treat yourself a little more

Lets take a moment to talk about treating ourselves, I don’t just mean to a handful of chocolates I mean to those big things we have been lusting after and saving up for a while for. This week I got my first piece of I guess you could call it unneeded online jealousy and instead of hitting out and being negative about it, it made me sit down and really think about my online persona, how I’m viewed and potentially what others think and you know what, in that moment I realised that I genuinely wasn’t overly fussed what this person thought of me. How mean of me right!? wrong, people don’t see how hard you work for the things you have, the trips you’ve worked hard to go on, the clothes you wear (hello charity shop haul) but it left did leave a  bad taste in my mouth. 

You’re probably wondering where all this has come from, and you might of seen over on my instagram I treated myself to a new camera the amazing Olympus Pen E-Pl7 (i got mine in jessops currently discounted) After the unneeded comment, it did make me super wary about sharing snaps and shots of the camera and blogging about it, it genuinely did. I came to realise that I have never bought myself anything pricey or consider extravagant. My old DSLR had been a hand me down from my brother with second hand lenses.

I grew up, a child in a big working class family, hand me downs were my thing, charity shops my stitch and money? whats that? Now I’m not big on saving, never really have been becuase the majority of what I make goes back into my business and supplies, when your hobby is your job and vice versa it’s not really treating yourself just second nature. So when I placed my order for the camera, (yeah it’s for my blog, instagram my work) it felt extravgant to say the least. I had been saving for a while and searching around for the best deal but still it felt like something I should be ashamed of owning as I didn’t feel like I had earned it and that comment came back to haunt me, had I worked hard enough, I should be a little more modest, Don’t brag too much, it’s not like you’ve spent a million pound.

You know what happened next, my mothers voice sounded in my head, “fuck it girl you earned it, go get them” and I realised for the last 5 months I had been supporting myself and another person in my life solely on my freelance wages. It’s not been 5 months of extrvagnace, its been a hard 5 months of mourning my mother and excessive stress regarding the situation. Buying myself something that I have saved for, for nearly 3 years has felt like a realase. I can openly enjoy and take pride in the content I create now. It’s not showing off, its giving yourself a moment to realise actually you’ve earned that car, that new hand bag or that cake. That’s what treating ourselves is all about, it’s giving ourselves a little pick me up, self love, showing ourselves a little appreciation for all those long hours and hard work, there is no shame in that and theres nothing wrong with that occasionally.