to the backdrop of the wintery landscape and have a little catch up. 

Please bare with me as I try to find my feet in this blogging world again, my schedule might be rigid for a few weeks yet but I’m excited to settle back into my online space. 

If you’re a blogger too, I’d love to know if you experience some of the feelings I’ve mentioned in this post. We all go through spells of feeling unmotivated and uninspired and I think it’s good to hear that we’re not alone in that. What helps you to get those creative juices flowing?

Elin x