Little Girl, No More

I was just seventeen when I bought loulocket.com. Feeling way out of my depth, but equally ready to take on the world, I sat up all night tweaking and customising my template to make it perfect, functioning on both an unhealthy dose of caffeine and the excitement of the possibilities that lay ahead of me.

Just weeks earlier, i’d discovered the boundless world of blogging and after many mentally-exhausting hours spent researching what was required to start a blog, and finally convincing myself that I didn’t have to be ‘somebody’ in order to open up and be heard, I became completely and irrevocably transfixed by the concept of owning my very own, pretty little corner of the internet.

Three days later, Lou Locket was born.

For me, blogging was not only a release, but a way of interacting with an entire community of young girls who, just like me, obsessed over new makeup launches, snapping pictures of the ornate wares in hidden gems of coffee shops and talking about their deepest fears, greatest hopes and wildest dreams. Blogging was a hobby that very quickly became a way of life. Weekends were spent obsessing over blog-related photography and sitting cross-legged in front of my mirror, experimenting with an array of looks that i’d later share on the beauty pages of my blog. I dedicated every spare second to blogging, strategically scheduling posts and triple-checking that all of the pictures i’d hand-picked to run alongside were just as perfect as the content.

I was a girl possessed.

But fast forward six months, and everything changed. After months of gruelling work, I was accepted onto a journalism course and I could not have been happier if I’d tried. I literally wept with joy when I got that acceptance call. I was finally pursuing my dreams. But I naively believed that juggling my studies, relationship, part-time job, a blog and still clutching onto (what remained of) my social life would be a piece of cake. Before long, I felt myself slipping. I succumbed to ‘compare and despair’, convinced that because i’d stopped blogging on a daily basis, the following i’d fiercely earned myself would disappear. But sadly, studies had to come first, and before long Lou Locket was just another neglected web page overrun with shitty spam comments.

Three years on, a first-class graduate with my career firmly in check, I was headhunted for a job at one of the UK’s best-selling women’s magazines. Knowing it was for the greater good, I uprooted my life and hopped on a train to London, leaving my loved ones behind. As I swiped away my tears on the train, I no longer felt like a little girl. I felt like a woman. A fierce woman with her shit together, refusing to let anyone or anything stand in her way. Before long, I rediscovered my mojo and vowed to fill my free time (and there was plenty of it) with blogging. Yet whenever I sat down with my laptop, I felt completely uninspired. I tried to write, I really did, but nothing seemed to flow. The fluttery style i’d perfected to suit my girly, carefree younger self just didn’t sit right with the independent, mature woman I felt myself becoming. It didn’t matter that Urban Decay had just launched a new palette, or that i’d bought a new LUSH soap that I loved. I loved it nonetheless, but I no longer felt a burning desire to write about it.

It suddenly dawned on me that i’d outgrown my pretty little corner of the internet.

Although my heart hurt for the lovely blog i’d spent years sculpting to what i’d once considered perfection, I was quickly filled with excitement. When one door closes, another opens, or so they say. I’m sad to say goodbye to the blog my younger self created, but I can’t wait to work on a new, more mature, sophisticated blog with no rigid, impossible schedule. I will blog when it feels right, about things that really matter, and I will love every single minute of it.

Thank you to everybody who supported my little blog over the years. I really hope you’ll stick around for the next one.

Goodbye for now,

xo