First off, I would like to say hello and thank you for stopping by to read my blog!
If you have found yourself this far down my little rabbit hole, you may already know that my name is Courtney, and that I’m the mind behind everything here at Obsess Daily! However, over the past few weeks of posting content here, I realized that you guys don’t know very much about me beyond that. With that in mind, I thought I would share a slightly more personal post so we can all get to know each other a little better!
Perhaps, I should start by addressing the elephant in the room: why did I start blogging?
To answer this question, I’ll have to take you back about six years when I was a high school freshman. Back then, I was a reserved, 14-year-old girl who struggled in the areas on self-confidence and self-respect. I had a small, close group of friends who made me feel loved and supported. However, they never really knew about my inner demons. I’ll admit, most people still don’t, but that’s a story for another blog post.
Despite my amazing friends, I felt that the only way I could truly be myself was through some sort of creative outlet. I know some of you may be thinking that this is where I discovered my passion for writing. And, in short, yes, that’s where things began. But, this story is a little more complicated than that.
You see, my first real love was music. In those days, music provided me with an escape from the troubles of every day life (as troublesome as it could be for a 14-year-old). I remember spending countless hours up in my room, learning to play my favorite songs as well as writing a few of my own.
I’ll be honest, there was a part of me who always dreamed of a life on the road, playing shows with songs that represented who I truly was. But, there was another part of me who always knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle that sort of career. Sure, it all sounded glamorous. But, to me, it always seemed that the people in those fields were a lot more poise than I could ever be. And, no matter how elegant things seemed, I always found the whole idea a bit overwhelming. Plus, on a slightly more embarrassing note, I never felt that I was all that great at music.
However, I didn’t want to let those kind of things stop me from doing something that I love. Moreover, I still felt that I had a voice and a head full of ideas that deserved to be heard. I just wasn’t quite brave enough to share them yet. And, even if I was, I wasn’t exactly sure how to get my ideas out into the world.
Fast forward four years to my senior year of high school. In that time, I had moved out of my small hometown in eastern Georgia, to a suburban neighborhood about 45 minutes outside of Atlanta. It was there that I made new friends, gained a small portion of well needed confidence, and discovered new passions.
This, my friends, is when I realized what I really loved about music. As you may have guessed, that love was writing. I always felt safe when expressing myself through words. But, I always found it difficult to get out everything I wanted to say about a certain topic in one single song. I mean, we all know that I, if nothing else, love to ramble. So, of course, the songs that I wrote were often long and messy. However, when I wrote out my rants in a journal or on the notes section of my phone, I could get all of my ideas out in a clear, organized fashion.
This was when I decided that I may have a future in writing, and applied for college to study media based journalism. From here, it didn’t take long for me to decide that starting a blog may be something that I would really enjoy.
I bought Obsess Daily at the end of my first semester of college. At that time, I had originally planned to write posts about my favorite artists in the music industry (One Direction, anyone?). In short, I wanted to be a “professional” fangirl and, with my love for music, I couldn’t fail, right? However, I found that writing in a music niche was very fast paced. That, on top of my lack of knowledge regarding the blogging world, I began to feel burnt out and lost interest after a few short posts.
Fast forward again to June of 2016, when I stumbled onto an email account that I had created for Obsess Daily. At this time, I had just left a writing position that didn’t really feel like “me.” I knew that I still wanted to write, but I also knew that I wanted to do so in a place where I felt safe to be myself.
That’s when I realized something: there was simply no better place to be myself than on a blog that I started. Plus, I had gained valuable experience in my first two years of college, which made me feel more optimistic about taking on this project for the second time.
Over the course of about a week, I had redesigned Obsess Daily’s look, moved the site from Tumblr to WordPress, and decided on a new niche–lifestyle, beauty, and fashion. I had also created the tagline “lifestyle obsessions,” which I felt covered the general idea of the blog. Within the few weeks that followed, I had planned out and written up about 20 or so blog posts, and eventually began regularly posting content.
In the few short weeks since then, I have already grown so proud and loving of Obsess Daily. As you may have noticed from the essay I just wrote for you, I haven’t exactly followed through with anything the way I have with this. I know it’s still early, but I don’t plan on giving up this time. I ultimately believe that this may be the start of something that I have been waiting for (or at the very least, a greatly beloved hobby). Yes, it’s easy to get discouraged, especially with the crazy successful bloggers in this niche. But I know, I’ll never get anywhere, in any field, if I don’t persevere.
I’m so sorry for the length of this post and thank you to anyone who’s reading this (as I said, I love to ramble). I hope you enjoy what you see here and come back to join me on this new chapter in my life.
Yours Truly,
Courtney