I’ve somehow made it through week 4. I still don’t know what I’m doing but I’m having fun pretending like I do. This week I finally began uploading my videos to Instagram and Facebook and the results have been interesting.

For awhile I thought I wouldn’t even bother with Facebook. I hardly spend any time on my own personal profile, I haven’t posted on it in years and don’t primarily interact there but I thought I might as well. I didn’t expect much and indeed, after 5 days, I currently still have just the 1 follower - my husband (I refuse to guilt my friends and family into following me so no one knows it exists). Some videos have *literally 6 views, 3 views… a couple have around 100 or so each but weirdly one has 547! Which is more views than I’ve ever had on any one video on TikTok. I have no magic formula for how or why that happened as I’ve posted/tagged/uploaded them all the same. Your guess is as good as mine. I do have 1 organic like from someone I don’t know and for that I’m so grateful!

I have more family and friends following me on Instagram but I think they must all think I’m in crisis and are being blindly supportive. No one’s mentioned or brought it up so I’m just going to let it ride. Initially it was really only the people who were following me liking my stuff but I’m just starting to get organic likes on my stories and reels from strangers which is super exciting!

In TikTok land things are going well. They slowed way down over the weekend as I wasn’t able to get any videos out since Friday. My plans changed and different things came up so I wasn’t able to get around to filming like I wanted to. However, the last video I did was my 2nd most successful one so far which I find hilarious because there was no plan. It was a silly little video about getting the peonies at Trader Joes set to Mission Impossible music and it happened very fast in the moment. I saw the sign outside as I was driving in and had the concept pretty instantaneously. I did a quick shot of me walking in, quick shots of the flowers, a quick shot of my walking around and filmed the beginning and end when I got back to my car. I even wondered if I had enough shots, I worried if it would be interesting enough or if the whole idea was too silly to begin with but somehow it’s done really well. Someone even made a stitch with it which is the first time that’s happened. I’m definitely feeling itchy that I haven’t posted there since Friday but hopefully this upcoming week will be more productive.

I’m enjoying the creative process immensely. The short format feels achievable. It’s not too daunting or overwhelming which is what I feel I need at this particular stage in my life. I also feel in a weird way it’s sort of art therapy for myself. I can get trapped by perfectionism and it’s something I still battle but by nature of these little reels, done is better than perfect. I have just slap together an edit and get it out. I don’t have time to overthink it and once it’s posted it’s out of my hands. I just sit back and let it live. It’s freeing.

I’ve taken no extra pictures for the blog because I forgot. Oh well. I do have big plans for this week so hopefully next weeks post won’t be so barren.