Hello...I'm new here
Hello there! Welcome to my blog. As you can see...I'm pretty new to this.
For my first post, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to introduce who I am and what this blog is going to be about. This is probably a post that I will look back on and cringe at, but we will see!
To start off, let me introduce myself. My name is Sydney Hembrough and I am 18 years old. I am currently a senior in high school who is just trying to figure things out. As you can see from the picture above, I love the beach and wish I was somewhere warm all the time. I also love my two puppies, Daisy and Duke. They make me very happy. Writing has always been my thing, and as you can probably tell, I write a ton.
I live in a small town in central Illinois where it is small enough to know one out of every ten people you pass, but a stranger is pretty common too. Growing up in this rural community has taught me a lot about myself and those around me. Where I live, you stick to the status quo (p.s. I am going to reference High School Musical a lot, so get used to it). Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of creative, open-minded people who live in my town, but variety isn't always welcomed in my community.
In December of 2015, I uploaded my first "real" Youtube video. By "real" I mean the first one that wasn't a compilation of several videos that had nothing to do with each other. This video was about meeting my long distance boyfriend for the first time (I'll get into more about that later). Appealing to the LDR (long distance relationship) community, this video was what really started my channel off. I sort of count this as the start of my new way of thinking. Not only was the video about something that no one around here supported, let alone ever even heard of, but it also set me a part from the crowd of people I had grown up with. Before my Youtube channel, I felt so content with just being average. Nothing too extraordinary, just average.
With the growing success of my channel came a lot of tough situations. I struggled a lot with putting myself out there simply because I knew that none of my peers really supported me. Sure, they clicked on the links to my videos that I sent them, but I always felt like I was being judged. Growing up as a competitive dancer, I was judged a lot not only by judges but also by myself. I was constantly comparing myself to those around me. There was just something about staring into wall-length mirrors for hours at a time that destroyed my self confidence from junior high on. Long story short: I never felt like I fit in in a place where I was suppose to feel my best, so doing something as ornate as starting a Youtube channel scared me.
My relationship with my love, Charlie, set me a part as well. It wasn't that I "couldn't find anyone here," or any other of those cliches. I met him by chance, and our love has changed my life ever since. I plan on writing an introductory post about how we met later on, but for now, just know that I was criticized and shut down a lot for falling for someone who didn't live in my town, state, or even country. This was another one of those turning points I talked about earlier.
In June of 2017, I was contacted by a brand that was once known as Universiteebox. They were a company that worked with other companies whose goals were to empower young women. I was asked to join their group of social media influencers as a spokesperson for other young women. Yet again, this was a turning point in my self-confidence. Being offered something like this gave me the closure I was looking for. I now knew that I was doing all of this for a reason and that my efforts weren't going unrecognized.
With all of these climactic moments within the past two years came the birth of Blissfully Sydney. A blog was something that I had always wanted to make but one of those things that you never get around to doing. Finally in January of 2018, I made starting a blog one of my new years resolutions. The name of my blog wasn't just a cutesy way of incorporating my first name into it. I stumbled upon the word "blissfully" while looking for synonyms for the word "sincerely" because the domain for Sincerely Sydney was already taken. After looking up the actual definition for blissfully, I realized that putting it before my name was perfect because it literally means "in a way that provides perfect happiness or great joy." Not only am I known as a happy person, but saying Blissfully Sydney means something so much deeper to me. My differences and far-fetched dreams are what set me a part from everyone else. Having once struggled with finding my voice and figuring out who I was meant to be, I realized that I was finally comfortable being me. I am happy to be Sydney; therefore, I am Blissfully Sydney.
“in a way that provides perfect happiness or great joy.”