Comparison is the thief of Substack

👋 Before I jump into Substacks on why AI is ruining my life, or how, at this point in my life, I don’t know if I’m too early or too late for Botox, I thought we had some catching up to do.

It’s been almost a full year since I last wrote on Substack properly. And while I addressed some of the reasons for my absence in my previous blog post, it still feels like I should provide a bit more clarity and re-introduce myself and my life.

So, I’m Alice, I live in London, and I’m 31, which feels very confronting to write. Not because I’m struggling to come to terms with ageing (that’s its own Substack), but because I’ve been writing some version of “Hi, I’m Alice, and I’m X years old” on the internet since I was 18.

(My first ever blog post still somehow exists, if you want a mega throwback.)

Thankfully, a lot has changed since September 2013, but what has stayed the absolute same, alongside my love of Toblerone, apparently, is my love of writing.

Yet despite the many, many years of writing online, and the fact that my job is very literally a content manager (we can’t all be journalists at The Times, some of us have to hold it down in the B2B SaaS space), I’ve felt the creeping feeling of not being a good enough writer.

When I wrote my last blog, I did so in a vacuum. Sure, I read other people’s occasionally, but there wasn’t a social platform to share it to. So for the most part, my followers came from simply word of mouth, and that one crazy time a ‘famous’ blogger decided to share one of my articles.

My inspiration was sought out rather than thrust upon me. And while I absolutely love the Substack community (it’s not doom-scrolling, I swear!), the problem with it is that everyone here appears to be an extraordinarily talented 28-year-old woman living off-grid who can turn getting ghosted by a man named Josh into 2,000 devastating words about being a woman.

So, I did what any totally sane, grounded, confident 30-year-old would do.

I stopped writing.

And unfortunately, it turns out writing was doing a lot more for my mental health than I’d originally given it credit for.

I’d taken away my favourite outlet, my favourite form of praise (wow, Alice, I loved your blog!!!! you are amazing!!!! we must get you a column!!!! etcetc), and then I threw in the hardest work year of my life and got a dog with my partner.

So for the sake of my mental health, and Fraser’s, and frankly, Murphy the golden retriever/Irish setter-mix, we’re sooooo back.

Truthfully, I thought I’d have more to update you on over the past year, but I’m in the same job, in the same flat, and with the same partner (hooray!).

I’ve been to even more weddings (five this year!), had a gorgeous long weekend in Rome, spent approximately 200 hours with Fraser discussing where we want to live and whether we should move again (something about SW London just isn’t quite right for us), and dedicated the remaining hours of the day to keeping Murphy alive.

I’ve also had maybe the busiest summer of my life (which admittedly, I say every year), but it seems the early-30s combo of hen dos, weddings, baby showers and 30th birthdays has really come to a head in 2026.

To be clear, I love showing up for people. I wrote a whole blog on it, in fact. But it turns out that combining three months of back-to-back busy weekends with the hardest year I’ve ever had at work is not particularly conducive to feeling well-rested and full of joie de vivre.

So, in an attempt to recover in time for autumn, we’ve booked an all-inclusive in Gran Canaria for the first week of September, where the biggest decision I’ll be making is whether to have red or white sangria.

I can’t fucking wait.

See you soon!