This isn’t really a return, more like another attempt.

Over the years I’ve tried to start up this personal blog more times than I can remember. I’d get the urge to write, tweak the layout, write a first post and then sort of just drift away. Usually it was because another idea took over my brain or that life got busy – and sometimes I’d just outright talk myself out of posting, telling myself there was no point.

So this isn’t me coming back to something I started before. It’s me deciding, yet again, to write – but this time I’d like to try it with a little less pressure on myself.

I’m a bit older now – the ripe old age of 41. I like to think (read: pretend) that I’m maybe a little wiser. I’m definitely more aware of how easy it is to talk yourself out of things before they’ve had a chance to become anything, which I’ve done over and over again. I used to think that a blog or project like this needed a clear identity or a niche and basically a reason to exist beyond the simple fact that I just want to write. I’m guilty of feeling like everything needs to build towards something else or have an audience to justify its existence. But I’ve been questioning that a bit more recently.

Part of what brought me back here and led to dust off this old blog is a growing restlessness with how writing and just existing in general feels elsewhere online. So many of the platforms we all use now feel entirely shaped by algorithms deciding who sees what, when and why. You can write something you deeply care about, put in a ton of effort and suddenly it all becomes about performance and visibility instead of the actual writing itself. I’ve been writing a sports movie newsletter called Balls on Film over on Substack, and I’ve found just that. It feels like a lot of the time, I’m writing to chase stats and visibility more than anything else.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about how little we actually own online anymore. Profiles, feeds and platforms that can change overnight – everything feels temporary and like it’s not really yours at all And beyond that, there’s also the feeling of not being entirely comfortable with the places you’re publishing on in the first place due to their own priorities and decisions over what they promote, tolerate or even profit from.

I guess I just miss having a space that feels like mine and I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic for the old internet when it was a bit messy, slower, and full of personal websites that felt like real people lived on them. You’d stumble across someone’s blog and stay because you enjoyed their work, not because an algorithm decided you should see it. You might even sign the guestbook too! This isn’t an attempt to go backwards, and I know that things were by no means perfect back. But I do miss the sense that people were building small homes online instead of trying to keep up with endless noise and having to fight for relevancy all the time.

Perhaps I’m just feeling old and a tad melancholic. Life in your forties feels different than I expected. When you’re younger, 40 seems like an age where you’re supposed to have figured things out and picked your lane. While I definitely feel like I know myself much better than I did at 25, that’s not been the case for me. On the surface life is pretty stable in terms of routines and responsibilities – but deep down I’ve realised that even past 40, a lot of us still have no idea what’s going on and are very much still trying to figure it out. My interests, passions and things that drive me creatively still pull me in many different directions – but maybe that’s okay. Perhaps that’s part of why this old blog matters now.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I should be doing, whether it’s writing more, creating something new, finding the right project and obsessing over whether any of it is actually worth it – and tying that value to how well it will be consumed by others. I’m realising more and more that pressure like that takes the joy out of the things I usually love. I want to use this blog aa place to just put things down with no pressure, and just purely because I want to write. I’m bringing back my own little quiet corner of the internet and trying not to overthink it.

If you’ve found your way here somehow, then welcome! If this blog ends up being nothing more than a record of someone figuring things out in real time and talking to no-one, then that’s enough for me.

Anyway…

Starting again, slightly older.