Hello there old friends

After so long away, I’ve been kind of scared to write this post…

2014 was the worst year of my life. I struggled with unemployment, loved ones with serious illnesses, the loss of beloved pets, rifts within the family. All of which culminated in that seemingly, oh-so-overused diagnosis: depression.

Depression is sneaky. It makes you doubt it’s even there. Depression is so different for each person who suffers from it, it makes you doubt your own experiences. ‘Am I really depressed?’ you wonder. ‘Maybe I’m just going through a rough patch. People have it so much worse than me, I’m being stupid.’ It was this sneaky little voice in the back of my head that took me so long to admit I had a problem. Depression runs in my family, but I still felt like I should be sadder, should be more broken, to truly be ‘depressed’. It never occurred to me that depression can manifest itself in so many ways: problems sleeping, loss of motivation, feeling helpless and useless, even changes in appetite and diet. More often than not, depression isn’t crying all the time, it’s a dull numbness to everything.

I often see my fellow bloggers sharing their experiences feeling burnt out on blogging. For me it was the opposite, I had been feeling burnt out on life. Burnt out on job interviews; on rejection letters; on bad things happening to the people I care about; burnt out on being me. Blogging was one of the few happy things in my life. But as I said before, depression is sneaky. It takes away the things you care about, sometimes just by pure apathy. When everything else sucks, you start to lose motivation even for the good things.

My story is not unique. You don’t need to know the little details to understand what I went through. We all go through periods in our lives where things become so overwhelming that it’s hard to see the light. And if, like me, you are someone who found it difficult to keep it all together, there is one thing I want you to know: it’s okay. 

I cant promise things will get better (although they probably will). I can’t claim that you will never feel like this again (chances are, you may struggle for a long time to keep these feelings at bay). I can’t even tell you that I understand exactly what you are going through because, I’m not you, and everybody suffers in their own way. What I can tell you is that you are not broken. This doesn’t make you weak. You can get through this.

More recently, things have been looking up. I have a new kitten (there is nothing in the world that can’t be improved with a baby animal around!), I have a great new job. After a long stretch of bad luck things are finally looking up! And with that, I am starting to feel like I can return my passion to things that I truly enjoy; like sharing fun things with you guys!

Although I have touched on these things here and there, I was hesitant to share my real feelings. I like to keep it all cupcakes and craft projects around here, but I feel I owe it to you guys to explain, not only my recent absence, but also my flaky track record over the last 12 months. The fact that you are reading this means that you have stuck with me, through the ups and downs, even if you didn’t know it at the time. Your ongoing support is something that means the world to me. Blogging has always been more than a hobby for me, and I couldn’t do it if not for you guys.

So, Thank You! It might take me a little while to fully get back into the swing of things, but I am feeling more inspired and more motivated than I have in a long time! I have a feeling things are only going to get better from here :)

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