Can you believe it? One year of PaigeBackstage already??
One year ago today, I made this post on this very website. I was working at my dream job but being treated like total garbage. I had high hopes for this blog but didn’t know how to deal with the “conflict of interest” it caused with my career. I literally didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning (or the afternoon…or the evening) and I couldn’t stop comparing myself to other people my age who I perceived to be doing better than I was. I was getting in trouble for being such a downer and no one wanted to be around me. I felt like I was stuck in my own personal hell.
Today, things are different. I no longer work at my dream job, but maybe my dream was just the idea of the job anyway. I’m no longer surrounded by the people who made it their life’s work to stomp the light in my eyes into dust. Day by day, I’m finding new things I love to turn that light back on. I still want to sleep some mornings, but that’s because I’m ~not a morning person~ and I don’t drink coffee. When I compare myself to others these days, it’s because I want to learn from them and compare the different approaches we have to business/blogging. I want to do better so I can help others to do better as well.
Even though I’m far from the finish line as far as my life goals are concerned, things have changed drastically in the last year and I’m way closer now than I was on September 28, 2015. I don’t feel helpless or hopeless anymore. When I start to feel myself slipping into old habits, I now have a boyfriend who grabs me by the shoulders and says, “HEY! You’re spiraling. You’re great. Pull yourself out of it”. And I do. I have a community that I’ve found and surrounded myself with that’s full of young women who are huge music fans doing incredible things. YouTubers, journalists, bloggers, activists. Together, we’re showing the music industry that they’re missing out on a whole hell of a lot by dismissing fangirls. If you can’t find your place in the world, create it.
I feel like we have.
Happy 1st Birthday, PaigeBackstage.