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It occurred to me the other day that I've had my blog for almost ten years. I started my YouTube channel in March 2014, as a creative outlet. My blog came into play a bit later when I started applying to grad school. Before moving to New York, I settled on the name Modern Mollie. With my move to the city, I got really into blogging, in addition to posting YouTube videos. I found a little update I posted when I first moved. I did regular updates for a while too. Here's my one month update - so nostalgic! New York sparked so much creativity in me and I felt like there were endless topics to cover. I progressively got more and more opportunities to attend some fantastic events and make friends in the space.
In 2018, Joe and I moved back to California for work. Honestly, it was tough on me. I was really happy in New York and I loved the direction my brand was going. Transitioning back to California was a challenge, especially when the pandemic hit a little over a year later. In 2020, I ultimately ended up making a ton of home-related content -- fortunately, we bought our first home at the end of 2019. Things were going as well as they could. I focused on my brand and my full time tech job. By 2022, I started to feel burned out. It was probably earlier than that but it really hit in 2022. A lot had changed in my life. Between then (well more like 2020) and now, I've gone through some of the highest of highs and lowest of lows.
With a little history out of the way, let's get to the point of this post. I'm taking a break. Break feels like a loose term and I don't exactly have a plan. All I know is I need to make a change for myself. I need to focus on myself and my mental health. I've put a lot of love into Modern Mollie. I don't currently have the capacity to spend the time or energy to focus on it (at least how I used to back in the day). My blog will still be up and I'm not planning to delete any old posts. I can't speak for the future but as of right now, everything will stay up. Hopefully content I've written in the past will continue to be useful! Also, I had to include these rose garden photos in this post because I took these three years ago for my blog. I've used them here and there but I never properly shared all of them because I couldn't find the "perfect" post. That time is now 🙂
My YouTube videos will remain up. I don't intend to make any new video content at this time but once again, I hope my old videos can still spark some inspiration or help you with your future travels. I've also decided to deactivate my Instagram (modernmollie). I'll likely do that in the next couple of days. I have an old, personal account that I'll likely use a bit to stay connected to friends & family. The only accounts I plan to keep using (with no specific intent or consistency) are Pinterest and occasionally LTK. I picked up some especially cool travel supplies for my upcoming trip to Cabo and I couldn't resist sharing!
The bottom line is: I want to say thank you. Thank you for being here. Whether you've been here for ten years or ten months or ten days, I appreciate you. I don't know what the future holds. I need to focus on myself and my mental health. I might want to start posting again at some point. Maybe I'll want to write about the same topics. Maybe I'll be inspired to start YouTube again. Maybe it'll look like an entirely different format. Or maybe I won't want to continue this brand at all. I genuinely have no clue and I don't want to put an ounce of pressure on myself. For the time being, this is it. I've enjoyed sharing my life with you for the past decade. I appreciate you more than you know. Now, before I change my mind, I need to hit publish on this post 🙂
Sending lots of love your way!
