Getting Back To Me...

For a while now I've been wanting to write a post like this. To just sit down and let the words spill out. But every time I try, it's as though my thoughts are stuck, as though they're locked in my head and I've lost the key. I get frustrated sometimes at not being able to properly express how I feel, which usually means I take that frustration out on the ones I love, more often than not my poor husband, who has no idea what he's done wrong!

I've felt a bit lost lately, like I've been inside a little anxious bubble that I can't pop and I find it hard to put my finger on why this is. I know I'm blessed in so many ways and I'm lucky to have what I have which in a way makes it worse because you can't justify the feeling, so then you feel guilty for feeling that way and the whole vicious circle starts again. Right now I'm watching a nearly two year old running around the living room with a giant balloon, screaming with joy, not a care in the world and I wish I could feel that way.

It's a feeling I can't seem to shake, of not being good enough and not feeling like me anymore. Where do I fit in? When I started Dolly Bow Bow, I was a 19 year old girl living at home with her parents, filming videos about Primark and Lush on my computer's webcam. Fast forward 6 and a half years and I've moved out,  I'm a wife! And a Mum of a 2 year old boy. A boy that I love and adore more than anything in the world, but sometimes it's easy to just feel like I'm someone's Mum. Like a part of your identity is missing and you can't quite be yourself anymore. I've struggled knowing where I fit in on You Tube and my blog for a while, constantly trying to get the balance right between creating posts and videos about fashion and beauty which makes me feel like I need to try and be more polished and my family life, where I want to be able to share the highs and the lows, the picturesque days out as well as the toddler meltdown because I cut up his orange and he wanted it whole (yes that really happened). Working out how to merge the two together can be difficult. It's sometimes why you don't see regular content from me as it all gets a bit too much and instead of working through it I hide from it.

I think this post might be the first step to getting back on track. Writing down your feelings is a good first step. I can see where I want to go and I have all of these ideas bubbling under the surface, it's just trying to make them happen! Remembering how and why you started is a good way of getting back to who you really are. Fashion was my main focus when I started this, and over the last 2 years I've slowly built my confidence after having a baby, to wear whatever I want again, and not to feel like I shouldn't 'because I'm a Mum'. I've realised lately that this blog and my channel can be whatever I want them to be and I don't have to conform to rules or be put in a certain box. I'm not just a fashion blogger, I'm not just a lifestyle vlogger, I'm a person, with lots of interests and I can be confident in the knowledge that if you share similar interests then you might like what I do and that's all that really matters. I might have a pretty dress on in these pictures but I also have scabs over my elbows from going down a slide at soft play with Archie! And that's ok by me.

I feel like to blog and vlog to the best of your ability, you have to really love what you're doing, so I decided there would be no better place to start getting things back on track than at the prettiest cake shop in Chelsea. This place is what the inside of my brain looks like when I'm happy! Peggy Porschen is somewhere that's been on my London must visit list for a while now, as I see it pop up on Instagram all the time. It really is as dreamy as it looks in real life and the cakes are delicious. They have the cutest cupcakes in some of my favourite flavours including cookies & cream, red velvet and Strawberries & Champagne. They also create some incredible wedding and birthday cakes which look too pretty to eat!

It might seem trivial to some, but putting on a pretty dress and eating cupcakes from a pink shop with a floral doorway in the heart of my favourite city made me feel like me again, and made me happy. And once you strip everything else away, that's all any of us want to be.

Dress ASOS - Bag CHANEL - Sunglasses RIVER ISLAND - Shoes PRIMARK

What makes you happy?

Kate x