Blogging Has Changed Me.

So, my blog has been very quiet the last couple of months.. It didn't really help that my laptop broke (more than once - and still isn't right) but it's mostly down to the fact that I just haven't been in a blogging mood and have been feeling very negative about it. I still don't really know what I want to do. You can't force blog posts because the quality won't be there, I'm sure you can agree but not only that, if you're forcing yourself to write something then you're not enjoying it.. and whats the point of a hobby you're not enjoying?

The trouble is, my blog has changed me, not in a personality transplant kind of way but in a way that I find myself wanting and buying things I don't need but want because everyone else has it or my favourite bloggers made it sound amazing.. Or because I want to blog about it even though I know I'll probably rarely use it and will more than likely forget to blog about it anyway.. I don't like how I'm always wanting so much now. - Before blogging, I wouldn't have bought something for the sake of it, I'd only buy things I actually needed/knew I'd use. I feel like I was starting to become a little bit materialistic and was more focused on what to buy next. Obviously if money wasn't an option then it may not have been such an issue.

You may be aware that myself and Aaron are living on one wage due to nobody seeming to want to employ me. If I was working too then we could afford for me to buy things just to review them whether I needed them or not but we can't. It can bring me down sometimes wanting to have a spend and not being able to. I end up questioning my own blog and comparing myself to others who have more money to spend and have a list as long as my arms and legs of things I'd buy if I could which it gets depressing. A hobby that should be fun ends up bringing me down and that's never a good place to be.

I feel like I should have certain things in order to "fit in" in the blogging world and because I don't, it leaves me feeling like an outsider looking in all the time. If I had the money for things, my blog would probably be more successful. I'm well aware there are plenty of bloggers out there that are successful without rolling in it but there's only so much I feel I can do with no money to throw at it. Whether true or not, I sometimes feel like without money or a specific writing style, my blog will never go anywhere and I'll never gain the page views I hear others reaching or have regular readers that interact (comments on posts, talking on Twitter etc) with me on often enough that we become friends. I'm not big on numbers (although I wouldn't complain if I had more lol) but what would really make it for me would be to honestly say I've made friends through blogging. I'd also like to make it clear here that I'm not after a bunch of freebies from various companies, that isn't why I started to blog.

I think a lot of how I'm feeling about my blog has stemmed from how I'm feeling about myself and my life in general. Being unemployed is causing me so much stress (and Aaron too as he's been doing 12 hour days which leaves him feeling exhausted and me feeling guilty) which brings my mood down so much. I'm applying for jobs all the time but nothing is coming up. I'm glad I have the volunteering or I'd be going mad, no joke. I also have rubbish friends that let me down no end of times or don't want to know at all unless I contact them first, that's pretty crappy.. Plus there are a few other private factors that have made me feel down lately and when you feel like that about one thing, you start feeling like it about everything! My head hasn't been in the right place to carry my blog on lately.. This post has taken me around 2 weeks to write too!

I do want to blog. I just feel like I need to pick myself back up again first..