Returning to Blogging After Four Years

Philosophical thought - "If a blogger returns to blogging but doesn't write a post about it, did she even return at all?"

I write this post with baited breath. Well actually, that's a little dramatic. I'm writing it in my pyjamas at 9pm on a Wednesday evening. My fiancé is tapping away on his laptop next to me, my feet are cold, and I've forgotten to make myself a cup of tea. It's a very different scene to when I first started blogging almost eight years ago. 

After looking through my old Facebook posts, I can trace the first mentions of my blog back to May 2015. Freshly reeling from a breakup with a boring boy whose mum told him he could model (am I still bitter about that?) and burnt out from my AS Levels, I started posting my thoughts and feelings online. 

As a project for my English Language class, we had to analyse and emulate another person's style of writing and I chose Zoella. I studied her chatty, fun blog post on her favourite LUSH products, and used it to craft my own around Soap & Glory. I turned in the homework and received excellent praise from my teacher, then went home and posted the whole thing online. That was my first ever blog post, and I caught the blogging 'bug' that lasted for almost three consistent years before dying out quickly in 2019.

My last post on this blog was a goodbye. I wrote how I no longer needed blogging in my life. How it had become a chore to me and I had found new ways to spend my time. That I felt comfortable in my skin and no longer needed to seek out the validation of strangers on the internet. I don't believe that was true. It was just manifesting in a different way (hello, Instagram.)

I ended that last post with "hopefully in a few months I'll be able to dust it off and pick back up where I left off." It took almost four years, but I'm suddenly feeling that spark again. 

It came not as a slow realisation, but as a huge wave of longing. Only this morning I saw a Facebook memory pop up about my blog and how proud I was of it. I looked at the photos, those carefully-curated, painstakingly-perfected photos, and it suddenly hit me that I wanted to do that again. I wanted to write. I wanted to take photos. I gave in to the nostalgia and searched for Dainty Alice online. Thrilled to see it was no longer linked to an adult entertainment site (long story) I re-purchased the domain, MY domain, and set to work un-archiving posts and recreating my website, with the valiant help of the Wayback Machine.

Putting my thoughts online will always be a part of me, but I don't crave the audience to read them. It's very unlikely that anyone beyond my mum and curious work colleagues will read this, but that's no longer my goal. I want to write, because I love to write. It's the written version of loving the sound of my own voice. Judging by my rambling Goodreads reviews, it's laughable that I didn't realise that sooner.

I am no longer that hurt, lonely teenager who craved kinship in the form of shopping sprees and online 'besties'. I have new hobbies, new friends, new values and views on the world. But I am still Dainty Alice. 

And I'm so glad I found her again.

Alice x