It’s Been Awhile, Let’s Talk ♡

Wow. It has been two whole months since I’ve opened up my WordPress dashboard. My last book review was never intended to be my “last post” for this long. My last booktube video was not supposed to be the last one I made this year. But like most things in 2020, unexpected stuff happened and I simply decided that I just needed to take a break.

---

A life update/why I left.

---

It’s been quite a year, friends. December is usually a happy month for me. It marks the time of the year when I start feeling a type of anxious excitement as I begin to reflect on the year that has passed and dream of what the year ahead of me will look like. You know what I mean—the type of anxious excitement you feel when you think of new hobbies you want to start up and new promises you swear you’ll keep to yourself in the next 365. The type of anxious excitement that comes with a prospective fresh start.

And while I am happy to say that I am finally feeling those feelings now, by comparison, the last few months have been quite rough for me.

It’s odd. When the pandemic began back in early Spring, I think I coped pretty well with the sudden changes that were made to my life. Like many students around the world, I moved home from my on-campus college and enrolled in Zoom University. I started working from home. While sheltered in place in my childhood bedroom, I wondered what kind of havoc this invisible virus was going to wreak on the world (and havoc it has wreaked). But somehow, through it all, I still…functioned. I still did well in school. I still worked as normal. I still felt energized to keep up with my hobbies. My inspiration tank was still full despite the chaos happening around me.

And while I am happy that I made it through spring and summer feeling okay, things began to change for the worse starting early fall. I no longer had the motivation to pick up a book and read it. Blogging consistently became impossible with the work and class schedule I had set up for myself. And the idea of making booktube videos, where my energy is usually infectiously upbeat (so I’ve been told), was completely out of question. My inspiration to be in this world of content creation had simply run dry, and I did not have the energy to pretend like it hadn’t. This, coupled with some interpersonal issues that happened, just completely shut me down. I had to remove some pressure in order to heal.

Thankfully, I am on the mend! (Or, at least I believe I am as I’m writing this blog, but who knows. Every day is different). One thing that this year has taught me without a doubt is that mental health is seriously important. I know, you’re probably like “yeah, no duh Cierra,” but 2020 has seriously given me a concrete example of how important prioritizing it is.

There is more I can say, but to avoid spilling my entire life on the internet, I’ll leave it there. To the handful of people who noticed my absence and took time out of your days to send me a DM and check on me, know that it meant a lot to me even if I didn’t say so. Thank you for caring about me. I am doing better as of now, and I am hopeful I will continue to regain my strength ♡

---

So, what’s happening for me in 2021?

---

The short answer is I have no idea. I’m not moving into 2021 with any grand expectations of becoming an entirely new person. We’re still in the midst of a horrific pandemic that is still killing thousands of people in the U.S. every single day. I think it’s safe to say that 2020 has really shown us that the “new year, new me” concept that pops up around this time doesn’t mean a damn thing when there are so many things that are out of your control.

So for now, the only aspiration I have for 2021 is to continue being resilient. I’m not putting pressure on myself to learn a new skill or have my life goals figured out by December 2021. All I know for sure is that I am ready to return to blogging and uploading because it gives me strength and confidence. Reading books and writing critical reviews allows me to expand my mental boundaries, educates me, and helps strengthen the literary skills I pride myself on having. And making booktube videos where I get to share my happy energy and practice video editing skills is so much fun for me and I’ve missed it a lot.

I’m not going to commit to a blogging schedule as of yet, but I’ll try to be on your WordPress readers at least once a week. I’m also hoping to keep my Sunday video uploads, but for that, I need to do some video idea brainstorming, which is what I’m going to go do as soon as this blog gets published!

For the new people who have been following and subscribing even though I’ve been absent—here is a formal welcome! I see the notifications and emails and I appreciate you joining me despite the radio silence. You’ll see more from me soon, so hopefully you’ll stick around.

For those who have been with me and wondered where the heck I went, sorry for the abrupt departure, but I am back. I’m going to try to catch up on some of your most recent posts and videos soon!

Here’s to better days ahead ♡