My dear readers, it has been such a long time.
It feels like it’s been ages since I sat down to talk to you and I’ve missed you! It’s been a very busy few months for me between work and travel. I’ve also been on a sort of creative journey and trying to you know, figure out life or something. But I’m back now and excited to update you!
Let’s start with the big things. In January I turned 30 which I celebrated with a two week holiday in Europe. I always had in my mind that 30 was some milestone that would cause a seismic shift in my life. As it was, 30 kind of just came out of nowhere for me. I mean obviously not nowhere, I own a calendar. I didn’t feel any real anxiety about turning thirty, I was actually really looking forward to it. I sort of always hated being in my twenties. Thirty felt like an anchor to me, like it was the age I’ve always felt. I didn’t ever expect to have things figured out by 30. But I definitely feel much more like I understand myself at this age.
Today also marks one year since I moved which was fun and exciting and has been one of the best years of my life but was also brought on by one of the worst periods of my life. The reason I moved is because someone was breaking into my apartment. They weren’t taking things, they were just going through my things. Which is somehow much worse because they did it repeatedly. It was such a creepy and violating feeling that someone had been in my home and gone through my things. So to make a long story short, I found my current apartment and moved out immediately. It’s also why I wasn’t as motivated to write as much on the blog. I spent the last year feeling like I just needed to regain a sense of personal privacy and security. I feel as though I’m in a much better place now and really want to get back into sharing more of my life with you.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year trying to develop a new way of creating and finding different ways to connect with all of you here on the blog. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to create and how I want to connect with this community. One of the things I realized while designing my new site this Spring is that everything I wanted to change was for the readers. I started thinking about who I was really writing for and what I wanted them to get; intelligent, educated women who want to feel empowered to live a full life personally and professionally. Something I care very much about is supporting women in their careers. I haven’t written much in the career topic over the years mainly because I wanted A Study in Chic to be more lifestyle driven and I personally wanted an escape from thinking about work. But as the blog has grown and as I have grown, thinking about my career is one of the things I enjoy most. So I want to be able to share more of what I care about and finding ways to build a community around empowering women in their careers and in their personal lives.
Similarly, I’ve always wanted to share more personal thoughts here somewhere. I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that without losing the focus of being a lifestyle website that is more about the content than me. As I have been going through the process of shifting the creative focus of the website I had the idea to start this more personal series.
Each Friday there will be a new post in my Diary series. It will be focused on things happening in my life, articles or topics I read throughout the week and have thoughts on, or more personal topics that maybe others relate to. I also want it to be a place to answer some of your more personal questions. If you have any questions or want to know something, just e-mail me or leave a comment on this post and I’ll try to answer it!
I’m excited for where A Study in Chic is headed and the things that are going to connect us. I hope you’ll love what’s coming and be a part of this amazing community we’re building!
xo – Tracy
