Heads up! Something that you may notice in my blog is that while some articles are in English and others in Bulgarian, the two are seldom direct translations of each other. Rather than spend time to do what Google Translate could probably accomplish quite well, I dream of expressing myself in both languages because… well, I want to. And it’s fun! So without further ado, here’s another look into my thoughts and mind as I start this huge adventure and open season on my newest blog! And yes, you read correctly — my newest blog, simply because it’s not my first. And trust me, there is a story.
Thing is, I’ve wanted to have a blog ever since I was a teenager. Who remembers the old timey Tumblr days? Yes, it was amazing. As a 15-16 year old, all I wanted to do after school was browse Tumblr into the late night, draw anime and plot my own characters and stories associated with various movies and series I liked. Basically fan fiction, but just from me to me. Probably sounds lame, but trust me, it was the most fun thing I could imagine. Music jamming in my ears, it’s 2am on a random Tuesday and I have to wake up at 6:40am, but fuck it, because you know what? I’m having fun and school is going to be boring anyways. With my iPod at the ready, life was still romantic and new. It was fresh and exciting. This was way before I got disillusioned with everything, but right around the time I still thought I had a chance to become a famous actress and go on to become a star on Disney Channel. Right around that time, I first started daydreaming about blogging and vlogging too.
“But if you wanted to start way back when, why didn’t you do it?”. Here’s the funny thing — even though I wanted it more than anything, my big problem was that I lacked the confidence. Truth be told, ever since I was about 12, I started believing that other people knew more than me and I had barely anything to offer. It sounds crazy from the perspective of who I am today. As a person, I am no longer this shy, insecure girl who hides in her own world as a coping mechanism to avoid standing up for herself because it might hurt some people. I’m no longer the people pleaser that I used to be until very recently, but the place where this has mostly stuck is with my creativity. See, I’ve always been a bit apprehensive of entering creative spaces, mostly because the big egos threaten me. I just want to create without the limitations of what someone thinks I should or shouldn’t do, but funnily enough when such limitations are imposed I simply have to follow. It makes it safer, but the thing is, life isn’t always about being ‘safe’ and feeling ‘secure’ and I seem to be on a journey to learn this first hand.
The first blog project I ever started was when I was in college and it was called “Paradoxical Simplicity“. Back then, I didn’t want to make the investment for a paid domain, so I opted for the wordpress.com free hosting plan. Honestly it hasn’t aged too well in terms of design, but the writing is still mostly there. There is no ‘About me’ page and no further contacts, as frankly, it was just there for me to itch the itch of self-expression. I started it when back home during a Christmas break, but wasn’t so consistent with it. Didn’t want to promote it too much either, because god forbid someone actually reads it. I was very shy and not too keen on sharing my writings with people, even though I felt constantly pushed to do so by some godly force. And because I also wanted to write in Bulgarian, I made another website called “Понякога” (read “Ponyakoga” or “sometimes” in Bulgarian), because, well, I sometimes wanted to write in Bulgarian. I rediscovered it during lockdown in 2020 and wrote an ‘About me’ page for this one, also cataloguing some of my older writings so they can be found online.
But see, despite this, I never stayed consistent. And because I realised the .com option for WordPress didn’t offer me a lot, I decided to opt for a hosting plan on WordPress.org instead. As it turns out though, back in 2020 things were a little convoluted, I had just dumped my PHP-knowing boyfriend and now had to set up a database… in PHP. I tried my best and hardest at that one, but what do you know! I decided to give it up in a months’ time with the very encouraging belief of “nobody is going to read it anyways, this idea sucks”. If you’re curious, the idea was very similar to this site you’re on right now, but it was called “The Weekly Bilingual” and was more of a online magazine type of concept. The idea was again for it to be written both in English and Bulgarian, and I even made a content calendar for it but to no avail. Not a single article was published and I even got a refund from the hosting company within 30 days. Foolish of me to even thing that it could work, but wait — there’s another one.
Say hello to “thoughts & pieces”, my latest project started in the summer of 2022 which had honestly shown how things were going in my spiritual awakening. On one hand, I was working as a copywriter and wanted to show my personal writing. On the other hand, I wanted to become a Creative Director, so I was making a catalogue of photos I had taken and putting them into collections that all had a rationale. It was quite fun at first, but the concept itself was quite dark. I wrote one of my favorite ‘About me’ pages to date and had the homepage read “Peek into the void and laugh at the chances” which was my motto at the time. But here’s the thing, the concept in itself was very dark and even though I didn’t want to be defined by my agency work, it still hit a certain stage of being more provocative than anything. And especially after I started healing from my burnout and depression, I began to see it for what it truly was — a vessel for my frustration and desire to prove myself for being creative and quirky, even though I already was that without a website. And while I was more than happy to redesign it into something brighter, my Squarespace costs largely outnumbered what I was willing to pay now that I was moving back to Bulgaria again.
And now we’re here! Honestly, I’m a firm believer that failure makes us stronger and wiser. With this site, I knew what to do, enlisted the help of a friend who I am incredibly grateful for (you can find her here) and focused on building something that can last. A concept that doesn’t just fit my mood, but fits my long-term goals and ambitions. It also fits my passion for rural living closer to nature, where I want to raise my children and become a better person by feeling connected to others and myself. Somewhere, where I can rant about self-development and growth, show photos of my chickens or simply share a poem or short story I wrote when sitting on a meadow. A platform I can use to inspire not just myself, but also other people who are curious about this type of life. And finally, a place where I can do it in two languages, set my own rules and create my own pace.
Because you know what? Life is short and given that I’ve tried this so many times, it’s clear that something is pushing me forward to pursue this dream. To create, share and write. Not only is writing my passion, but it’s something I love to do and something that comes naturally. While my previous dream was to make a career for myself by writing for someone else, my new dream is to do the same by writing what I want to write and creating what I want to create. And having fun.
So thank you for joining me for this journey! As 2024 slowly comes to an end, I’m looking forward to a lot of new things in the upcoming 2025 — one of which being to finally overcome my insecurities and be fearless in sharing my thoughts and life online for everyone to see. Yes, there could be hate or judgement or some kind of negativity, but I choose to focus on the positive and know that I deserve to follow my dreams and trust myself that everything will work out in the end. This time next year, I hope to look back to a year full of weekly blogging and so much content that I can’t possibly wrap my head around. And not just that, but more about it will come later.
For now, I’m wishing an amazing day and wonderful New Year celebrations!
Love,
Alex
