Is this thing on?

Hi. It’s been a minute.

I have been craving a blog space for a while now. I started my life online on LiveJournal, like lots of other emotional kids in the early 2000s. There is something so freeing about blogging. Maybe it’s force of habit, and maybe it’s that a lot of the things I use to put pressure on myself in other online spaces aren’t present with blogging.

This summer while I was on vacation (and honestly miserable because I was in so much pain) I realized that I was in a social media death scroll. I was hopping from Instagram to Facebook to Twitter to Threads to BlueSky to TikTok to Instagram and it was just not working for me. My brain was on hyper mode, I couldn’t focus, I was doing everything I could to numb out and check out. Not only that, but I had no boundaries around what I would share with the world on social, what was just for me, what needed to be behind a paywall on my newsletter, what I would share with friends and loved ones but not the full world.

I also didn’t understand why I was sharing any of what I was sharing. And as anyone who has known me a long time can attest, I am a person who needs to know the whys.

So I gave myself 30 days off of social media to cleanse myself and get out of the cycle that I was stuck in. I logged out of all the apps on my computer, blocked them where I could, and deleted them off my phone.

Now, on reflection, a lot of my social media addiction was because for a long time I needed to be updating my social media in order to market my business. It’s a really common marketing strategy to utilize social media, and I think to some extent most businesses should be on social media (if only to control who can use their username). I didn’t have an alternative marketing plan, and everyone else was using Instagram to market themselves, so why wouldn’t I?

The problem was, it wasn’t working for me anymore.

In May I started a full time job that I am very happy with. The hours are steady, the pay is pretty good, and it’s not overly demanding on my creative energy. For the first time in almost five years I had stable income that I could count on and I pushed pause on a lot of my business offerings. I even removed the ability to book a tarot or rune reading with me. I had also recently signed my book deal for my next book, and so I knew I needed to transition my “business.”

Now bear with me - I know the inner workings of a small business owner aren’t actually that interesting. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t feel the need to explain why I was starting a blog. And that is because of the results of my 30 day social media cleanse. Turns out the problem is always Instagram. I had been putting so much needless creative energy into Instagram. It would be cool if that’s where I was happy throwing my creative energy, but it’s not.

So: I’m leaving Instagram. And as for the Twitter replacements … I’m not sure what has staying power.

And I realized for a writer, the most obvious thing is a blog that feeds into a newsletter that has paid tiers. And on a blog I can be a little freer to write about more than just witchy stuff or heathen stuff. I can bring in more personal things, write about my creative process, and it all makes sense together. I also like how blog posts have more staying power than social media posts. The content doesn’t have to be as constant and doesn’t require as much from me.

Hence, back to the blog. Over the next month I’ll be copy/pasting old blog posts from northernlightswitch.com before I retire that website. I’ll only be sharing the ones that I still love on here - truly some cursed old Content over there.

That’s it! There’s nothing more to this post other than an explanation. This post is sort of like ripping the bandaid off.

Hope you’re all keeping well and staying healthy. Many blessings upon you!

Mood: 😏
Music: Cowboy Bebop OST