Hey friends,
It's been a while since I posted on The Owlet.
I started this website in 2017 as a hobby in an attempt to feed my creative side while working as a commercial event photographer and coming to terms with the fact that I now hated the job I’d worked so hard to build for myself.
My creative outlet did a little too well and somehow became my job back in 2019, but over the last few years its been increasingly difficult to find the passion for writing that I once had an abundance of. Somewhere between the industry-wide focus on "helpful content", Google’s many updates coming in thick and fast, and multiple life-changing events in my personal life, I didn’t have the space in my brain to write for fun anymore.
Earlier this year I lost my mum - one of my biggest cheerleaders and the person who taught me to look for the small joys in everyday life, even something as simple as enjoying a coffee with a pretty view. Somewhere in the stillness after the funeral, I realised that somewhere along the way I'd been so busy wanting to make Mum happy and comfortable that I’d stopped looking for joy for myself.
So a few months ago I decided to go all in on the pursuit of farming for joy and finding ways to make the days count. I spent so long saying no that my default answer to any opportunity is YES. I’m very much in the mindset of I’ll try anything once, because if you haven’t tried it then how do you know if you’ll enjoy it?
I’ve done some big things already - I’ve learnt to paddle board, tried archery and even had a surfing lesson. I have a few more fun things lined up, but finding joy in every day isn’t all about the big things. I love setting myself a challenge, but I firmly believe that finding joy should be accessible to everyone.
Sometimes I have the opportunity to do something big and exciting, but a lot of the time it’s a case of finding joy in what I already have around me. It might be going for a walk, meeting up with a friend, visiting a museum, exploring somewhere new or just enjoying a coffee with a view (even if its a coffee from home!).
I’m not setting myself any goals as such, I’m just concentrating on living life and finding reasons to be happy after a few difficult years in my personal life. Part of my path to rediscovering the joy of every day involves finding a love of writing again. This week, almost four months after losing my mum, I sat down at my laptop and finally felt compelled to write in a way that I don’t think I’ve felt in at least three years - that’s this article.
The Owlet isn’t going anywhere, it’s just getting busier. I may not have been writing much over the past few years, but I have still been travelling! I took my first flight last year and since then the flood gates have opened - we’ve been inter-railing across Denmark, spent a weekend in Berlin, took a train across Germany to visit a one-of-a-kind cruise ship festival in Hamburg, spent a weekend in Edinburgh and have had so many smaller adventures along the way.
I made a conscious choice to spend more time in the UK over the past few years so I could be close to my parents while Mum was sick, and its led me to fall back in love with exploring Bristol and Somerset, as well as visiting more of the UK. Being Bristol-based we have stuck mostly to the South of the UK, but I’d love to explore further North and into Wales at some point. The UK is so beautiful, and choosing to spend more time here really encouraged me to spend time appreciating what we have here because I’m not always getting ready to leave again.
You'll still find travel guides, travel tips and destination inspiration on The Owlet going forward, but there might also be the odd article that I choose to write for the joy of writing and documenting my adventures in the way that I used to almost a decade ago (although hopefully with a little more eloquence than when 2017 Becky).
As I’m so often reminded, life is short, and I don’t wish to waste my days allowing the behind the scenes of running a website to sap the joy that I feel when being creative. I'm getting back to writing, I'm trying new things, I'm saying yes to more adventures and, most importantly, I'm trying to remember that life isn't something to put on hold until everything else is sorted.
Welcome back to The Owlet, it really is a joy to be here again.
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