It’s 11 Years Today, Since I…

…Started Raindrops of Sapphire! I founded this fashion blog on the 10th March 2010 and I cannot believe that 11 years has gone by already. I shot these photos yesterday with my mum, and in all honesty, I had forgotten that it was my blog’s birthday today, but as it turns out, these photos actually ended up being perfect for this personal post. There’s something about them that embodies a more confident, powerful vibe that I’ve been feeling lately. I don’t know if it’s the trousers and heels combination, but I really love how it turned out. I will briefly tell you about the outfit at the bottom of this post, but first, I’ll share my thoughts at the moment with you!

Where I’m at right now is definitely a good place, for the most part, but I also have my ups and downs. Like everyone around the whole world has felt this year, it’s been absolutely insane and crazy. None of us could have predicted that we would be in the midst of a global pandemic, and hardly any of us have been able to handle it with grace and positivity. It’s been extremely worrying, depressing, and quite frankly, life changing, especially for myself. I never thought that I’d be celebrating my blog’s 11th birthday this way, especially as the lockdowns have been on and off for a year now, but here we are.

One thing that this has taught me is that I shouldn’t take everything for granted. Just the simple act of going out to eat lunch, see my family, and just simply going for a picnic in the park… those were things that I just did, and thought nothing of, and now I can’t. All of my plans (especially going to America) have been put entirely on hold because of travel bans, and maintaining relationships with people via FaceTime alone, not being able to be in person, has had its challenges.

I have matured a lot in the last year. I’ve started saving a lot of money, investing money, and planning my future with a lot more depth and consideration than I ever have done before. In the past, my future was just something that was ‘in the future’, if that makes sense, and now, I’m really getting on track. I didn’t expect to be single at 32, especially after being in such a long term relationship for over a decade, but here I am, waiting to start again. I’ve felt like I’ve been stuck in limbo, with my life out of my control, because trying to date or start a new relationship in the middle of Covid has been extremely difficult and exhausting. I’m very grateful for a special American person who I’ve been with on FaceTime, for many months now, but that’s also been really painful because of the travel ban. In all honesty, I’m just longing for that travel ban to be over and to be able to fly to America.

As someone who values stability, routine, and control in her life, this past year has been incredibly challenging. Pushing my boundaries and my limits to breaking point sometimes, so I’ve had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows at the same time. However, it has made me grow so much as a person. I’ve become more used to uncertainty and change, I’ve learned to focus a lot more on myself, I’ve become more confident in who I am and what I want, and even though I do still have bad days filled with anxiety and tears, I am a much stronger person inside. With every part of my wall that breaks down, it repairs itself stronger. Motivational and self help videos have been really beneficial, but surprisingly, social media hasn’t been. Not to my mental health.

I’ve noticed now that so many ‘influencers’ are just trying to look successful and rich, and show off their best life. Which, more often than not, doesn’t exist. When you think about how many shots it took to get that perfect picture, how much editing went into it, how much re-shaping and face-tuning of their body is on it, and more… it’s left me with an empty feeling in my stomach. I was getting lost for a while, comparing myself to all of these other social media people, wondering exactly why they look like that, when in reality, most of them don’t even look like that, as everything is edited to absolute perfection, which is not really possible in reality. As everything moves more and more to online, the fakeness ups its game, and I’m just getting tired of social media in general. I’ve always prided myself on being natural, not editing my body (I used to edit my legs years ago to make them longer because I thought that’s what was more acceptable), but I embrace everything as it is now, naturally.

The funny thing is though, I still feel inadequate sometimes, because I haven’t edited my pictures to look absolutely perfect. To meet that ‘standard of beauty’. It’s so damaging though because I’ve noticed that when I look back on some of my older photo shoots, I feel an emptiness in my stomach. I look back and think “wow, those times were amazing! Look how good I looked, it was such a beautiful location” etc., but then when I think abut it, I remember how long it took to get those perfect shots and how stressed out I actually was when I could have been enjoying doing something different. I’m not saying at all that I dislike my job, I don’t, I love it, and I am very proud of myself for creating what I have done, but I’ve realised that I got lost in a virtual world for so long, and 99% of everything in that virtual world is fake, so it’s been eye opening spending some time in reality.

I’m in a catch 22 position at the moment though. I need to use social media for my work, and social media is pretty much the only form of human communication I have now due to Covid, so I think I need to try and distance myself from getting swallowed up into how fake everything is, mistaking it for reality, in order to be more healthy. Being successful in life is about being happy with your life, being able to support yourself, and building something meaningful. Something I’ve realised a lot of over the last decade, is that I love all of you and I love being able to share my thoughts with you here. Health, mental health, and fashion, while remaining honest and authentic, has always been my priority, and I stand by that more than ever now, as I realise that as the years go by, it’s so hard to distinguish between what’s authentic and what isn’t. What are your thoughts on it?

With all that being said, thank you to all of you here that support me and especially to those of you who have been here for the 11 years. You’re incredible and I’m lucky to have you! I know about 95% of you are just readers, as I can tell from how many views I get, compared to my comments, but please do say hi! Take this blog post as an opportunity to say hi as I would love to meet you properly. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Outfit Details – Both my trousers and the cropped knitwear here are by Zara, and I adore them! I took the trousers in size small and the knit in size medium, and I didn’t actually plan on wearing them together. I was trying the pieces on from my order and I saw how great they looked as an outfit! I finished it off with my Christian Louboutin Pigalle Heels and then my brand new Jacquemus Le Chiquito Noeud Pink Bag. I will be reviewing this bag very soon for you too! It’s absolutely adorable! Let me know what you think of this outfit and what I’ve written! Lorna xx.