Why Am I Still Here?

Cupcakes and Cashmere jacket (c/o Shopbop)
Noul sweater (similar)
Zara trousers (similar)
Adidas sneakers
Chanel handbag
Zara sunglasses (similar)
Elizabeth Lyn Jewelry necklace (c/o)
& Other Stories necklace
Delphine Pariente ring (similar)
Keltie Leanne Designs ring (c/o) (similar)
Elizabeth Lyn Jewelry earrings (c/o)
Location: Winnipeg Art Gallery – Winnipeg, Manitoba

Last week was long and discouraging, despite the fact that there were, in reality, only four work days. After a delightful, care-free long weekend, I walked into my office on Tuesday morning to total chaos. The situation did not improve from there.

I learned, growing up, to be wary of talking negatively for more than a few sentences at a time. If I did, people around me begin to perceive me as a complainer. But in our world of social media highlight reels, I think we need to be transparent about just how many good pictures we take on bad days. And about how many bad days simply get stricken from the record in favour of more photogenic ones.

It was a bad week for no special reason, and that was part of what made it so frustrating. Nothing especially catastrophic happened. But no matter how furiously typed, I simply couldn’t keep up – despite the fact that I routinely put in extra hours in an effort to do exactly that. And so I found myself wondering, frequently, Why am I still here?

What I’ve found is that if I wonder Why am I still here? for long enough in one part of my life, it spills over into all the rest. The answer to why I still do my job is a relatively easy one. I have a mortgage to pay. My bills will arrive monthly whether or not I have money to pay them. And I really like being able to vacation in Europe. So I moved on quickly to why I still push myself to get outside and run every weekday in the summer when I don’t seem to have even five spare minutes for a bathroom break most days. But the answer there, too, was simple enough. Running is good for my sanity, what little I have left of it, and my physical health, too.

And so, inevitably, I found myself asking why I continue to run my blog, when engagement is constantly decreasing as people gravitate to Instagram. It’s no secret that maintaining this space requires real work, which I put in on weekends when normal people stay in bed. And what is the point of that work, if it doesn’t interest anyone anymore? I can make my life look instagrammable – once you get the hang of it, it isn’t hard, although it is a bit disingenuous. I could just quit blogging.

…That’s right, I could just quit blogging. I realised that on Friday night. After all, that’s exactly what I expected I would do when I started Coco & Vera. At most, I expected to expend nine months of effort on my blog. Nine years of work seemed unfathomable to me at the time. When I add up all the hours I’ve spent writing and editing and posing in that time, I realise I probably could have learned a new language in the same amount of time. Maybe even two. But is that what I would have done? Not likely.

This is, admittedly, not the first time that I have questioned why, philosophically, I keep coming back to this space day after day, week after week. And after a bowl of Kraft Dinner and two movies starring stuffed animals on Friday night, I realised it’s because it doesn’t really matter if anyone is reading. Don’t get me wrong – I am thrilled that many of you are still here and still think I have anything relevant to share after all this time. But I would need to write regardless. I need words to help me to make sense of the world and my own place in it. Paragraph after paragraph, I use verbs and adjectives to untangle the knots in my feelings about difficult experiences, sometimes years after living them.

I need to write sometimes just because it is something do to prove that I still exist, separate from my job. For years, I have watched older colleagues disappear into their daily tasks, the hours of their personal time shortening a little bit more with every passing year. I have wondered what it must be like to have a life you would be willing to give up so easily.

And I realise now that my question implied a judgement on all of them. I presumed, wrongly, that their personal lives were somehow less meaningful than mine. That isn’t true. What sets me apart is not my life. It is the fact that I have this space to come back to, week after week, to examine and reexamine my choices. Writing, and particularly writing for an audience, forces me to constantly think critically about what I’m doing. To be curious. To ask important questions, like why I’m still here and what purpose this space serves. It definitely isn’t about the outfits, although I still do love sharing them. It’s about being present and grounded in something more than collecting a pay cheque.

On a long, discouraging week, I always have Coco & Vera to come back to, a constant reminder that a job is temporary but this is my only life. That’s why I’m still here.