i admit

1. I don't really know what kind of blogger I am. My outfit posts range from being very regular to scarce. I sometimes "write", whatever that means. I talk about my family. I talk about college. I talk about Niklaas. Sometimes I think I need to focus on one or two things, or focus on just one area which makes me wonder why people actually read my blog. Then again, I blog for me, more than anything. I like all of you lovely people and I'm so excited about how involved you all have been in the proces, but I do post what I want to post on a given day and maybe what I want is for my blog to be more concise for my own preferences and for my readers, too. 

2. I don't blog for my readers, but I do hope that I seem 'honest'. I'm not trying to act like I have this fabulous life that's 'worth blogging about'. Evvvvver!

3. I would blog the same way if I had zero readers or 5,000. Which is why I grow sincerely disappointed in bloggers that become a poster child for one brand. That's not to say that I don't wear clothes of that brand. In fact, I do! But an outfit post loses inspiration points when you're just wearing a 'c/o' dress in every post. I'd take Goodwill clothes mixed and matched together over that any day. I feel like speaking up against that kind of blogging can have some serious backlash, and I'm really not judging them for their choices, but I've found that their blogs lose a little bit of the 'awe' that drew me to their blog in the first place in that way. I want to read blogs that I can relate to. A 19 year old college student who doesn't have a salary nor dispensable money to throw on new clothes so that I don't repeat anything at all on my blog. Even if I wasn't 19, I feel like a majority of us 'personal style' readers don't have the kind of money to do that and we like seeing repeated items on their blogs. 

4. I once received word that a person who knows me in real life was disappointed in how often I talked about my relationship on this blog. I let that soak in. I thought about it a lot and why that seemed to be the case. I could only come up with two reasons. One, that he takes almost all of my 'outfit posts' for me and I usually end up talking about whatever we were doing before/during/after we took pictures. Two, that being nineteen, I'm continually learning about what the word 'relationship' means. I figure that out through writing. It's never the same at any moment and that is fascinating to me. I'm always trying to figure out 'right now'. I think my blog is also where my miscellaneous/random thoughts get stored and isn't always an accurate portrayal of what my day/life actually looks like. I would probably think the same thing if I didn't know me and know that he isn't my whole life (so far from the truth). When it comes down to it, he is my boyfriend, but he's my best friend too and a lot of my favorite memories consist of our adventures that would be the same if they'd been shared with my other friends as well. I am sorry if it's disappointing, but it is a blog and just a blog, not my life. I actually do wish I posted more pictures of my roommates and our many adventures but I have found that I really don't take that many pictures! My roommates do but those all go on facebook. 

5. I don't take myself seriously, at all. I'm really just me. But regardless of all the 'blah' up there, gaining new readers terrifies me with the responsibility of remaining me and churning out the same quality of content that has kept you here. I do blog for me and that won't change as I blah-ed a whole lot about up above but I can't ignore all of your support and that means a lot to me. I love talking to all of you and I love answering your emails/tweets! I love the friends I've made here.

6. I'm not trying to say 500 readers is a big deal, either.

7. I have a long list of guilty pleasures but I don't really feel guilty about them. 

8. I look back at some outfit posts and want to die. And then delete them, in that order. I'm still trying to figure out what 'my style' is and I still have a lot of learning to do as far as deciding what's flattering for me. More often than not, 'fun' is placed before 'flattering' but I like the freedom that being 19 offers in that regard! 

9. And... I admit that this post came about after I discovered (late, of course) of a website devoted to content on the internet in which forums allow people to discuss blogs. There was nothing about me there but reading the criticism other blogs received really made me think about my blog. Every single one of us probably has something that can be torn apart and I put myself in the snarky commenters shoes to decide what that was about my blog. It was actually very enlightening and I enjoyed that push. However, what I wish some people knew was that these blogs are just blogs. Disliking a blog or a person is fine! I'm all for it! There are some that I dislike! However, reading the comments made me wonder if there was anything a blogger could really do totally 'right' because everything could be construed as wrong. Reading the comments left for bloggers I know and love, I couldn't help but wish that I could tell them that while they did have some very valid and helpful points, how far are we willing to let the content of a blog pull on us? Will nagging on one blogger really change anything or make you feel better? I'm disappointed in where some blogs have gone but that's kind of just the way it is, no way around it. I'll never know if they are actually the way they seem on their blog, but that can't be prevented unless I met every single blogger. I'm happy to be here, to be inspired and maybe even to inspire others, but that's the extent of it all. Truly.