Octoberfest Wrap-Up

Hi! I know I said on Saturday that I wanted to end things on one final creepy note, but somewhere in the last couple of days I realized that I liked this year's series the way it was and wanted to end it on the lineup, which I usually try to put in right at the end. I didn't want to share another makeup or last-minute costume post, and didn't have the time or energy to put out another long post on a specific topic. So I decided to end the series on the TCM lineup. I probably should have mentioned that before now though. lol Honestly, I didn't really come to a decision about that until last night; I'd been debating it since Sunday and didn't know what I was going to do yet. I doubt anyone was waiting with baited breath anyway. lol But yeah. Even though this is technically my shortest Octoberfest with 10 posts, I'm still pleased with the end result and the variety of things we learned about this month. I hope you are as well and that you enjoyed reading them all, whether they were short or long entries. 
As I say with any month-long promotion but especially with Octoberfest and Black History Spotlight, I really do enjoy spending this time with whoever decides to give me a few minutes of their day, and I hope that you leave my blog having learned something new. Even if your main takeaway is that I'm a long-winded hole, at least you've learned something. lol Now that I no longer run this blog on a regular basis, the few times of year that I do come back feel all the more special because there's no regular schedule to get back to afterward. I often leave this place for months at a time because 1-I don't have anyone I'm letting down, and 2-like I said last year, something in me has changed. I talked about it last year, and nothing's changed since then except that I now have some understanding about what exactly it was that changed. As a result, I just don't have the heart nor the time to dedicate to blogging about vintage full-time. I continue to notice this with vintage bloggers; the landscape has changed dramatically from when I first started getting into vintage. Most of the vintage bloggers I used to follow religiously have since moved on to other things and closed their blogs and in general, I don't see many people talking about it anymore. The understanding I gathered was that we spend a few years of our lives immersed fully in the lifestyle for various reasons, then something happens to shift our perspectives or we simply grow out of it, and just like that it's over. We'll still wear the clothes, still roll our eyes with contempt when mainstream decides vintage is 'in' again then proceeds to water it down, and we'll still love vintage overall. We just aren't in love with it anymore. How corny was that last sentence, right? Sorry. lol 
But it's true, at least for me. For me, I spent the majority of my 20s in love with vintage. It became part of my identity, something that made me unique, something that made me me. As such, it was extremely weird--and a little disheartening--for me to realize that I no longer wanted to be a full-time vintage blogger. Part of the fun in being interested in vintage was sharing that with others, so not having that desire at the same level made me a bit angry with myself at first, as stupid as it sounds. I sort of felt like I was losing a bit of my identity by losing the gusto I had for vintage, and for some weird reason I felt guilty, like I was being fickle with my interests or something. I still feel like that, a little. But the only things that have really changed are that I'm no longer romanticizing vintage as a lifestyle, which was a healthy move in the right direction, and I'm no longer blogging about it full-time, which harms exactly no one. lol Everything else is the same. Still love the fashion, still love learning about the history, still love the movies. I just don't have the same burning desire to document and drown myself in it anymore. I'm just quieter about it now, I guess. Also, having a TNT every week for years was starting to hit me hard come SUTS time. LOL So I backed off of those indefinitely; otherwise I'd have eventually run out of movies for certain people because everything would have been previously featured. You can look back through my SUTS archives and see that was already starting to happen with certain people, more so entrants who'd been featured during a previous SUTS I covered. That number of previous entrants grows each year, so just by logic I knew it was going to continue to get worse, especially if I continued to do a movie a week. The original intention was to take a year off and let the lineup refresh, but I'm not sure right now. I'll keep you updated though. 
The reason why I stepped away goes a bit deeper, which I touched on a bit last year, but in short, I'm not in love with vintage enough anymore to continue writing about it all the time. I wasn't very comfortable saying that when I realized it last year and I'm still not too comfortable with it, but I've accepted it. As such, only three times of year have felt appropriate to come back, which is why those are the only times you saw me this year. Excluding a couple of random IG Series posts, I probably won't be back until Black History Spotlight in February, which I obviously hope you'll be joining me for. If something changes or there's something I really want to share, of course I'll be here. But if not, I'll be back bright and early February 1st. With that said, I hope you had a safe Halloween and I hope you have a holiday season full of good times, good food and love. 
Thank you again for spending a little time with me. I appreciate it. 
I'll see you soon!