2025 and content on Hollie and Life

Dear diary,

Okay, so I'm having to start this blog like that because I actually don't know how to start this! After 6 months of not really creating any of my old style content (youtuber and blogger who?), I want to dive back in but coming on and just picking up where I left off doesn't seem to quite do justice to the people who have been following me on these platforms. My blog and my youtube has always been so personal - people are literally following my life - and to come on and pretend there hasn't been a giant blip in the whole thing just feels.....well, weird. 

I think most people know by now that I'm going through divorce. I've been separated for a year and a half now and have recently hit the stage where I'm not crying everyday overwhelmed by the grief. Mostly I'm ashamed and feel so incredibly guilty that I may have caused damaged to my children and ruined their upbringing. I want nothing more than for them to grow up happy and healthy and the idea that I've contributed to anything other than that makes me feel physically sick. I'm learning to be kind to myself because, quite frankly, this stuff is hard enough without also piling a heap of guilt on myself, but emotions are a wild thing and sometimes the wave is so strong I physically can't talk myself out of it. Good friends have been a God send in this season. 

There's no way of sugar-coating it. Separation has been rough. Learning how to go from being a team to holding boundaries (and feeling like you are constantly at war with each other) has been a rollercoaster I didn't think I'd ever have to ride. Sometimes I feel like I've handled myself really well, but mostly I feel completely out of my depth. I hate the confrontation. I hate the over-thinking. I hate the emotional turmoil any interaction causes me. I wish almost everyday that I didn't have to do any of it, but here we are doing it anyway. 

A year of having it to do it has been shockingly good for me. I'm having to learn how to do things that I would normally lean on someone else to do (I do still have a big cry each time about how I hate having to do it first though), and am surprising myself at how much I am able to juggle. My garden needs a serious mow, but mostly I'm keeping on top of it all and feeling like the independent badass I always wanted to feel like. Shame it required such a harrowing ordeal for me to get there but hey, that's life I guess. 

All this being said, I'm doing it and I'm happy. I'm actually happy. So much in my life is so good. I'm experiencing things I never would have had the opportunity to experience. I have grown and healed and learned so much about who I am and what I want my life to look like. I truly feel like a better person now, and I am excited about my future and the years ahead. There's going to be a lot of pain to come, but I know now I am strong enough to handle it. 

So onto blogging and vlogging - let's just start again shall we! Life looks very different now. There are new people in my world who bring joy and stability to my family. We have new routines and structures in order to keep everything afloat, and we have a heap of fun along the way (in the hope that I remain a fun mum!). I haven't known how to be consistent with content creating because I haven't understood how to transition from family content to....whatever this is going to be. I'm not sure this blog is the absolute best way of doing it, but it's the beginning of me saying, 'hey, I'm back on this stuff now'. Aside from the effort of actually filming, editing and uploading content, the heart intent to create again is back! That desire hasn't been here for a while now but I'm so glad it's reappeared. 

We're picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off and going again....as I have done many times over and probably will continue to do as life throws curve balls my way. I'm not giving up on being the person I want to be. 

Until next time.