Ripping out my soul for your entertainment… examining my first year of blogging.
Before my Craigslist–mirror went viral, I’d decided that it was sheer foolishness to have ever thought I would make a dent in the internet.
In fact, if I had any sense at all, I would have quit blogging around six months.
Six months is what separates the sensible people— who go back to their lives.
From the total lunatics— who decide to double down.
Somewhere here, I more than doubled down.
I pushed all my chips in.
I borrowed money from the mob.
I started snorting cocaine in the high-roller suites and set fire to the drapes.
Somewhere here I stopped feeling like a writer.
Or a doer of house projects.
Or a researcher of toilets.
I turned into a version of myself that I had never met– someone who would do WHATEVER IT TAKES. To get people to read my blog.
The word that comes to mind is hustler.
For me, at six months, a very tiny dictator woke up in my head.
She was mean. And wore all grey.
And she looked just like me.
She said: vee must take over zee vurld.
And I agreed.
I thought if I could make it to one year—the parade would begin.
And I believed in my own infallibility— also defined as psychotic self-delusion.
Any megalomaniacal dictator can tell you that the first few months of a war are the best—there are impassioned speeches… the troops are excited… you haven’t run out of food and had to eat the horses.
But sometime between six months and a year is when you get an inkling that perhaps it’s not a matter of simply controlling the world with your mind.
This inkling grows in size and scope… until sometime around month eight, when you have a mini-breakdown.
But no one cares about your breakdown.
No one cares that you are having a crisis of the soul.
They don’t care, because blogging is synonymous with 24-year-old fashionistas in neon sunglasses, so attempting to convey to people the IMPORTANCE of your blog makes you sound like a total moron.
It also doesn’t help that much of what you say is rant-like: about how no one has shown up, and how this is UNACCEPTABLE.
And for the record, if there is anything less sympathetic to people than a 36-year-old woman crying about her blog, I do not know what it is.
In fact, if you want to confirm all of people’s worst suspicions about you? This is the way to do it.
And then– if somehow your blog makes it to one year? Instead of the parade you anticipated, you get the gift of FINALLY grasping the idiocy of your undertaking.
You finally understand that there are roughly one billion other blogs. And that the chances of yours being special are so microscopic as to be nonexistent.
So now you have two choices:
1. You can accept defeat and go spend time with your family.
2. You can commit yourself to self-delusion.
Lucky for me, I’ve been training in self-delusion all my life.
It is my second-greatest talent.
What’s my first? Enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm beyond what is reasonable.
Beyond what is even remotely reasonable.
That endless enthusiasm is what makes people think I am fun. Unless they have to spend too much time with me, in which case it can be wearing… Because when I am excited about something? LOOK OUT.
I am going overboard.
I am going to fling myself off the side of the ship with no life vest or scuba gear or shark-repellant.
And I’ll be screaming— OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS THING!
I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO EXCITING!!
EXCITING, EXCITING, EXCITING.
And you’re going to have to call in a Marine search-and-rescue team to find me in the ocean. (If you’re the one calling, please make sure they only send young Marines… Let’s say under 32, shall we?)
Somewhere in the last year, ALL my enthusiasm BECAME this blog… They merged into one entity—indistinguishable from each other.
I stopped caring about anything else. My only interest became pushing this blog forward… Uphill in a tornado… in an ice storm… carrying it over mountains while being pecked by vultures.
To do WHATEVER it takes.
Anything.
If human sacrifice were required, it would take me no time at all to build the altar.
Jeff
October 1, 2013 @ 10:25 am
Ok… Enough about how amazing and absorbed u are. Tell me more about amazing fines and majestic things
Claudia
October 1, 2013 @ 10:25 am
The first blog I read from you was about buying the ginormous mirror. I totally got that–who wouldn’t? I, too, am possessed of a “never say die” mentality. I’m not a blog reader, nor a blogger–but I look forward to yours popping up on my screen. I know that, for the next few minutes, I will smile and nod my head and probably laugh out loud–all good things.
Darling Lily
October 1, 2013 @ 10:26 am
You need to rethink your bias against Marines over 32.
It’s true there’s nothing finer than a young Marine. (Pardon me while I wipe the drool from my keyboard.)
But once they hit 35, the roughest edges are smoothed out, and there’s still plenty of rugged and sexy left. I celebrated my 30th wedding anniversary with mine last summer, and I have ZERO complaints!
Your blog is the BEST.
What will bloggy success look like to you? Do you measure by followers, page hits, ????
Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
October 1, 2013 @ 11:06 am
No, no… you misunderstand. The ideal age is well over 32, but I want to be sure I am the one doing the edge-smoothing.
Christine
August 8, 2015 @ 11:20 am
This is a couple of years too late, but still necessary: That response is possibly the funniest (and truest) thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve said some truly funny things.
Christine
August 8, 2015 @ 11:22 am
P.S. You still look fantastic in 2015.
Rita Spittler
March 29, 2016 @ 4:16 pm
I am SERIOUSLY laughing out loud. I am THRILLED I found you. You think THE same exact things I do and then say them is a way THE cleverest way I NEVER could EVER EVEN dream or imagine: and it’s PERFECT.
Thank you, for YOU!
Jill
October 1, 2013 @ 10:26 am
I stumbled on your blog in a google search a few weeks ago and subscribed. For the record, it’s the ONLY blog to which I subscribe and one of the few I’ve ever read. Love your writing style, your decorating style, your house, and the fabulous Philadelphia I know and love that shows up in some of your posts–such as today’s. Keep up the great work!
Jocelyn
October 1, 2013 @ 10:26 am
ha ha! Nice photos and esp like the wedding photo bomb at the end, ha! Congrats on your blogbirthday, woo! Virtual high five 🙂
Jenny Mertes
October 1, 2013 @ 10:27 am
However I got to your blog, I’m thankful, because you write stuff that’s fun to read. I don’t read blogs to be educated or scolded but to have fun, and you are IT.
Patience
October 1, 2013 @ 10:27 am
Your blog totally stands out from among the billion! What makes blogs more interesting to me than magazines is their glimpse into the lives of real people. As a blogger, I know what you mean about the relentless need to promote yourself.
Laurie @ Vin'yet Etc.
October 1, 2013 @ 10:31 am
Love your shameless ways, love your blog, love your excitement and I love all of your projects! Happy one year! Keep on keeping on, you are making a difference, if only for this one little blogger… I suspect it is more than just me you are influencing! <3
maggie b
October 1, 2013 @ 10:31 am
Well I’m very glad you blog. For real it is a joy. One never knows what will pop our of your pen. Some of the images you conjure make me laugh out loud which is a gift beyond price. Who can ever forget the fight about paint color while hanging on a ladder. It is real and human and give me hope that I’m not the only weird one.
Jane
October 1, 2013 @ 10:33 am
Yours is the ONLY blog I subscribe to. You make me laugh out loud. Blog on.
Britt
October 1, 2013 @ 10:33 am
I love reading your blog 🙂 Thank you for sharing and persevering! I’m at that point now too… been blogging half-heartedly for a few years, and now I’m buckling down and trying to get an audience. It’s tough!! I hope I maintain near-Victoria levels of enthusiasm as I go through the same thing!
Britt
October 1, 2013 @ 11:31 am
PS – I linked your blog on my site. Perhaps all two of my readers will check it out 😛
Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
October 1, 2013 @ 1:06 pm
xo. hugs to your benevolent overlords.
Jennifer
October 1, 2013 @ 10:35 am
Hilarious. I experienced the very same insanity, then my family did an intervention…which I’ve just snuck away (escaped) from this week. Why would anyone think it’s not healthy to think in blog titles?? Silly people.
PS, love the outfit. Interesting peplum.
julian
October 1, 2013 @ 10:36 am
Are you avoiding working on your house again? Because this all seems like a very glamorous dodge.
Andrea
October 1, 2013 @ 10:36 am
Well, I salute your perseverance. And I love this blog. But more to the point, can we get some information about the adorable top you have on in all those pictures? *so* cute!
Tracy
October 1, 2013 @ 10:36 am
So funny…so passionate…so relatable, these are some of the many reasons why I love your writing 🙂
Toots
October 1, 2013 @ 10:36 am
You have us all anticipating the next word to drop from your lips….a crumb, anything. Your blog does stand out from the rest so mission accomplished there. But please, please don’t stop giving us a peek into your mind and your soul. I think I speak for many when I say, “We love you, Victoria Elizabeth!” And I think many of us love that part of loving you is accepting the crazy parts of ourselves. Accept it…..we depend on you for more than entertainment. Keep going on this humanitarian mission.
The domestic goddess
October 1, 2013 @ 10:36 am
You’ll find some people DO care and they are the ones you want to hang around in times like those anyway. Not those fair-weather crazy types.
And I also love this blog
ElizabethW
October 1, 2013 @ 10:43 am
Oh honey, I have given up on a lot of blogs, BUT NOT YOURS! Why you tryin’ to shake me off? Love reading yours, so there. Having reached the age of 60, I don’t care so much what other people think, especially of me. So words from a semi-lunatic (you do know what you are doing) style enthusiast resonates refreshingly. And love the outfit, by the way. You look fabulous! Enthuse away.
Siouxzie Q
October 1, 2013 @ 10:44 am
Blog, baby, blog. Damn the vultures or the mountainous treks through tornado-infested ice storms. Your obsessive enthusiasm will conquer all.
Sara
October 1, 2013 @ 10:44 am
But you HAVE succeeded as a blogger… depending on your sense of the word succeed… some people want readers, some people want money from advertising. I just want comments and conversation… which I don’t get. But I do have many people that I know always come back. You have gazillions of followers between your social media sites in reference to the blog and many, many commenters. You have succeeded. You are loved! Picture are adorable by the way.