What I learnt this year...

I really, really need to write more..
I can't even put it down to general being-busy-ness, when I first started my old blog over three years ago (URKKKKK!) I was posting three, sometimes four times a week, That was whilst studying for my degree, working stupid hours at two different jobs and just generally student-ing about.
I had this realisation earlier, that after spending the last however long saying "I never have anything to say anymoooore" to anyone who questioned why I was no longer blogging, my facebook statuses are becoming more and more frequent again. After writing a fecking essay of a status earlier (which I ended up deleting because NO ONE LIKES A FACEBOOK ESAY) I decided to accept the fact that writing and words are my very therapeutic way of relieving my head from random brain mush and the resulting mini break down that occurs from brain mush overload...and to start blogging again.
So, New Years resolution number one: BLOG MORE.
Now that I have dropped in that line about new years resolutions all subtle like, I can move on to the main topic of my blog.

STUFFS WHAT I LEARNT IN 2015:

1) You don't have to have a life plan straight away - I spent a few months after university in a right pickle. I had to find a perfect graduate job.
"I mean duh, I'm a graduate, I have a degree, of course I have to use it, otherwise it's pointless and I will have wasted THREE YEARS OF MY BLOODY LIFE...everyone will be expecting me to find the perfect job....but I don't entirely know what I want that job to be...do I apply for a graduate job that I don't particularly like, just so I can say LOOK AT ME I AM EARNING MONEY USING THE KNOWLEDGE I DEVELOPED FROM MY DEGREE, AREN'T I A GROWN UP?!...Why have they not replied to my application yet?....let me thesaurus that word so it sounds smart on my application...Oh god look how many people have applied for that job...they are so going to get it instead of me....OH MY GOD AN INTERVIEW, WHAT DO I WEAR WHAT SHALL I SAY? WHAT DO I DO?...You know what, I don't think this job is going to be right for me...not what I want to do....too hard to get there....so now I'm going to have to talk myself out of it for all these pretend practical reasons when really it's because I prefer my lovely current non-degree-related job..."

2) You're own happiness is key - Stressing about life after university wasted a massive chunk of my time, I couldn't relax and just enjoy being. I felt guilty for feeling so settled, because I didn't think I was doing anything productive enough with my time to earn feeling settled, "BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO FOR A JOB OR WHAT TO DO NEXT IN LIFE" - Again, a whole load of stupid pressure I was putting on myself. Then I realised that a lot of my pressure that I was putting on myself was highly influenced by my fear of what other people were thinking of me. But then I thought I love my jobs, I enjoy working at Superdrug, I enjoy being part of the Princess/Fairy party team...and that for now I would much rather be happy doing what I do with a bit of variety, than being stuck in a job I don't like, just for the sake of 'being in a grown up job'. So I thought stuff it, as long as I am happy who cares what anyone else thinks. That weight being lifted meant I was opening myself to more opportunities without even realising. So I said yes to Team Leader training at Superdrug, Yes to more princess party opportunities (New Years resolution number two, get over my fear of singing in front of people, I've done it before I can do it again!) and enrolled on an online course in writing stories for young children....half a module down...seventeen and a half to go...

3) Having weak moments can actually be a sign of strength - I've always said "Oh yes, positive thinking is key, just thinking positively can make everything okay." I've been saying that since the days of Bebo, when it was probably my tagline or something.
But I have discovered, there are times when positive thinking can't help you, because you feel so bogged down by everything that a nice bit of positive thinking, just doesn't feel possible. That sometimes you feel like that and you can't always explain why...and that is so okay. No one can feel positive ALLLL THE TIMEEEEEE. There is nothing wrong with showing your more vulnerable side, of saying that you feel a bit fed up and you don't know why. Crying in front of people - another thing I've always said "Oh I don't do crying, I don't cry in front of people". Ahmagad, I have so cried in front of people this year, for varying reasons. And shocker, I have discovered it's okay, you cry in front of people, they give you a hug, it's out your system, you aren't carrying it around alone anymore, no one judges you for crying*and you can carry on with your day. This year has bought out my weakest most vulnerable side, but I've discovered that showing weakness can be a strength in itself, I means you have no choice but to face things, pick yourself up, brush yourself down an carry on with you head held high! I'm definitely a tougher cookie than I've ever thought I am...
*Though the other day in a state of PMT induced emotion I found myself tearing up, at an advert on TV...I wont say which one but lets just say it features a Turkey and a happy ending with a nice Westlife ballad playing in the background...you can totally judge me for that.

4)  I cannot hold my drink well and I deal with hangovers even worserererer....
Every time I go out..I have fun...I drink, I drink more, I feel drunk and then push it one step too far with another drink...I'm sick...sometimes tactically...other times not. If I'm not sick, I spend the whole taxi ride home thinking I'm going to be, so I wind down my window, do some deep breathing and clutch a handbag that a loving best friend has emptied out for me to be sick into if the need arises (it has not luckily) to avoid the £50 fine for 'soiling' the taxi in anyway shape or form.
The morning after is always the same. I wake up stupidly early after three hours sleep, just to make my suffering even worse (I envy people who sleep off hangovers all day)... then lie in bed and watch a stupid amount of  TV in the dark...Or I just lie in a silenced state of shock for a few hours. Then normally in no real order I alternate between eating food, hating myself for going out and the money spent, having an existential crisis, crying and snapping at any family member who dares breathe in my direction. In other words I am delightful.
Once upon a time I use to go out, have three hours sleep and then go do an eight hour shift at work. Alas, now I am a mature 22 year old, those powers are long gone.
Does this mean I will hold back on the nights out from now on? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

5) People change and situations change, it doesn't have to be a bad thing - I've realised that being a grown up REALLY GETS IN THE WAY OF LIFE. Especially socially, trying to maintain a friendship where you can still see each other all the time becomes dam near impossible. It's not like the olden days of 2010 when you could co-ordinate your classes and your one day a weekend job, with your friends to find a time to hang out...trying to arrange a time to meet just one friend is a challenge...and a group?...near impossible. Someone has to work, someone is visiting family, someone is meeting other people that night already, someone is with their partner, someone is away that weekend, you go through diaries desperately trying to find a date and you end up on January 24th 2018. In the past that would have bothered me. But, I've realised you don't always need friendships where you are together all the time. It's nice that everyone is doing their own thing. It means when you all eventually come together, you all have different news to tell, you are at different stages of life with different things happening that you can share. Those friendships are really, really special - when you can come together after ages apart and it feels like nothing has changed. That's when you know you have a friend for life!

6) SHUTTING YOUR THUMB IN A CAR DOOR REALLY FUCKING HHURTS!!
Oh my god. THE PAIN. I am the clumsiest person in the world, yet somehow I managed 22 years, without breaking a single bone in my body.
Saturday night, Ex-houemate Hannah drives down for a night out from Hastings, she pulls up outside my house, we go and get some mixers and draw some money out...we drive back to mine.
I'm chattering away (Shocker) telling her the story about how earlier that day I dropped something in a shop (shocker) and it broke (shocker) and I had to pay towards it....
Get out the car still talking...
Slam the car door shut...
I'm not sure if I felt the pain first or if I went to walk away first and realised I couldn't (EEEEEK) but my whole thumb was trapped in the completely closed car door...
"OWWWWWWW....MY THUMBS STUCK IN THE DOOR...MY THUMBS STUCK IN THE DOOR....MY THUMBS STUCK IN THE DOOR....."

Hannah: "Shit!" Runs round and opens door...
I look down at thumb, it is bleeding and purple but amazingly still attached to my hand.
Kerfuffle whilst I drip blood around the kitchen and go white and shaky and apologise to Hannah for ruining our night out (priorities!) during which time she makes the decision to take me round the corner to A and E...
Arrive at A and E. I then have to do some torturous answering of questions whilst they sign me in...Marital status...Next of Kin...Postcode (Which I couldn't remember in my state) Blah Blah Blah...A man comes in. He has taken drugs, been rescued and then spent seven hours in bed which he was not happy about. He is shouting and swearing and slowing down my process of being checked in (Thumb is throbbing by this point)
 I declare in my pain induced frustration to Hannah that "At least he's had a fucking bed" perhaps a bit too loudly as the receptionist tells me off..
EVENTUALLY we are sent to the waiting area to wait....and wait...and wait...and wait...I can't eat or drink anything apparently, because I may need medication. So we wait...and wait...and wait...
We waited for so long that I managed to convince myself it didn't hurt THAT BADLY. We then saw a sign that said waiting time, 4 hours........."Let's go to Asda, I we can bandage it ourselves, have our night out and if it's bad tomorrow still, just get it check out then...
Cue some dodgy bandage work..A taxi to Portsmouth...too much vodka, a too strong shot...a dance in Popworld...2 massive cocktail fishbowls...and a 4am finish...
Next morning...OWW MY THUMB.
Off to a different hospital, this time.. there was only an hours wait (An hour too long with a hangover)...They X-rayed my hand..."grumble grumble grumble...It doesn't need an X-Ray, all I want is someone to clean it and put a proper bandage on it...grumble grumble grumble"
Until they told me that I had in fact broken it and sent me off home with a cut, bruised and swollen thumb, covered in bandages and held up in a splint on one hand and clutching a bag of pain-killers in the other. Doh. Indeed.

So, I feel like I have made up for pretty much a year of non-blogging in one post.
I'm not normally fussed about the start of a new year.
But I am this year, I feel like a lot has happened this year and that January can start a new, clean positive state. Don't get me wrong, I have had some amazing times this year, I've done some performances, I've enjoyed my work, I've laughed A LOT and I've drank A LOT and I've eaten Greggs A LOT (Dammit being right next door to work). I've been so lucky to have fantastic friends and work friends and family who have made me smile this year with general silliness and support and loveliness. I wish you all love and luck and happiness for next year...Mwaaaaah!

Right, New Years resolutions:

1) Blog more, write more. Write, Write Write!
2) Complete my Team Leader training at work
3) Do more singing so I can get more confident and do more princess parties!
4) Complete online writing course - Attempt to write a children's book...
5) Pass my driving test and get on the road!
6) Do some travelling...
7) Do more nights out (Note to self: Just drink less)
8) Don't worry so much! Take each day as it comes
9) Get more organised....(I came up to tidy my room at 10...to be in bed watching family guy at 11...It's now 02.00 in the morning, I am still sat on the floor *CRAMPING UP NOW GUYS* tip-tapping away...I have to be up for work at 07.30...I'm working until 17.00 and I have my hour lunch break to finish Christmas shopping. AHMAGAD. Like I said GET MORE ORGANISED.

I think that will do for now, my eyes are going blurry, my fingers are going numb and my brain is feeling fluffy. So my apologies for any rambling, terrible grammar, repetition or rambling....
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE AND I HOPE 2016 IS HAPPY AND SUCCESFULL AND LOVELY AND POSITIVE AND EXCITING!!

Loves xx

This past year.

So...in four days it will be exactly a year since I returned back home after living away at University for just over two years.
I must say, it has been the most emotionally draining year of my life. Moving back home was fine, I could handle that. But knowing what to do next has been scary, confusing and for a majority of the time, has turned me into a person that I don't recognize, or have not particularly liked at times.
I always imagined that when I finished University I would know what to do and would slip naturally into adult life, find a full time grown up job using my degree and all would be dandy.
However, what I found instead was a massive shock to the system. Not knowing what to do has meant I have spent too much time feeling like I am carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. 

Over the last year it has left me feeling tearful, moody and snappy, more times than I like to admit. At the more ridiculous moments, I have even found myself resenting my degree, seeing it as an added pressure to do something with and something that mocks me when I am undecided on what to do. Rather than what it really is, proof of three years solid work and commitment. It's proof that I performed on stage on my own in front of two hundred people, it's proof that I wrote a 7,000 word dissertation, it's proof that I managed to live out of home for two years and survive, holding down two jobs whilst studying full time. It's proof that all the times I broke down in tears and declared that "I JUST CAN'T DO IT ANY MORE" were wrong. I could do it. And I did! - My degree is awesome!
The hardest part has been a loss of purpose, I went from school, to sixth form and then straight on to university. I've always known what is coming next. So now having this big stretch of space called 'The rest of my life' out in front of me, has completely overwhelmed and terrified me.
I tried looking for jobs, however nothing stuck out as exciting, or there were jobs I liked but still wasn't qualified enough for, or jobs that needed you to drive, or jobs that I felt were pointless as I didn't need my degree for them.

It has at times. made me feel completely down, which is dangerous because once you feel down it can completely overshadow everything, then it leads on to a whole stream of other issues; you feel stupid for not knowing what to do, you become paranoid that your friends and family think you are being lazy, when really it's all just down to being clueless.
At times, It has made me dismissive in conversations, it comes across as moody, or snappy, or childish or unreasonable. But really it's just annoyance at yourself, that you can't reel a big long list off, what you're doing, what your hopes and dreams and ambitions are, then you feel guilty and paranoid (that cycle again!) so you think it's easier to just shut everyone out and just not talk about it. Which is so not the case, my family and friends are my world and no one deserves to be shut out of anything!!! I didn't want to talk to people about it, because I knew I wouldn't have the answers to their questions. Plus I have never been one to offload my emotions onto other people, I much just prefer to get on with it. The trouble with that is, there is only so much you can carry before it completelty overwhelms you...and you go from sharing with no one to writing a blog post to share with your 450(ish) Facebook friends instead. Doh!

Howeverrrrrr (Don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom!) I have begun to realize more recently, be it through random online articles that keep on popping up on my facebook (It's as if they know!) and through conversations with friends who are in similar situations..It's okay to not know what to do! (Gasp, shock, horror!). I'm only 22, even if it takes me a couple of years to figure out exactly what I am doing, that still gives me the rest of my life to do whatever that may be. I may as well spend this figuring out time happy and stress-free, it's so not worth it. Having transferred to the Waterlooville Superdrug back in December,It may not be the best paid job, but it certainly keeps me happy. At one point I was looking at full time jobs, that did not sound my kind of thing, but was considering applying for them, simply because they were full time and slightly better paid. But then I thought, if it's not going to make me happy what is the point? What is the point in being in a full time job you wont enjoy? Okay I would have more money, but would it be worth it?? I guess to some people the money element would be important. And maybe I am wrong for thinking this and life can't all just be about happiness...But to me at this moment in time..happiness is so much more important. I'm lucky to have a job that I enjoy, that I laugh at every day, where I work with such lovely people who don't (seem to) mind the fact that I can be a bit clumsy and sometimes I'm forgetful...and I break things just by touching them and that my brain to mouth filter doesn't always work. (Wow, really selling myself here...I do good things as well!!!) that I don't mind going to every day (Loves to you guys xxx) - why lose that just to be unhappy somewhere else?!

That being said, I'm not going to just give up on sorting out my future on the basis that "La la la laaaaaa I'm so haaaaaaappy!' - I will keep looking, if I see something I like, be it a full time job or another part time job to do alongside my current one, then I will go for it (and if it means I have to be a bit more grown up and sensible and try and hold back on my ways slightly, then so be it!) - I just mean that in that time, I'm not going to fret, or feel useless or stupid or ashamed of the fact I don't know what to do. It's just really not worth it. Taylor Swifts song '22' was playing at work today, though it pains me to say it because I really do find her annoying, the lyrics are completely relevant...
Everything will be okay, so just deal with it and enjoy the confusion and what you learn from it. True words Taylor Swift babes, true words.

Speaking of grown up jobs...I have got another weekend job as....*Drum Roll please.....* TINKERBELL. It may not be a grown-up job, but how freaking fun, silly and utterly magical!! I haven't done a party yet, I've watched a fairy party to get some tips and I've done some craft parties as myself. But I am really looking forward to starting....I know at times it will be challenging "YOU NEED TO HURRY UP BECAUSE MY PARTY IS GOING TO START SOON!" (I've already mastered the art of making sure my brain to mouth filter is well and truly installed and smiling sweetly instead) - but I really am excited! Now I've just got to make sure my american accent is up to scratch, that I have prepared for every awkward question possible (HOW DO KIDS COME UP WITH THESE THINGS??) and practice walking in my mahoosive wings without taking out the eye of a small child...Oh, and get my driving done. I totally should get round to that as soon as I re-order my lost provisional license and redo my expired-nearly-three-years-ago theory test.

So yes, positive thinking and happy thoughts are going to get me through this whole life sussing out things, if it means I spend some time doing several random jobs( I feel like I may be better at that then the same stuffy 9-5 job anyway!) til I find what works for me, so be it- it really doesn't matter. Happiness really is the most important thing...otherwise it's all just a bit depressing and boring, I'm done with feeling sad and confused and ashamed, it's pointless and unproductive. 
Happy thoughts and onward and upwards!

Mwaaaaah xxxxxxxx