The Realisation that changed my life

This is something I know is going to be the same as what I have written before, yet vastly different, and as a person who I think has changed in a number of ways.

Since January, a lot has changed for me. I firstly switched job roles, working in the same place but doing something different, which was great. I couldn't wait to start learning and developing my skills further at work. I became someone slightly different. I'd like to say I was a little bit more confident if anything, but then again, looking back now I don't think I was. I was someone was slowly gaining confidence again which I loved. I realise working on something different can be scary until you are used to it.

I've been away from blogging and YouTube for a long time now. Months. While I would like to blame this fact on my 'busy schedule' (it's not busy at all) I think I can blame it on all number of reasons.
1. I don't have all the time in the world.
2. Lack of confidence.
3. Ill health - I can't really say much about this for obvious reasons.

For a while, my confidence grew. I was feeling great and getting on with life as I should. I saw every bad thing came with something happy to go with it. My car broke down in a car park in the middle of the day. Embarrassing, but it could have been in the middle of the night at the side of a barren road.

I was finding things to be thankful for when the bad stuff came and went. For a while nothing was bad.

While I'd like to think I'm like this all the time now, I know there is still improvements to be made. I still get jealous from time to time. I get angry when it can be avoided or when I think someone has acted carelessly. I hopelessly apologise when I've been mean due to anger and feel like I've upset them.

I guess that's the person I am.

Today I figured out that I'm not as bad as I thought. While I feel at times a bit alone, and a bit anxious and annoyed for a reason I know I shouldn't, I also feel ambition and pride for myself. I look for long term solutions rather than taking short term solutions.

I know my confidence still needs to rise, and I need to put on my big girl pants and get on with things. I need to learn to be more accepting and I also need to remember that nothing is going to go right the first time, but I need to keep trying to reach that goal.

My family, friends and the love of my life drive me absolutely nuts. I couldn't love them more for the way they stand by my side without complaint and support me through any rough times I experience. They are there through good and bad. For that, I will be forever grateful.

I will be back. I don't know when, but I will be.

The Common Issues of a Modern Day Blogger

Sometimes these blogs can be difficult to write. 

As some of you know, writing has been a dream job for me since I was about 8 years old. It's something I've always wanted to pursue. 

My issue is, I never have the confidence to show my writing to the world, or in some cases to the people I trust more than anyone in the world. I know I have some good ideas, how I show them is another story. 

One of my worst habits is writing something out, re-reading it and deciding I don't like it, and deleting it altogether. I then decide I can't write at that moment and putting my laptop down and I won't pick it back up for hours or sometimes days. It's exhausting to think about, as I know I can do it, but I don't put faith in myself to go through with the stories I tell. 

So many ideas have gone rogue now, lost in the back of my brain. I hate that in some cases I will never be able to get them back. 

So sometimes blogging seems like a good way to go. I can write whatever is on my mind and I know that some of you will relate. If you don't, well I guess you might relate to some of the others. Little snippets of my imagination or life for people to see and read. Little things about me that I feel I can't express without words on paper or on a screen. 

I love to blog. I really do. I love to see how many people stop to read them, and I love to write them. That's the hard part. 

Sometimes I'm at loss of what to write about. Sometimes I get inspiration from the rain, or falling leaves, or the blossom in the spring. Sometimes I want to express how I feel about the beauty of the stars, or the boring days where nothing really happens or how sometimes I'm so tired but my brain is too wired to sleep. 

Sometimes I want to write about how peaceful someone looks when they fall asleep, how I feel when I get to the beach near where I was born and feel the sand in between my toes, or how angry I am at something that's happened against me in the world. 

Getting the words out seems to be so difficult. I want to get it right, make it interesting or inspiring. Somehow getting the words out seems to be so... final. Once my opinion is out would there be any way to take it back if it were to ever change? 

Maybe. 

Maybe not. 

10 Things You Would Do Well To Know About Me

Hi there guys,

Life has a strange way of working out for each person in the world, and while I may moan and whine about the way things work out for me, as like everyone else in the world, that's life. You learn how to deal with things, and everyone deals with things differently. People react in different ways to different things that happen through the day. For example, I hate confrontation, it makes me nervous, my heart rate picks up and I begin to worry for a while, whereas with some people, confrontation might not bother them as much. I hope that makes sense.

So recently, life has thrown a few curveballs at me, and before I know it, it's October (aka the best month of the year). My best friend has gone to University, I've suffered a loss of a family member, and my health has been up and down in the worst of ways.

It's got me thinking tonight. For the past week, I've been thinking about life overall, and frankly I think so many people, myself included, are rushing through life. We spend our weeks wishing for the weekend to come, which always goes too fast anyway. We don't realise how many days we are actually wishing away, which sucks really. So I've been taking my time with what I am doing (unless I am running late for something), and it's been lovely to not have to worry about anything.

It's got me thinking about how I feel in the world, and how I communicate with others, and then it got me thinking onto how many people actually know about who I am? The real me, anyway.

So I thought I'd try to show you what sort of person I really am underneath all the layers that I usually cover myself with.

1. I double check things. Then I double check that I've double checked it. Then I check again. I think this is how I get most of my exercise in life. So if I ask you to confirm something, something that I probably know for a fact I've done or got right, for example, locking the door, don't get irritated. It's just me.

2.  If you ask me for a word away from others, I get nervous. By nervous I mean that I question everything I have done throughout the last week or so. I don't care who you are, but if you ask me for a word, I hope you're going to tell me a secret or give me some sort of 007 top secret mission, because otherwise I will not want to follow you away from people.

3. If I don't know you that well, I will be super nervous wondering if you like me or not. It comes with the fear of not wanting to be found annoying or irritating, or stupid or whatever... again... that's just me. Don't judge.

4. I don't really care about how I dress in public. I dress in a nice way, but I don't care if you don't like my style or the way that I look. I don't care if I look scruffy at Tesco's on a Sunday afternoon. I don't care if you don't like my stripy tights as I walk around town on a Saturday. I don't care if you stare at me, because my style makes me happy.

5. I have an odd accent. Deal with it. I realise I pronounce 'book' with an 'oo'. I'm not going to change the way I talk for you.

6. I get mad when people don't use the correct grammar word. For example: Your and You're, There, their and they're. I also don't like 'u' instead of 'you'. I get so angry.

7. I spend a lot of my time reading. This is mainly to escape from the real world for a bit, and have to think about someone else's problems besides my own. I will sit and read, and not say a word for hours on end, and it will be so much fun to me. I honestly just wish I could sit and read books all day every day. It would make my life amazing. #dreamjob. I should be a proof-reader...

8. I am ill a lot. Just in general like headaches and just that general feeling of 'I'd rather be in bed' because I don't feel up to it. It is however, something I'm working on.

9. My ambition has always been a writer, but some of the time I read my own writing and wonder why I even bother trying. (My friend may yell at me for this one). I'm so desperate to get my work out there, that when I try to put my thoughts down on paper, they just don't sound that good. I can't seem to comprehend that, although I have been writing for years, I'm still a beginner. I will still have to write something a few times before it becomes good enough for someone to enjoy. I just don't really have the patience.

10. I get lost in my head a lot. I'm a daydreamer, obsessed with one too many things, hopelessly in love, and... well... me.

I'm just me.

I hope that this will have a few people understand a bit more about me, and how I am as a person. There are a hundred other things I could put on there, but... I've got to keep some things private I suppose!

On the Mend!

Hello there my old friends. It seems I've missed quite a chunk here... I haven't posted since March and with good reason of course.

So the main reason I haven't posted is because I've been trying to sort myself out, not only mentally but physically too. I'm not saying I've particularly eaten healthier, but lets just say I now know how to take care of my body now. I'm getting a bit better at a time and on the mend which for me is amazing. I'm sure in one of my old posts I mentioned that I had been constantly tired and I was lacking in energy and sleep, having headaches and feeling down. Basically I've found out what's going on with my body and pleased to say I'm getting better! I'm still tired constantly and getting the headaches but I can cope with them a lot better now.

With everything that has been going on with my body, I sort of forgot about my blog... I try hard with my writing but sometimes it can be difficult when you know what you want to put but just can't get it down on paper... It upset me a bit, I'll be honest...

I haven't given up though.

There is still a lot that needs to be sorted for me. I find myself on repeat again and again the same loop of just getting up, working, coming home, chill for a few hours then repeat but I can't help but feel there should be more to life. I'm not saying I don't like what I do for a living, I do, it's just that, as humans, we have been presented with a world full of wonder and treasures. Natural treasures and man made also. They're still there to see. Why don't we go to see them? Explore the world we have been given? Why not?

Dealing.

Wow, it's been an entire month since I blogged. This is hard for me, now that I realise that during the month I spent barely any time thinking about my next blog, or what would come of it.

Truth is, it's been a complicated month for me, I won't talk about all of it, and although i have a lot of trust in my readers, there are some things I would like to keep personal. I haven't been very well recently, experiencing sickness, but not actually throwing up, fatigue, tiredness, headaches and breathlessness. I have a few ideas of what it could be, and I have spent the last month trying to test different theory's and seeing if they work, one of which has worked a little bit.

I've also been getting on with different things that have come about recently. I recently helped out in a wedding fair, dressing up as a bride which was fun, trying to sort myself out and my diet to make sure I'm eating enough and eating relatively good for myself, and I've got back into my reading too.

Once upon a time I forgot about all my reading, and forgot to actually live my life to the full, I moped around and was always tired. I'm trying not to let it get in the way of me now.

At the moment I have my head in the clouds, trying to find my own way in life. The sun came out this morning, and as I sit in my room, reading one of my new books, I can't help but think about the upcoming summer.

This is the summer where things are going to change, and it's a little bit frightening, but this year will be good. I know it.

Bucket List

Hey guys, so I only got back into the house about 2 hours ago, and I'm pretty exhausted. Its been a long sort of day, but a nice one nonetheless.

When I got home I started to read a new book from Rachel Schurig, one of my favourite authors, who describes a museum which was made out of an old train station. I basically fell in love with this place, everything about the way it was described seemed so perfect to me, and it hit me that there were so many places just like that, that I wanted to visit.

I've visited a place like that before, an old bookstore that was made out of a train station. A classic one with brick walls and a glass roof. There couldn't have been a place that made me feel more at home, as when you walk through the doors you are greeted with a smell that's a mix of strong coffee and old books. It was heaven to me, and just to give it a little bit of character, there was a tiny train that ran around the track above the bookshelves. Also so many squishy chairs that you could just sit and read in, shelves that were twice your size and an atmosphere that just makes you want to revisit the place again and again.

So I made a bucket list. Some things that are easy to do, some things I've started and some that I can only achieve in time. I've put on there places I want to visit and do, like visit Japan and California, and spend a weekend in London to visit the Natural History Museum and Leadenhall Market. Some of my things on there I don't know how I'll achieve, like trying to do something that's quite scary, or trying something new. These are some things I want out of my life. For a while I wanted to live in America and just move away, but I figured that if I visit America that would settle me, and be able to travel a bit instead. Moving so far away from everything I've known seems to be too big of a step.

But then I decided to make a second list. I made a list of things I've actually done that make me smile, and I seem to have thought of quite a few. Some are emotional, like learning to be more confident and embracing my bizarre personality. Others are things I've actually done that I've been really proud of, like raising some money for charity and that time I managed to get 100 page views on my blog in one day. It might not seem like a lot, but it was completely worth it to me.

It seems that by doing this I have brought myself a lot of hope, making me look forward to the future and what it holds, and it was definitely enough to bring me out of the January and February rut I seemed to have myself in. Let's see what the future brings.

Keep smiling! - x

Feeling Good

I think this is really important guys. Over the last couple of weeks I've felt borderline depressed. I've been constantly tired and haven't been feeling myself.

While I am still tired and not quite myself, at 19 now is the time to really make myself. So try to work out a style that's really me. So my style is very different. I recently bought a new steampunk style coat, a new tshirt and stripy tights. I like to be different, in a sense that I stand out from the crowd as someone who isn't like everyone else.

So I love my converse (bright red of course), skinny jeans, black tshirts with funny things printed on them (my new one has Baymax on it and it says 'I like Big Bots and I cannot lie') and I prefer to have my hair either down or half up half down. I have black eyeliner on every day, with flicks on the edges, and slightly dark lipstick.

This is the style I love, when I feel more confident and happy with myself and the person that I am. I'm not a fashionista or whatever, but I love the clothes I do wear.

But this is the bit that's important, its important for you to feel good in your own skin, and if you're not, do something about it. Treat yourself. Today (about 30 mins ago actually) I had my eyebrows done, get your nails done, try a new makeup style and smile. Go out and get some clothes you feel happy in and just keep yourself happy. If you don't like something, change it.

I'm not saying go out and go have surgery, because like, I don't like my nose. I mean, if something can be changed easily, or if it's just a simple thing that needs to be changed, go for it.

The way to breaking out of a rut is to smile and do something that makes you happy. Don't do what I did, when I sat and pitied myself because trust me when I say - it does nothing.

Keep smiling - x