Why I stopped vlogging.

I have lived a very strange life, so far. Birthdays always make me reflect on what I’ve done so far and what I’m yet to accomplish - and man, for 26, have I been through a lot. The strangest part though, is that all of it is archived online and shared with the world. I have some mixed feelings about that.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that at one point, I filmed a vlog of my life and uploaded it daily to YouTube. If you’re new here, welcome aboard - on Wednesdays we wear pink. I abruptly stopped this after filming my travels around the world. I was asked by roughly a bazillion people, “Why did you stop?” I never really answered.

See, that was the problem. I got so tired of having to answer for everything, all the time. I got tired of total strangers feeling entitled to intricate details of all aspects of my life. I got tired of not being able to go to the doctor without figuring out how to explain the gap in time. I got tired of having to hide first dates, or figure out how to gloss over a one-night-stand. And trust me, whatever I tried to hide would, without fail, be noticed. People became Sherlock Freakin’ Holmes - and I felt this need to satisfy them.

If you have ever had a best friend with whom you share everything, and you’ve had to keep something from them, you know the feeling I’m talking about. It’s not that anything is directly about them, it’s that they are important to you, and keeping anything from them feels inherently wrong. My audience became my best friend. My camera became my therapist. My life became a spectacle.

I stopped filming because I lost a sense of purpose. I was growing up, and realizing I wanted to build a deeper life for myself. I had hard questions to answer and when I considered filming my life a full time job, it was easy to avoid anything substantial. When you measure your self worth by view counts and the comments from strangers, it eventually gets to you.

I never answered the question when people asked me, because I woke up one day and realized that I don’t have to answer. I needed to reclaim my life for myself - and that’s okay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m unbelievably grateful for the people who watched every day and allowed me to build that dream life for myself. I truly loved them. At the time, I loved them much more than I loved myself.

This week I decided to revisit the idea. I wasn’t even sure I would share it when I filmed it. I just thought, “hmm, it can’t hurt to do a little test drive.” Once I viewed the final product I just started laughing. I love sharing my journey. I love thinking about the people who feel trapped being able to watch and see what one person can accomplish when they are as stubborn as I am. I like being living proof that it gets better. Once I watched it, I knew it would feel right to share.

Real Estate is my life now, because of it, I have more sustainable ways of measuring my worth and my self growth that I have direct control over. I don’t feel a responsibility to post daily anymore. I have rediscovered the joy in the process and in opening that window into my world for others, and if you’re still here after all this time, I hope you rediscover the joy in watching.