little white truths

These past weeks, I've been thinking a little about what next year might look like, in light of the fact that my whole life is about to change with the impending arrival (touch wood) of a baby.

When you're pregnant you hear many stories - whether bidden or unbidden - from friends and strangers about what early motherhood is like. The horror stories tend to scream loudest because those are the ones we fear: will I have a baby who never sleeps and screams 24/7; will I be able to walk the dog; will finding the time to dress myself be a challenge?

Regarding this blog and my beauty obsession, the sorts of questions that pop into my head now and then are often along these lines:

• I'm taking some maternity leave, but will I have time to work on my novel and write blog posts? I suspect I won't have the brain to work on my novel (particularly considering that pregnancy sapped my creative brain anyway, so I can't see that coming back until there's emotional space for it); but I may have time to write blog posts now and then. How often will that be? Who knows. If I manage two or three a week, I think that would make me very lucky. We'll see.
• Forget makeup: will I have time to shower? I've heard that some women struggle to find time even for basic hygiene in the early weeks/months of motherhood. Will that be me? Then what's gonna happen to all those Memebox body scrubs and washes haha. I suspect I won't be worried about those then ; )
• What about skincare? Will I have time for my skincare routine. Nay, will I even CARE about my skincare routine?
• In three months' time, will I laugh at myself if I read this post and see that, yes, I did say this: I would like to have enough time to play with my makeup - even in the early days. The reason? I don't actually wear makeup because I want to look nice. I wear it because I enjoy playing around with nice things and products that make me feel special. Cosmetics relax me for some reason. The same way reading and mindfulness relax me. Makeup for me is about the process, not the result. Well, not the 'normal' result (being how you look when you're done) - the result of painting shit on my face is that I feel calmer afterwards, because the process relaxes me. That's worth something.
• What about little white truths? It's a life blog and I've certainly posted on things like travel, food and human quirks - but for the most part, I've posted beauty reviews. Why? I've had preggers brain and I find these posts easier - they don't need my creative brain. I just need to do some research and say what I think. But will my posts change later on? Will I start posting on motherhood and newborn babies? Who knows. I do hope to eventually bring more balance to this blog's content, so a more even focus would definitely be a good thing.
• Lastly, I have wondered whether having a child will wipe my obsession with beauty altogether. It's a recent obsession anyway, and only descended at the beginning of 2012. Will having a baby send me back to where I was previously: a beauty dunce who didn't care about mascara? Or is this a polar reversal situation, something one learns about as a writer: I started off at one extreme, overcompensated and swung to the other, and soon enough I'll settle somewhere in the middle. Again, we'll see.