Alice Catherine

As lockdown measures and general restrictions seem to ease, I’ve found myself stuck at a bit of a crossroads situation. In a work sense, I’ve really been thinking long and hard about how and WHY I create – what I want this corner of the internet to stand for, and ultimately, what makes me feel happy and most at fulfilled…

I’m aware that I don’t have the most important job in the world, nor do I feel that every person who exists must have a job that’s profoundly important or vital to the planet in order for it to be fulfilling. After all, the most important roles we have are the ones we nourish away from work amongst our friends and family members. The ability to even contemplate the direction of our financial roles is a huge privilege in itself, and definitely not one that I take for granted after years of working various jobs that made me deeply unhappy.

However, I do believe that it’s important to feel connected to the work that we do in order to feel more at peace – I need to feel as though the messages I’m sending through my creations are ones that align with my world away from social media… 

My main takeaway from this reflective period is how vital it is for the human race to slow down. This is something I want to reflect in my work going forward – even when I’m sharing travel content again at some point. I want to say no to more meaningless events that don’t add value to my life, and I want to say yes to more personal experiences that do. 

I want to spend less time on trains to coffee meetings that don’t lead anywhere, and more time working on personal developments and working on my mental and physical health. I want to swim, and cycle, and see friends that I never end up getting the chance to see – I want to make less excuses and more memories that aren’t just for posting on Instagram. I want to slow down and celebrate more, rather than just immediately focusing on the next mountain to climb. I want to deal with trauma that gets overlooked and swept under the rug when life is busy. I want to stop glamourising this idea that ‘busy’ means successful and happy, and be confident in the fact that a slower life is the healthier and more sustainable option all round. Not only for our mental and physical health but also for the planet and the people around us. From my experience, busy periods can be really fun, but they pretty much always come with a price to pay when you finally come crashing back down to reality again. 

I’m always striving for more balance in my life and it can feel like this endless unobtainable thing when you’re a freelancer. Most of the time, balance feels like an impossible achievement – always out of reach. 2020 has felt particularly quiet and uninspiring on the work front, which might mean that 2021 is ‘all systems go’ and many of us will be hideously burnt out at the end of it. It does sort of feel like a tidal wave of repercussions are on the way, and I don’t want to get swept up in the idea that I need to be here, there, and everywhere in order to make up for this sense of ‘lost time’ that many of us have felt this year. In so many ways, it hasn’t been lost time at all – many of us have taken a real step back to examine the ways in which we have been living, and many of us have found a lot of new meaning. What if 202o wasn’t time lost, but time found – time reclaimed.

Regular readers of this blog will know that my content on here has always had a very personal tone, and that’s never something I would want to change. I don’t shy away from the parts of me that aren’t as appealing as my Instagram grid might be, and that’s why it’s important for this space to exist. This is where I open up to you guys and create community – my Instagram, is where I dream, and escape, and share my visual creations.

Despite the last few months feeling like a very reflective time, I still don’t feel like I have much clarity in terms of where I’d like my own career to go. I think many of us still feel a bit numb with everything that’s happening and continues to happen this year – many of us have been in a constant state of fight or flight, so it feels impossible to dwell on the long term too much. In the immediate sense, I just know that I want to continue to make meaningful content and hopefully content that connects with some of you and makes you feel less alone. None of us know what the next few months will look like, let alone what the future has in store. For now, all I know is that blogging makes me happy and I’ll continue to do it for as long as it does – beyond that,  I really don’t have any answers.

There’s different avenues I’d still love to explore within this industry, but then also things that I’d love to pursue in terms of female health and helping people in a more tangible way. I guess I just wanted to brain dump a bit, and I’m sure many of you have been feeling the same way. We don’t have to have things all figured out, especially during a global health pandemic. Personally, I’ve been finding huge comfort in the heightened sense of nowness. I haven’t taken things day by day for a long time, and that’s definitely something that 2020 has gifted to many of us. Whether forcefully or not, there’s so much to be learnt from it and so much possibility for positive change amongst all of this grey space. I know things will feel brighter and clearer eventually, and I’m trying to be patient with the process in the meantime… 

Photographs taken by Catherine Booty 

Cardigan c/o – Bellerose, Jeans c/o – Bellerose, Sandals c/o – Bellerose, Bag c/o – St Agni, Sunglasses – Gucci

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