The Tea Monologues | Part 1

Well. Where do I start?

You know, it took me over an hour to decide on what to call this post. To be perfectly frank, I can see myself changing it yet again before I am happy with it. 

I feel like it has been a while since I have let my guard down on my blog. I've been so caught up in university work that I have forgotten to leave time for my mind.

It's been one of those times. The ones where you don't really want to talk to anyone, but you feel like you might explode if you don't. Know those feelings?

I recently invested in a "Line a Day Diary". A five year journal giving me approximately 20 words (handwriting size dependent) on how my day has been, what I have been feeling, what I have been doing. Not so surprisingly the word "procrastination", or forms of it, seem to scatter the last...26 pages.

I really need to work on my procrastination.

Yes, I have a Frozen Starbucks mug. Don't judge me. No, it is not coffee (for once), but tea. Hence the title. Get it? Ayyyyy. 

Right now I am feeling a bit shit. As I look over to my wall and see my planner hanging there, all smug with its complete fullness of dates, meetings, deadlines, and placement days. I am starting to realise how busy I am going to be. There are little dots scattered, annoyingly very close together, showing me when I should be doing things. It is now I have discovered that I have only 1 free day a week. A Saturday. Of which will be spent in bed, not moving, and probably snoring. 

So I have a little under four months left at university. Four months. Shit. 

I am starting to enter that little pre-existential crisis phase again. I am feeling very anxious, permanently a little sick, and very jittery. 

It is dawning on me that this time in a year, or even 6 months, I could be anywhere doing anything.

But what I will be doing is bugging me.

There is a little voice in my head telling me to put myself out there, apply for everything. Then there is the louder, more strong voice reminding me of how scared of rejection and failure I am.

I found myself putting together a (not so) little Travel Bucket List, seemingly out of comfort - or procrastination, depending on how you choose to look at it. Do I want to travel? Yes. Can I afford to travel? No. Dammit, student loan.

Maybe I will wait a little longer to decide on my fate for the next few years.

I have been finding comfort, and possibly slight procrastination and admiration, in Will Darbyshire's YouTube Channel (of which I have linked, take a look). It appears we think in a similar manner; he just has the confidence to film his thoughts, whereas I babble on here.

This leads me to you. How are you? What have you been doing? Looking very lovely today!

Tell me, what is your main goal in life?

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Note to self | #1

Recently I have been feeling quite down about the way I look. I don't know why, and I don't know why it even started. I think it has been one of those things that has been building up for the last few years. 

I have decided to talk about it on my blog to see if I am the only one, or whether some of you guys reading this might be feeling the same way. I've turned it into a little series where I can just vent about what I am feeling, not sugar coated, just cold, hard truth.

The other day I found a picture of me about 6 years ago. I was slim, toned, and about a size 8. I am now the opposite of those things. I have a bulky stomach, several chins, and my thighs are huge. I joke that I am growing into my winter coat, when really all I want to do is tear away at my skin chunk by chunk and throw it away.

As much as I know this is all down to myself, I also contribute this to several bad break-ups, a lot of drinking, and really bad and unhealthy lifestyle choices. I know that weight is just a number, and I feel like such a hypocrite for posting this because of how I try to make other people feel positive about these sorts of things. But there is only so long you can really bottle things up for.

It has gotten to the stage where I can't even look in the mirror at myself above my shoulders (thank god for my strategically placed mirror), and I end up swamping my body in several layers of clothing. 

I don't feel good about myself. I think I look disgusting, there is nothing nice about the way I look that is natural. 

I take massive pride in my make-up and perfecting my hair. But this has become almost a mask for me to hide behind.

I can honestly say I haven't been happy with the way I look for about 5 years now. 

I have tried about 4 times to kick-start a diet, a new workout routine, or even to starve myself completely (yes, I am well aware this was an absolutely stupid idea).

I feel like I am in a dark place, and I am getting better at hiding it. My smile and jokes have just been a cover-up when all I have wanted to do is cry for hours every single day; I just can't seem to help it.

Since I stopped suppressing the way I felt about my body and sat down and carefully thought about it (even if that did result in tears), I have somehow put myself in a more positive mindset.

I have made a few smaller changes in my life, which are gradually leading to bigger ones. I stopped drinking; I reduced the amount of fast food I was eating; I reduced almost all sugar from my drinks; and I removed some of the small things that were making my feel bad about myself. Even if that included people. 

Tiny steps lead to bigger strides.

I am hoping in the next few months that I can kick myself up the ass and get back to working out, whether this be on my own, or with one of my friends. 

It has taken me a few years to get in the mental state where I feel ready to conquer the way I feel about myself, and get back to the happier, self-confident person I was back then.

I know it will take time, and luckily time is something I hope I have a lot of.

I am still not entirely sure whether I will post this or not. I usually try to refrain from making my posts too personal, and writing my honest feelings down was really hard. No doubt I will get some negative comments, but hey ho.

I hope that I'm not the only one who feels like this. Maybe I could have an online work-out buddy to help with everything. Who knows?


Keep swimming.

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End of year ponderings

I realised today that I have pretty much hardly blogged throughout December....sorry about that! Things have been hectic and very busy! I had a statistics essay due in which I ended up pretty much bullshitting my way through, and then I came back to my hometown and I have had work, and I could pile a massive load of excuses on to you...But I am here now, so hello!

Just a little side note for any of my regular readers who will probably know the ins and outs of the last few months: I do apologise for my lack of posts. Not felt myself in a while, and I found it very difficult to open up to anyone let alone the entire internet, but now all is back on track and I feel like I can get back to my old style again! 

Although I am jumping the gun a bit with this post considering it is only December 19 (probably 20th by the time I edit and publish this) but Christmas is always mental in my family, and I am heading on back home for New Year so I don't think you'll appreciate a hungover ramble about my night. So I thought that I would take now to look back on my year and just have a general chit-chat like I used to before shit got all serious. Sooooo, queue long and boring diary post!

I think the first thing I think that I have noticed a lot more in the last few months is that I am no longer a miserable bitch! Stop raising your eyebrows at me, I am the first to admit that for the last year I have been a right pain in the ass. However, now that there have been certain big changes in my life with things coming to and end, and new things beginning, I think I am a lot happier in general. I am not aiming that at anyone in particular as I know a few people will probably read this and question me, but hey ho. It has been noted that I am a completely different person to what I was at the end of 2012, and there are a few people that I can probably pin-point this to, but I shan't name them because that would take too long and most of you have no idea who they are. Maybe they can have a little dedication at the bottom. Who knows? So yeah, I am a happy person now. I think everything that happened a few months ago, although upsetting and annoying at the time, has contributed massively to my state of mind now. But that is a story for another day. 

I am going to take this little section to just say that in the last couple of months I have also found out who my really close friends are. I have always been one for having a larger set of friends and not really let anyone in too much to get too close. But recently I have discovered that I could probably count my close friends on one hand - a bit of a shocker for me to be honest. I think this is probably because I have really dodgy trust issues sometimes, and I just hate letting people get so close that would give them the option to hurt me (of which I have recently learned the hard way again) but I have started to let that go with the help of a few lovely people. Again, naming and shaming is not going to happen - sorry, guys! Basically I found that a few people who I had previously been friends with were all back-stabby and typical girl related shit. This is why most my friends are male; just a gazillon times easier. So yeah. Much love to the select few who put up with all my shit and still love me all the same (especially as I live with a couple of them). 

Trying to go through in my head what I wanted to say - finding it very difficult to put in to words without mentioning names and direct situations. 

I think the most important development in the last year, particularly the last couple of months, is that my relationship with my mother has come on leaps and bounds. In the past we have never seen eye to eye, and I have probably been the world's shittiest daughter with all the shit that I have put both of my parents through in the last 7ish years. To which I now hold my hands up and admit I have been crap. But since all this shit happened in the last few months, I have grown very close to her which is nice, and we get on pretty well now. I don't know where I would be without her now; I could probably say that I would not be sat here writing to you if she hadn't been there. So if she ever reads this: I love you lots. 

I think sort of post-September I have become quite close to a few people that have normally just been bog-standard friends. I don't even know if that makes any sense? But I am so freaking happy with how this year has ended in relation to that, and the people who are currently in my life are bloody amazing. I think they all deserve some extra brownie points for dealing with me! 

Apologies for the weird soppiness there. Also, let me know in the comments below if you want me to publish the little thing I wrote when I was going through a lot of shit. It's just a thing explaining my mindset, and I would probably work in some advice around it. So comment below if you want to see that.

I have also finally (sort of) managed to solve my career crisis, yay! If you read my blog a lot you will know that I went through what my housemate would call a "quarter life crisis". You can read about it here, it will probably be a good laugh for you. I have come to the decision that I might do an extra year at university and do a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) and look in to teaching. Completely unrelated to my initial degree, I know, but I work in a school in my hometown and everyone always goes on about how I should be a teacher. I love working there so I thought that yeah I'd quite like to give that a shot. Thus my career crisis came to and end!

Oh, I also managed to get an amazing opportunity working at HMP Dartmoor with Story Book Dads which are an amazing charity who work with prisoners to help them maintain contact with their children through books. It is absolutely brilliant, and I will be doing a post on them in the new year so keep your eye out!

What else has happened this year? Oh, I finished my first year at university last May after several horrible exams and whatnot. I didn't fail so that's good! I also discovered that I can drink a hell of a lot of vodka...don't ask. Ermmmm, oh and my Grampy laughed so much that coffee came out his nose! I am also considering finally putting some videos up on my YouTube...thoughts?

I have also learned a very valuable lesson from the end couple of months of this year. Life is short. Seriously fucking short. Cherish everyone you have in it because one day you might wake up and they won't be there anymore. This applies seriously to your family, especially your parents. They are the only people in the world who will love you and be there for you no matter what shit happens. Everyone else has the option to walk away, but love from a parent is unconditional. If you take anything away from this at all then make sure it's that. 

To quickly add to that little advice nugget, something that has hit home this year is that we only regret things we don't do. I have taken on so many different things this year, and accepted opportunities that I would normally just let pass by me. Take my blog for example: 6 months ago it didn't exist. Now I am my own website with a lot of credit for my work behind me! So do something exciting, something you would normally be scared of. Fear is only as big as we allow it to be!

All in all, 2013 has been a year of some serious highs, but also some serious lows. Yet I wouldn't change anything for the world because I have come out fighting and stronger at the end of it and I can sit laughing at the people who fucked me around, or fucked things up. I can 100% walk away from this year thinking I have done the thing that is best for me, even if I almost didn't manage to come out of the entire situation. 2013 went way too fast, and it seemingly showing no signs of slowing down - I don't like it!

Here is a little summary of my last year in one picture:

Some images courtesy of Jay Stone 

I have some awesome plans for 2014, kicking off with a trip over to Amsterdam (obviously for culture and not to spend the entire weekend drunk......) and then some pretty cool things for my blog too! I am hoping that next year will be better than this one. 

Think I will leave it there for now. Apologies for the scattered nature of this post, I think it kind of reflects my mind a little at the moment. 

As always, thank you for reading and I hope to see you all again soon!

Have a lovely Christmas everyone, and an even better New Year!

Love you all, bye!

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