Well hello, there. It’s been a while.
No, really. It’s a little crazy to think it’s been more than a year since I posted regularly here on the Girly Geek Blog. Looking back, I really couldn’t tell you where the time went—it just flew by.
And a lot has changed in that time.
Looking back at personal changes
At the start of 2024, I wrote what was in hindsight a heavy post about my own struggles with mental health. I had one simple goal with that post: I was recognizing for probably the first time in my entire life that there was something deeper going on in my mind, and I wanted to fix it.
I underestimated it.
And it kicked my butt last year.
The start of 2026 showed me that I hadn’t come nearly as far as I wanted to, and definitely not nearly as far as I needed to. So it’s been a much more tired, overwhelmed, and somewhat terrified geek who started off this year.
I don’t want to make this too heavy, but at least this way, you know the context behind a year of radio silence. Writing here and sharing my gaming interests is still a core part of my soul, still something I care deeply about and want to do every single day. But at some point, anxiety put up a giant wall around me, stopping me from doing the things I care about.
There’s good news in all of this.
I’ve started taking care of myself, I’ve started working with a therapist. There are new horizons to explore ahead, and explore we shall!
One thing I succeeded at
Part of what I’ve been learning in therapy is that it’s good to recognize your wins, no matter how small or insignificant they might feel.
And one—though I’m not convinced it counts as small—was that I did in fact stick to my goal of building the courage to try streaming.
I did it.
I kept with it.
And it’s become something I keep up with and come back to, even when it doesn’t go as planned.
How streaming transformed my gaming interests
Early on in my attempts at streaming, I learned that my greatest-playtime-of-all-time game, Final Fantasy XIV, wasn’t going to stick.
I could blame my exhaustion with Wuk Lamat and her insistence on becoming the real Slim Shady, but it wasn’t entirely her fault. Partly, yes.
But it was also partly that I discovered I had a hard time streaming social games. I can probably credit social anxiety and my aptly named goldfish brain for it; it was a battle of its own for exactly the same reasons I struggle with running meetings at work.
After some trial and error, I found my comfy spot in the world of Dreamlight Valley.
Why Dreamlight Valley became my go-to game
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sold on the game at first. My sister tried getting me to play it with her years ago when it first came out, and I really couldn’t tell you why I didn’t take her up on it.
It wasn’t until I saw one of my streaming friends playing it that I realized I was being silly and I’d probably love it.
And it just happened to be free on the PC Game Pass, so I gave it a shot.
Since then, it’s become my favourite escape for a few reasons.
- The sense of magic
Obviously, it’s Disney, so it’s going to feel magical. And as a kid that grew up in the golden age of animation, it holds a lot of nostalgia and joy for me.
- The themes
You might think Dreamlight Valley is a kids’ game, but realistically, it isn’t.
The stories in the base game and each of the expansions deal with some pretty heavy topics based around mental health, the way we lose our sense of magic and imagination as we grow up and move into the adult world, and the battle to bring back those moments at any stage of life.
Yeah. Let that soak in for a moment.
And for me, because I was already dealing with some childhood trauma and its lingering effects, those stories hit home in a powerful way.
- The amount of design
Dreamlight Valley probably rivals Animal Crossing as far as how much I can design and decorate, and it brings my little heart indescribable joy. Sure, I can’t terraform (yet?), but there’s something so peaceful about creating little parks and quiet places that I can run through.
The up-close perspective helps, too, because unlike games like Animal Crossing, it actually feels like I’m experiencing the spaces I build.
What all this means for the blog this year
Until now, I’ve been stuck figuring out where the blog fits into this new identity and cozy gaming world I’ve created for myself.
That uncertainty pulled me into a cycle of functional paralysis. I couldn’t do anything because I had to figure it out, and I felt like I couldn’t figure it out because the blog and my streaming were such separate entities.
I can’t let that stuck feeling stop me anymore.
So here we are.
In 2026, I’m turning a new leaf.
At its core, the Girly Geek Blog is staying the same. It’s still about the cozy vibes I’ve always loved sharing, the passion for design I can’t seem to escape in any aspect of my life, the stories and adventures of a girly geek learning—yet again—that there’s so much more to the world of gaming than she ever thought possible.
But in some ways, blog and stream will blend together. I’ve got a few ideas of how that will work:
- Some light aesthetic changes (a few have already happened!) to add some of my design work from my stream, because I’m nothing if not a nerd for visual consistency
- More posts about my adventures and discoveries designing in Dreamlight Valley (and maybe a few from the real world, too!)
- A fun little catalog of things I’ve designed (which may or may not have already been teased on the blog somewhere)
I’m sure it will still evolve over time, but for now, and with all this in mind, I’m excited. I hope you are, too. This is going to be a great year.
Until next time!
