( Jeans: Banana Republic Factory // Shirt: Loft (similar) // Booties: Steve Madden (similar) // Sweater: J. Crew (similar) )

This is my first Outfit of the Day post in a little over a year, and that one was posted with the same disclaimer to why it had been so long. I stopped posting them because I got frustrated that those posts were doing better than my posts on serious topics like mental illness. I’m not a fashion blogger nor did I have desire to be, I added the OOTD because I thought how we present ourselves is a great part of lifestyle and this blog is supposed to be a lifestyle blog. That’s changed a little, and I didn’t really mean for it to. It started when I published “I’m Not Offended by my Bipolar Jokes. You Shouldn’t be Either.” I was really unsure when I published it, I thought it was going to go over poorly, but I was wrong, it did well and I felt amazing having published it. So, more serious posts started getting mixed into my blog. Posts on my personal relationship with suicide mixed with photo diaries of my horse. It felt good, then I got more invested in the serious topics, and as you might have noticed, they started to dominate.

It’s not a bad thing. The topics I’m writing about are important, at least to me, and I feel like they need to be talked about. That’s what a blog is supposed to be, isn’t it?

But I’ve strayed a little to far from where I started. I need a little lightness in these posts too. I need to include the everyday joys, after all, life isn’t just about the serious topics, and it definitely isn’t just about mental illness and other hardships.

So here is my outfit. Here is my smile. Here is a picture of me in my everyday life.

Anna Down South is about me as a whole, that includes seriousness and it includes happiness.