Multifaceted Everything

I recently had a conversation that was so illuminating; so freeing, yet so simple that I’d known it all along.

Everyone—everything—is multifaceted. So why do we keep trying to figure it all out? Why do we try so hard to put people or ideas or situations into boxes?

It simply can’t be done. And it doesn’t have to be.

Once I had this realization, I started to feel incredibly free.

Looking at the two pictures above, I feel so many things.

My bed. So comfy, so cozy. I’ve invested a lot into it. It’s beautiful. It’s my little nest. And it makes me feel good.

But it also reminds me of my nighttime anxiety. You see, I often wake up feeling bad. Bad bad. Like, I need it to be daytime so I can escape this feeling that something is going terribly wrong with me. That kind of bad.

My cat. My little angel. Sweet, cute boy who’s been by my side almost every day for the last 8 years. Looking at his face, I could cry of happiness.

But that same little face also makes me sad. It reminds me of how much he needs to get out of our current situation. Living in a small apartment, having to be separated from another cat. Having to spend hours on hours in a tiny bedroom, when what he really needs is to be running around chasing birds outside.

And perhaps the most difficult one of all: ourselves.

The current digital, self-promotion-oriented world pressures us to put ourselves in a box. Find your niche. Package yourself up into a pretty little box that people can easily digest—if they don’t understand you in the first 4 seconds, they will pass you right by.

But—but—I don’t want to put myself into a box. I don’t want to have a niche.

I am a little bit of everything, and I like it that way.

So, I share this little reminder to ease my own mind—and maybe yours, too.

We are all a lot of things. And maybe the best thing we can do is to realize that that’s exactly as we should be.

She’s back

I first started blogging waaay back in 2011—a full decade ago.

It was a humble beginning. I had very little photo skills, and an even smaller audience. I can remember refreshing my blog stats over and over again. My heart skipped a beat when I reached 70 hits in one day. “This is it!” I thought.

A few months later—by some form of cosmic magic—I landed myself a job as an in-house blogger for my absolute dream brand at the time: Free People. FP Brigette was my name. Sharing my (brand-aligned) life was the game. And I loved every minute of it.

Well, not every minute. It was stressful and overwhelming pumping out so much content—sometimes I couldn’t distinguish between real life and blog life. I would think in blog posts. Every activity I did; every new thought that I had—it all became spun into a post in one way or another.

But I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

I grew so much as a creator and a person. I never lost sight of how incredible it was to be working my dream job every day. And the best part, hands down, was the group of friends I made. Kindred souls. Creative partners. My close friends to this day. 💛

Over the years, my focus shifted from blogging to Instagram—I almost forgot about my personal blog altogether. Then one day, about a year ago, I typed the URL into my browser, and there was nothing there. Years of posts, gone.

“Ah well,” I thought. “I have all the memories. Instagram is my love, anyway.”

And it totally is. I love Instagram. Sharing my life in bite-sized pieces and getting glimpses into other people’s. I love the community I have on there. My virtual pals. They really are a support system. And I’m not planning on leaving anytime soon.

But there are things I don’t love, too.

I’m a creator at heart. I know I am. Yet with Instagram, I’ve become much more of a consumer. I scroll and I scroll. I compare. I get down on myself. Lost in snippets of the lives of others. I feel emotions through posts, and the world is a heavy, heavy place. Add to that the natural tendency to obsess over likes and comments; the pressure to post something attention-grabbing so I don’t get lost in your feed.

Put simply: Sometimes Instagram is just too much.

Blogging, to me, is a space of my own. It’s slower. More intimate. A breath of fresh air. Blogging inspires me to truly get creative. To take photos for the sake of taking photos. To write for the sake of writing.

These are the things that light me up. These are the ways I get inspired.

I realized I really, truly, simply missed blogging. Blogging in my own way.

You won’t be seeing punchy headlines with SEO-driven content here. You might not even see more than a couple posts a month.

My blog is not a competition. It doesn’t need to be better than someone else’s. It’s not here to fight for your attention.

It’s simply my space to reflect and share. A diary of my life.

It’s here if you want it. And if not, that’s great, too.

Welcome to Hummusbird 2.0*. ✨

*Best viewed on your computer screen. 🙃