Lately

Lately I've had the desire to blog, and the time to blog, and a bunch of products to review (ask me about that eyeshadow palette I bought in August), but that combination hasn't quite translated into actual blogging. The main culprit is what I like to call "depression brain," which tells me a lot of things, none of them grounded in reality. It tells me that my posts aren't worth writing if they're not absolutely perfect, and that no one will care about them if they're brief, straightforward product reviews. It tells me that staring vacantly at the internet for two hours while putting off academic work is better than spending those two hours doing something I actively want to do. It tells me that my makeup technique sucks and I'd better not post anything until I can achieve an Instagram-level halo eye with ten different shadows, never mind that I prefer simple, undone-looking makeup. It tells me that my interest in makeup is grounded in shallow materialism, not creativity or self-expression. Worst of all, it tells me that if I mention these difficulties in a post, I'd better give up any hope of an academic job because All the Search Committees will magically find my obscure, anonymous blog on which I've never even mentioned where I live or go to school. One of the worst parts of depression is the feeling that everything will fall to pieces if you make one wrong move, coupled with the suspicion that you've made that move already.

This is not exactly my first bout of depression, though, so I know what I can do to help myself while I wait for life to start feeling less shitty. And one thing that always seems to help me is making concrete plans. In this post, I want to work out a tentative blogging schedule for the next little while. I leave for the UK in two weeks, and there are seven (!) products that I'd like to review before then. All of them are lip products, because I have a problem:

Clockwise from top: NYX Butter Gloss in Tiramisu, Bite Amuse Bouche in Radish, Dior Addict Ultra-Gloss in 765, Bite Amuse Bouche in Lavender Jam, Urban Decay Revolution Lipgloss in Scandal, Too Cool for School Milk Tint in Milky Lavender, OCC Stained Gloss in Dune.

I keep putting off discussing these products, convinced that I can't make my reviews "good enough"  (whatever that means) right now, and that I need to wait indefinitely for some thunderbolt of inspiration. But you know what? It's just makeup. It's just fucking makeup. I don't have to live up to my makeup or do it justice; it's a bunch of tinted goo, and it's mine to do with as I please. So, in the next two weeks, I'm going to write a series of short, direct, low-pressure reviews. Four posts in total, because I can group together the two nude glosses and the three pink deluxe samples (why are deluxe lip samples always pink?). If I'm inspired to write more, that's great, but I won't expect anything from myself beyond description and discussion. I don't mind reading no-frills reviews from bloggers I like, so why should I be so reluctant to write them? I'm hopeful that once I reestablish a regular posting schedule, I'll start feeling like I deserve to devote time to my blog and other things I love. Because I do, right? Right.