This is going to be cute, spicy, short, and sweet. It’s close to 11 p.m. when I’m finishing out these thirty days of beautiful chaos, and all I want is to sleep right now, to be honest.
Though this is technically the 30th day in the challenge I’ve given myself, I wanted to take a moment to reflect because this was not easy.
The biggest difficulty I had with completing this challenge I gave myself was trying to do it while getting used to my new job, a job that requires a lot of my creativity and energy. In my head, I would be able to work and get things done for school before 4 p.m.; then I would go home and put forth my best effort in SJ. That rarely happened. I definitely did not plan for the after school meetings, the 40+ minutes of sitting in traffic to get home after school, and the untimed impromptu naps (sometimes I wouldn’t wake up until 6 p.m.).
I was not anticipating this being as physically draining as it was. My eyes would be bugging after I finished a writing, especially on the days when I wrote three or four to schedule and get ahead. My head would be pounding right where my temples are, and there were more days than I can count when I just pushed through the unbearable rhythm. Of course, both of these physical issues could be associated with my lack of drinking water, but that’s a different discussion for a different day.
Nothing went according to plan. I wanted to be done with J. Cole’s discography. I wanted to share the Simply Jamilah Shop. I wanted to share the new look for Simply Jamilah. There are several things I’ve been working on for what feels like forever, and I was hoping to reveal them during these 30 days. With everything fashion related, I hoped to share look books instead of simple PNG images. There was a poem I wanted to share for The United States of Who? writing instead of my word-vomitted thoughts. Timing just wasn’t on my side, and it didn’t work out. In my head, most of these writings looked completely different. Of course, there’s disappointment flowing through my blood as I write this, but I’m trying not beat myself up about it.
Speaking of disappointment, September produced the lowest numbers Simply Jamilah has seen since March. I don’t normally obsessively check my analytics, but with doing 30 Days of Content Creation, I anticipated the numbers going in a different direction. Again, I am trying really hard not beat myself up about it; I can’t force the internet to care about my words, especially if I’m writing for myself and no one else. Still, knowing the data exists and didn’t go in a positive direction is really challenging my imposter syndrome.
Despite how incredibly challenging this was, I fully intend on doing it again next year.
Hopefully I’m more prepared.
