Allowing Ourselves to be Three-Dimensional.

Hello, friends! Happy Wednesday! I am extra excited for this week to be done because I have a hair appointment on Saturday! EEP! I haven’t gotten it done since November! I am SO excited to get my roots done to continue my quest to look like Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde, aka my blonde inspiration. 😉

Today’s blog has been something I’ve been thinking of a lot lately, especially since getting more serious about my blog. Although this topic still applies to those who don’t blog, of course. I think it’s something that most people will be able to relate to.

How often are we expected, on the first day of class, to say our name and list three fun facts about ourselves? These icebreakers always caused me great turmoil. What should I say? What will others say? Will they like me? Would they like me better if I talked about my other interests?

We are all three-dimensional people with many interests and opinions. I think it’s quite common for us to try to find a niche for ourselves and then become disheartened when we don’t completely fit in. I think it’s a pretty common desire for humans to want to belong  somewhere, but gosh is it hard. As three-dimensional people, we have interests and hobbies that may seem to not go together.

We cannot be defined so easily.

Being three-dimensional is hard enough in real life, but on the internet, I find it to be even more difficult.

My interests change day to day, and I want to be able to focus on all of them! I think that when we are interested in becoming a blogger, it’s difficult because we are on the search for our niche.

99.9% of the articles I’ve read giving blogging advice say to only blog about something very specific, say cooking, fashion, or simple living. They say that if one tries to cover too many topics, their readers will lose interest, as every post may not apply to them.

I will, respectfully disagree with this nugget of advice. As writers, we are not only interested in one topic. We need to give our readers the same faith that they are three-dimensional as well, capable of having many interests.  It is possible for people to have more than one interest.

I know that I do.

I like writing about my experiences, advice, slow living, cooking, fashion, and my faith. And in the future, there will probably be even more that I want to write about. I hate the idea of only showing one side of myself on my blog. I don’t think that it would be very honest of me to do that.

It’s hard trying to determine what sort of blog style you fit under, I haven’t been able to find one that I feel fits perfect. I like the term lifestyle blog because it is so vague, which allows me to still blog about everything I’d like to.

Some bloggers come from business and marketing backgrounds, which allows them to be able to market themselves effectively. I, however, come from no such background and am naive to the world of marketing.

There are so many lovely online personalities that I follow that talk about their worry of branching out to different topics, because they think their audience won’t respond well to it. It makes me so sad. We shouldn’t have to shove ourselves into a niche just so that people will consume our content.

It’s hard enough being ourselves in person, why add another area to our life where we try and make ourself into something/someone that we’re not?

And I personally don’t see why people advise bloggers to only write about very specific topics. When I find a blogger, I enjoy if they talk about many different things. That way you can relate to them on a different level. Hey, I like cooking AND sewing, too! 

We can like things that may seem to contradict each other. Maybe we like scary movies but we also like Disney cartoons. Perhaps we like wearing beautiful floral dresses AND a black pair of jeans with Doc Martens. There’s no reason we can only like one or the other. If that’s the case, why do we feel the need to portray only one? I don’t know!

I can’t tell you how many times someone would ask me, “Oh, what’s your favorite movie?” and my brain would scramble to find something that people would think was cool, because they expected something indie or obscure. The truth to this question? Legally Blonde and The Sound of Music. Why did I feel the need to act as if everything I liked was so hipster and cool? Silly Mattie from a few years ago. Silly!

We cannot change what other’s perceive us as. We just have to know that we are more than that. We cannot continue to squeeze ourselves in a niche, just because of what we look like, or something of the like. We are all more complicated than anyone could imagine. And we are allowed to express and pursue all of our interests.

This is why I’m so thankful to all of my lovely readers. You let me write about whatever I feel the need to, and enjoy it all the same! I love that this blog has allowed me to keep in better touch with family and friends that I don’t get to see much. Thankful, always thankful.

XOXO,

Mattie Mae