Let's start again

I've written this post a thousand times in my head, meaning to one day sit down and type it out, but I haven't, until now. I've put it off for months since I didn't even really know what I wanted to say. I still don't, but I'm hoping that it will just come to me as I type. Okay, so here we go.

First off, I want to apologize for just kind of abandoning Le Quaintrelle and going MIA for awhile. I was having a hard time towards the end of last summer and  unfortunately the blog just sort of fell by the wayside. I felt like it kind of ran its course. I felt like I didn't have anything else to say, not that I've ever really had anything to say, but I felt like I couldn't put myself out there anymore. Blogging was starting to become a chore; another deadline, another form of competition with others. It was unnecessary stress in my life. So I stopped. I didn't make a concrete decision of "Okay, I'm done." I tried to still post, though sporadically, but my heart wasn't in it. Finally I just stopped altogether. Even as I type this I'm thinking, "why am I even explaining all of this? Nobody cares, you're embarrassing yourself." But I feel like I couldn't just reappear after a 4 month hiatus and pick right back up and not acknowledge what happened or where I've been. So here's the Cliff's Notes version: Last summer my anxiety got overwhelming (yeah, I still deal with that), I wanted to go away and hide and not feel like I had an obligation to put myself out there anymore. So I deleted my Facebook and stopped blogging (I was still around on  Twitter but that account should just be called "Emily's Word Vomit" so it doesn't really count). Anyway, it felt really good to just live life without having this nagging feeling of "oh I have to document this for my blog!" or "Wait until my Facebook friends that I haven't seen in real life since high school hear about this!" I read books and watched movies and focused on school and grew in my faith and I was happy. It was like a cleanse for my life.

So if you loved it so much, why didn't you marry it you say. Well, I asked and it said we were better off just friends which is totally fine I'm not even upset about it. But if I'm being honest-- I'm five months out from finishing college and frankly I don't know what I'm going to do with myself after I graduate. I would like to enroll in the school of life and I would like a place to talk about it. I really like writing, and I really want a place to do it, and instead of starting over completely, I thought why not just start back up the platform that I've already established? But this time, differently.

Before it was mainly about fashion and my outfits and while I still like that stuff, it's not a main focus in my life anymore. Let's be honest--I don't fit into the "fashion blog" genre nor into any of my clothes anymore. I don't want to wear high heels to Target just to get an outfit photo. I don't even leave my house long enough to justify dirtying a fashionable outfit. And frankly, I'm starting to like blending in with the crowd. I don't want attention (okay, sometimes I want attention) but for someone who has to mentally prepare themselves to just leave the house, I don't need the added awkwardness of being gawked at because of what I'm wearing. I'm not even that fashionable but for some reason, where I live, wearing a dress and tights gets people asking you, "what are you so dressed up for?" Also, I've always felt like fashion blogging was a community I never really fit into. I loved visiting blogs and seeing what other people wore, but I never felt like I stood out enough to be considered original or fashion-forward. And frankly, for as much as I like fashion, a lot of the stuff I see in magazines and fashion sites I think, "who would even wear that?" and then sometimes when they would pose the question, "how would you style this piece?" I would find myself silently thinking, "by throwing it in the trash?" Which is so awful, I know, but sometimes I'm a bitter person and I'm working on it. (I would just like to stop here to note that I've been light-headed with anxiety for the past 5 minutes just writing this in anticipation of every possible response I can get from it. Deep breath. Let's try to wrap this up.).

So all that to say this: I want to come back, but it's going to be different around here. For those of you who followed me for said fashion-related things, you might not be interested in the direction I want to take Le Quaintrelle. I hope you are though, because I would really love to have you. But if you're not, that's okay and I won't take it personally, because I can't let myself take it personally. If I'm going to start blogging again, I can't make my motivation how many followers I can get or how many sponsors want to buy ads or how many page views and clicks and key words this post got in this particular time frame and yadda yadda yadda. Because that is ridiculous. I mean, yeah, if you're making your blog a business then maybe you need to know those numbers, but I can't start this again thinking I'm going to make a business out of it because I will be so miserable and sadly disappointed. Unless, of course, I can convince someone to pay me to write Le Quaintrelle and make this my livelihood then that would be awesome. But that's not realistic, so let's just squash those pipe dreams right now.

So this is what I want to come back to do: I want to write. And I want to talk about things like books and movies and yeah, sometimes even fashion. And I want to tell you stories and post pretty things that make me happy and realize how beautiful things can be. I don't want to put a limit on anything. I don't want to find a niche. I just want this to be me. I want this to be my journal, or a scrapbook, even if some of (or maybe the majority of) the posts aren't even about me. Maybe I'll post an outfit photo, or maybe I won't, I don't know. Every day I feel different, like I'm sure a lot of you do as well, so who knows what I'll want to talk about from day to day.  But that's what's fun about it, right? Tell me that sounds like fun. Please?

Okay, let's try this again: Hi, my name is Emily and this is Le Quaintrelle. By definition a Quaintrelle is a woman who emphasizes a life of passion expressed through personal style, leisurely pastimes, charm, and cultivation of life’s pleasures, and my goal is to make this blog a documentation of just that. In the words of Willy Wonka, "I hope you enjoy it... I think you will."

I think I'm going to pass out.