First of all, thank you for your sweet, kind, and thoughtful responses on my post from Friday. Truly, and from the bottom of my heart – thank you. I am humbled and heartened.

Given the nature of that post, it seemed best that I stay out of the comment section; at the same time, since so many of you took the time to write, I wanted to acknowledge your comments … and address a couple of things I feel are important.

Let’s start with the more serious one. A few commenters on Friday brought up GOMI. For those of you who don’t know, GOMI is a blog and forum dedicated to “snarking” on other bloggers. For a few years, I was a member. I joined because I was relatively new to the world of blogs at the time and enjoyed the discussion around the business of blogging (and the questionable practices of some “big name” bloggers). For lack of a better analogy, it reminded me of Television Without Pity. I learned a lot from GOMI, especially about what NOT to do as a blogger, and I made some friends (including a number of fellow bloggers). And, yes, I did post comments that were at times critical of other bloggers. (I also posted comments that were supportive of bloggers, but that’s neither here nor there, I suppose.) It is entirely possible that some of my words may have been hurtful, had the bloggers concerned read them. I stopped reading and participating on GOMI over a year ago, when I became uncomfortable with the changing tone of some of the commentary there.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of my “GOMI past”. It is what it is. As I wrote earlier, it has influenced the way I have conducted myself as a blogger, particularly in regards to engaging with readers. To be clear: it was not the focus or intent of my last post to berate the anonymous commenters who complained about me/my blog. That is their prerogative and their business. My business is to decide how I feel about it, and my struggle in that regard (and consequent blog absence) is what I tried to explain in my post.

And here is the other thing I want to say. The worst part about those anonymous comments was the fear they inspired: the fear that I was blogging in an echo chamber of my own making, divorced from reality. It can be hard to gauge if a handful of comments represents a vocal minority or a silent majority. Reading your comments from last week reassured me that what I thought to be true – that this is a community of shared interests and stories – is not a lie. We are not all the same. We don’t all share the same style, the same lives, the same priorities, or the same dreams and ambitions. And that’s actually fantastic. Diversity is a wonderful thing. My wish is and has always been for this blog to be a place where we can come together, with mutual respect and understanding, and connect through the one thing that we do have in common – a love of clothes.

I don’t consider this an aspirational blog. I don’t consider myself someone who lives an aspirational life. Don’t get me wrong; I recognize that I’m privileged (and fortunate) in many ways, and that mine is, therefore, an enviable position. But it’s never been my intent to represent my choices (whether about style, shopping, or anything else) as being better than others, or the best. I believe and stand by them in my own life, but I am interested in reading and learning about different women’s different choices. That’s why I love getting comments; I learn new things, and am moved to think about things from different perspectives, and that keeps me from getting into a rut. I don’t have to agree with every comment – and you guys should never feel like you have to agree with my views or “suck up” to me in your comments – but I think each one is valuable and adds to the discussion. [And just between us, I love when readers “talk” among themselves. That’s a community builder, right there.]

So, please, keep engaging – with me, and with each other!

So, hey. Hi. It’s, um … been a little while, huh?

First of all, sorry for the radio silence. It was unintentional at first, and then it sorta became … a thing.

The last few months have been tough, for a variety of reasons that belong to those parts of my life that I don’t share on this blog. At times, writing here can be a bit tricky; without context, I am often in danger of sliding into the blogging equivalent of posting vaguely concerning Facebook updates, which are universally despised (and with good cause). The context is non-negotiably off-limits and at the same time, it is also an inextricable part of my day-to-day life. I’ve tried my best to keep the focus of this blog on what it’s supposed to be — personal style, not completely devoid of the personal — though it hasn’t always been easy. It seemed important to do it, however, if for no other reason than because this blog has always been my “fun” distraction from the “real world”. A hobby that has allowed me to connect with some truly wonderful women, online and in real life.

With everything going on recently, the thought that “something’s gotta give” came up more than once. I figured I might take a few days off; I had a few posts canned, and I could catch up on my chores, catch up on my book edits, catch up on life, and catch a breath.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a corner of the internet where (some) people who regularly read this blog gather to anonymously air their views on my (and the blog’s) various faults. Those include my being, among other things, a terribly dressed compulsive shopaholic with an undiscriminating penchant for outdated designer crap. I’m paraphrasing.

Oh boy.

I felt a lot of things in that moment, none of them good. I was surprised, above all, to find how unprepared I was to deal with those feelings. So I took a few more steps back from the blog, because it had suddenly become something worse than just another time-sucking hobby. Something more like, say, a radioactive garbage can.

These days, some might say that having “haters” is a sign that one has arrived on social media. I don’t care for that notion. I have been upfront about wanting to create a community through and on my blog, but I have never aspired to make it a business. I make exactly zero dollars from this blog, by choice. This is my hobby. This is a space where I share my love of clothes, books, and other “frivolous” topics close to my heart. Inevitably, it is a place where I share parts of my life; not all of it, or even most of it, but enough to make it a personal affair – to allow for that sense of community to develop. I have been careful about how much I share, but I’ve never had cause to regret the things I’ve shared here – bad outfits and all. Perhaps I was naive in thinking that would always be the case. Reading some of those anonymous comments was deeply hurtful, and they made me ashamed of my willingness to share any part of my life.

It is conventional wisdom that, as a blogger, I am willingly opening myself up to judgment and criticism. Implicit in that proposition is the notion that, as a blogger, one must “take the good with the bad”. I have tried to do that; to be open to criticism even when it was not requested. For something as subjective as style, it’s easy enough to do. It doesn’t bother me if someone hates my clothes or the way I wear them; style is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m confident enough in my own choices. It’s much harder to be open to comments that impute values and motivations to my actions that are (in your own eyes, at least) categorically untrue. And it’s hard to see the “constructiveness” in any of this when it leave no room for dialogue. It was obvious that the comments I saw were coming from people who are regular, long-time readers of this blog — people who, coincidentally, have never left a negative comment on my blog. I know, because I haven’t deleted a single comment in 6 years, and these were not things that anyone has been willing to write in the comment box. That puts me in a tough spot. Because my goal is to foster a community, I always thought it was incumbent on me to address readers’ concerns, no matter what their topic or merit. To engage. To have a dialogue. Those anonymous commenters don’t want that. They want to read my blog, and bitch about it/me without engaging in an actual conversation with the subject of their derision.

They are perfectly entitled to do that — such is the beauty of our internet age.

I get to decide how I feel about it, and how those feelings affect the cost-benefit analysis of my decision to blog.

The answer should be easy. I know that. But nailing down that answer has proven anything but easy. I have flip flopped more times than I care to count. In the meantime, life went on. As it does. Events of infinitely greater significance to the world happened. The more time passed, the fewer reasons I found to come back to the blog.

So, then, this post. Why?

One of my friends, who is very wise and very kind, shared her wisdom and her kindness with me this past weekend. Her words helped me a great deal in grappling with my complicated feelings on this very simple subject. In the end, they did something more besides that. They reminded me, once again, of why I blog. My friend, you see, is someone I met because of this blog. She is not the only amazing person who came into my life this way. She is a part of a community, and her friendship is one of the gifts of that community. I am so grateful for that, particularly at a time when kindness and understanding seems to be at a premium in our world. That’s why I blog. I hope that is also why some (if perhaps not all) of you visit this blog.