It’s a New Dawn, it’s a New Page

Hi friends,

Recently I've found myself starting to find less inspiration in the things that used to spark me. Fashion and Disney, particularly through the lenses of instagram influencers, used to be my main source of all things motivating. Feeling less than cute? Spend an hour on my makeup and take some photos for the 'gram. Recruit my husband to stand on a fence so he can get the right angle. "Maybe someday instagram can be my job and I'll get paid to be cute!" You know. Just Millennial Things.

Then COVID-19 hit. Then the Black Lives Matter movement grew and grew. And suddenly, those things I used to devote so much time and energy to... clothes, cute photos, selfies... those things just don't seem to matter as much right now.

After running Damsel Designed for so many years, the transition to running a personal (yet public) instagram has been a little choppy, but mostly really fun. I thought I knew the Instagram game- take aesthetically pleasing photos regularly and post them every day. But now I wonder- is that still how the game is played? And if it is... Do I still want to play?

The current state of the world has placed a lense over how I view... well, everything. I can't afford to obsess over the other material things that used to be a large focus in my life. I also have an internal driving force that wasn't there before- the need to do more for human rights- to get more involved politically. I think about my health and the health of my family more. I wonder if bringing a kid into the world sometime in the next 5 years would be the right thing to do. The world around me, that I once viewed as a superficial place, now feels real and full of emotion. It's a turning of the tide, and I'm excited about it.

I guess the bottom line is that this wave of change has left me feeling a little unsatisfied with my presence online. It feels superficial and unimportant. There is so much work to do and people to love. Why spend so much energy on a virtual footprint that will be outdated in 10 years, anyway? I’m not sure how to rework what I’m doing, but in the meantime, I’ve decided that I want to share some things with you that has really helped ground me during this tumultuous time.

A LOT of meditation. Some crystals. Gallons of tea. Moon water. Moon rituals. Some spellwork... and wait a minute... this sounds like witchcraft?

Yep. I would like to thank #witchtok for putting words to things I had been doing for years and helping me find new books and coping mechanisms that have taught me more self-help and love than I ever knew existed.

Discovering this has helped center me a lot, and it has become a big part of my life. But... it isn’t something I've really been sharing online. And why not? For a few reasons. 1.) I’m not trying to get burned at the stake, ok? and 2) Because it just doesn't fit in with everything else my instagram has been before. It isn't superificial. It's full of emotions and ideas that I don't know how to share on my page... because it doesn't seem to fit there.

So I made a new account called @alittlelitha - "Litha" is the name for the Pagan summer solstice. For now, this is where I hope I can be a little more unfiltered. As much as I love @nikkinotices... It just doesn't seem like the right space for this. I’ll still be sharing parts of my life there, but for the things that feel too personal, I’ll be turning to @alittlelitha. I won't be sharing this new account information on @nikkinotices anytime soon, either, beyond this blog post. I figure, if you took the time to read all of this, you are probably someone I can trust with this new information.

If all of this sounds weird or even scary to you, I would encourage you to reflect on why you find it threatening. l’ve always been a witch, after all. I just never got my Hogwarts letter.🤷🏼‍♀️

Stay magical!

Nikki