Renaming: new blog, new era

I started this blog back in 2012 (I think. It could have even been 2011 actually...I think I archived a few posts...)

I had moved abroad and was also at the same time just discovering the internet properly, having wifi at home, and freedom/independence for the first time in my life.

This blog has gone through various names, but around 2012/13 it became 'Life Lenses', which makes me cringe a little now. This was a bit of a coping mechanism after my first big break up and subsequent rebound break up. I was trying to work out who I was after a huge part of my identity had been lost through the relationship(s), through moving to a different culture, speaking a new language, studying something unfamiliar, eating different food, stopping nearly all the hobbies I used to do, dressing completely differently (slightly through being judged in this new culture), and suddenly starting to feel unfamiliar with the English language due to speaking weird 'international English' with non-native speakers so much. Not anybody's fault! Just a truck load of different things hitting me at the same time.

I started to take the blog a little more seriously around 2013, and it was something that was there with me through a series of traumatic events into 2014. I kept it up as escapism, as I moved back to Scotland. In fact I think those were the years I posted the most.

In 2014 it got shortlisted for a Company magazine blog award, I got offered a few freebies (a very strange and random selection: a necklace, a restaurant dinner in a vodka bar, eco products, alpha alpha growing pots, an Instax camera, a trip on a seabird watching ferry... )
I had quite a bit of a traffic to the blog at a certain point, and a bit of a local Edinburgh readership too.
I ended up at the Edinburgh Fashion Festival in 2014, and managed to blag a pass into the after show party.

I used this place to write about my feelings, films I liked, places I went, and cakes.

Often it's been a place to go when things have been less great for me.

Once I started my second uni stint, this time in London, in September 2014 - I started blogging a little less. I had other things going on.

When I look back over the posts, the years look like this:

2012 - 13 posts
2013 - 49 posts
2014 - 85 posts
2015 - 36 posts
2016 - 35 posts
2017 - 41 posts
2018 - 23 posts
2019 - 4 posts
2020 - 0 (now 1)


My life / work situation is very different now in 2020.

I have been in my current workplace for 1 year and almost 3 months, it's a good steady income. I have a nice flat, I am not running around in such a flighty way.
I intend to work more seriously in journalism / communications / film - and I have a more professional website for that purpose ( www.catrionaosullivan.com ).

I'm told that 'brand' matters, people talk of 'digital footprint'.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. I haven't quite worked out my 'brand' and I feel like something so static doesn't quite work on humans. I don't suppose 27 year old me will be the same as 37 year old me.

Part of me feels nostalgic when I look through these old posts, and I will archive a great deal of them. But I also think it's time to change up what the purpose of this blog is.

Right now we are in the middle of the whole COVID-19 thing, and change is in the air, but it also isn't.

I can see how things could look very differently for the world after all this (whenever - if ever - 'after' is). It already looks different. But there is also a huge push for things to go back to 'normal'. I don't want 'normal' either. I suspect we will eventually end up somewhere in-between.
I was already in a transition phase in life (well, aren't we all?), but I had been planning to leave the country I live in (Belgium), planning to change jobs (have been hoping to leave since around October 2019 - so about 8 months ago). I don't really enjoy living in Belgium, and the job doesn't suit me very well. At least, while I am still in my twenties, I want to try to do fun exciting creative projects.
There was always a reason for not leaving, for not moving on to another thing. (Mostly fear).
It helps that now in May 2020 I am more financially secure for a jump like that. But now, just when I was about ready to go for it: fights cancelled, travel banned, people getting fired or 'furloughed', jobs drying up, nobody hiring (seemingly), nothing feels secure, and I have a very acute awareness of the quality of healthcare systems. Now is not a good time to be quitting a job or moving country. Let's see.
I hope I can see my family over the summer somehow, and then - if I'm lucky - I can start a new job and/or Masters course in the UK or Italy. 'Hunkering down' somewhere that I can work/study mostly remotely for the next year seems like a good idea, given we have no idea about when a second wave (or more) might be, and the job market / economy is likely to be very unstable for the next while.
It makes me want to get funding for some kind of long term project or studies, makes me want to have a place with a vegetable patch & chickens, and makes me want to campaign for better support for those worse off than me.


This isn't really about the blog at all, but about how I need change - I am changing as a human and my 'digital' me needs to change too.

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