In my blossoming era

Here we are, That Blonde Woman 3.0, and I couldn’t be more happy that the launch date is colliding with some news I want to share.

Time? Do we know her?
While I only made 28 turns around the sun, I sometimes feel old. Once you can say with full confidence: oh that happened 5, 10 years ago. And back then you were also already an adult, you know that time is starting to tick in a different way. I am not fearing it, rather I embrace the new times of adulthood. Entering this era has been quite interesting. To be able to put in perspective, let’s go back 10 years. At this very date 10 years ago I planned That Blonde Woman the blog and that was the start of a life I had no idea was possible. So let me take you on an adventure how this blog came to be, the new logo and how I grew with it.

A 18 year old with many, many dreams. With nothing more to show than her ambition, hopes and a desire to make all those dreams come true. Coming from a vastly different background, the blogging space was my safe haven. I found my voice and realised under a year of starting this blog that I could make it. I truly could do whatever I wanted. Before the blog there was just hope that I, a girl from a very small country village from a place no one has ever heard of could make it. Yes, I do realise this is the start of quite a few Hallmark movies. But what’s new when I, just like most of the main characters, also studied journalism? 

That very first year
Let’s get back on track with my first blogging year, cause that was a year for the books! Funny actually, I know I was miserable a lot of times back then. I am going to keep it real. It was a hard year of exploring so much of myself and who I wanted to become. Nevertheless I didn’t let fear get in the way of achieving my dreams. Only weeks after starting this blog I applied for a EU scholarship to go to the UK (yes, that was still a possibility back then) and I got in! I did an apprenticeship in the city of Exeter, travelled around England with nothing more than the things that could fit in my backpack at 19 years old. I had the time of my life and I gained the life lessons I needed for the future.

A career that took off
Of course I documented the trip of a lifetime on this blog. Currently I am looking into how I can republish these blogs to the English language (since I started this blog first in Dutch). With my trip to England and blogs about books, I was noticed by different publishing houses. That was the key for me to get an apprenticeship at a publishing house right after my travels, with that came the big move to city life. A lot of opportunities came my way, some I accepted and others I simply said no too.

With (almost) every dream, came a move
In under a year I moved a total of 4 times. During the timespan of this blog I moved a total of 12 times I think? Possibly more, but who has the time to remember it all? Two more publishing houses jobs followed after the first one. The last one was on an estate where I lived in an old hotel room. Sounds crazy? Well, it can get crazier. On a whim I decided it would be fun to apply for a job to become a Junior-Director of a museum. The last laugh was on me, cause I got hired. I moved into the apartment above the museum and had one of the best summers, fell in love with the town and life in the way I was living it. 

Learning to dance in the rain
After my time at the museum came to an end, I realised I had done a lot of jobs that I had dreamed of doing. From working in publishing both in marketing as in publishing to working in a museum. Truly getting That Blonde Woman off the ground as a business felt like the next big thing to do. Well 2020 rolled around, that was almost the end of everything I had built.
However, it finally gave me the time to do something I always wanted to do, but never had time to do: language studies! With that my blog changed with its content. From mainly being about books and solo travels, I was stuck at home with music and my study books to keep me company. 

However I wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t make other dreams of mine come true. Why not study a language when living there? For a winter I moved to Berlin where I made lifelong friends, danced the nights away and fell even more in love with the city. Coming back to the Netherlands was hard. One of the hardest things I had to do, and oh boy… life decided to give me the hardest time not long after my return. In less than three months apart two friends of mine passed away, with one of them being one of my closest friends. It took a long time for me to get up and fall in love again with life. Once I did, life gave me another curveball. 

My alter ego 
Here is the thing, I could have written this blog about all the things I got to do thanks to this blog. About who I got to interview, the travels I made, the books I kindly received, etc. I am grateful for everything and any opportunity that came my way. But the thing is… I was brave enough to do the things I wrote before this paragraph all thanks to this blog!
That Blonde Woman was my alter ego when I was 15 years old, when I came up with this idea to start an online magazine one day in the future. A shy kid with many, many dreams. Writing for my blog pushed me in ways I needed to do the things that had to be done in order to achieve my dreams. What a ride it has been!

A 20 year old dream came true
Are there even dreams left? Yes! I have many plans, but please let me first tell you something else. Something more personal. A dream I had for the past 20 years and that I made come true. Even though I have been personal a lot on this blog for the past 10 years and I am who I am thanks to it, I don’t share everything. What I am about to tell you was actually something I was planning to keep to myself. However, it’s quite the milestone, there have been questions, people who don’t know how to respond and I get that it is confusing.

After 20 years of wishing on the stars I received the letter I have been longing for. My surname has changed! Why I did this is something I am not going to get into in a public space like a blog. The only thing I do want to say is: please, never assume something about someone even if you think you know them and they have the brightest of smiles. Read the last sentence once more to really let it sink in. 

Let me also put an end to the following rumours: no, I am not divorced or married (yet). If you have a question, because you are planning to change your name yourself, know that my dm’s and email inbox are open!

Life of a poet
The shy kid in me is nowhere to be found. An alter ego is not needed anymore. Not in name or achieving dreams. Still this little corner on the internet feels like my haven. Where I could grow from girl to woman, from dreamer to achiever. As a writer I went through multiple phases. From just a blog to a thriving business.
Life hasn’t been kind to me, especially in the last few years, but once I saw the light at the end of the tunnel I was able to finally write again. Creating, being the poet I am. Not long after I decided that after almost 10 years of my blog, I would finally write in English like I always wanted to. Ideas started flowing again. 

It was the hardest of times that gave me the courage to step into my blossoming era. For those who have been paying attention, especially my Dutch and Belgium readers… Yes, this was a wordplay around my last name: Bloesem which means Blossom in English. 

Blog about my thousand lives
I enter the start of my eleventh blog year and I couldn’t be more happy that I can both look back on and see a future with so much pride. My life turned into a museum with all these different collections. Some are temporary, there are exhibitions and others are the foundations of what made it. But all filled with memories, experiences and raw captured emotions.

Let me welcome you to the Blossoming Era, an era about my thousand lives that I once lived and hope to live in the future. About my adventures, travels, making dreams happen and the things that keep me busy when I am not doing one of those things. A new book has opened and the blossom is forever growing.

Love,