2013 - - The Summary

My Summary - 2013

So I didn't do my summer of 2013 at the end of 2013 and I can't remember all of the things that I would have but I'll give it my best shot...

The last few months of student life.

Turning 21.

2 years.

His new first proper job.

The dreaded exams.

The worst weekend ever.

Not living up to expectations again...

A new job.

Another, better new job.

Leaving my favourite place.

Graduation.

Another lovely Christmas.

New Years without that kiss.

I'm doing this from memory and I seem to remember many of the bad things of 2013... 2013 doesn't seem to have been my best year, but I'm still lucky and loved and there are still some great things in there... I just hope next year is even better.

I hope your 2013 was incredible but I hope your 2014 will be even better.

x

Is that really me?

I was at an interview today. To give some background, it was for the company my boyfriend works for, doing the same job, and it was the same kind of interview and with really nice people so I was pretty confident when I walked in that I was going to get it (although I was still hoping I would too).

So I was in the interview and we had to do some Maths and English tests, and while we were doing those we were called out one by one for our interview. The interview was really casual, just a chat with a nice guy about ourself, why we wanted the job and things like that. Well, I knew that my interviewer had spoken to my boyfriend and loads of other people I know who work there too.

In the interview, I was really confident and charming, funny, polite enough  and professional, but really friendly and I think I would have come across as a great catch. I know that probably sounds so cocky but I manage to act really confident, charming and nice in interviews when they're with nice people. In fact, I manage to act like that whenever I'm meeting someone one on one for the first time, like I bumped into one of my boyfriend's friends who I didn't actually know and I acted the same, just not quite as professionally.

I wonder though, whether that it is actually me or whether I'm putting on an act. I act like that whenever I meet new people, or whenever I'm chatting with someone I'm not really familiar with. I know that I am a really nice person really, but somehow I manage to fool myself and whoever I'm meeting that I'm confident and funny and charming.

The last two weeks I've been in a few situations where I've had to meet a lot of new people, and I've been wondering (and worrying a bit) how I come across to people and whether they like me. I started a new job about two weeks ago (yes, I had an interview for a different one today) and after two weeks, I really like all of our group but I wonder and worry whether they like me, which is strange because usually I don't care whether people like me unless I'm really close with them.

I wonder if people who know me - even if they've only known me two weeks, but any time that isn't just the first few hours - think I'm confident, charming and nice. I wonder if they like that person. Or if they like the less confident, nice, normal me. I wonder if I am both of those people, or if I'm just pretending to be one of them. I can't decide.

It's something that I'd like to decide on. I want to be confident and to be always speaking up, but still be really nice and not arrogant. Maybe I can be both, and I don't have to be one or the other. Maybe that I have more than one type of 'me' is what makes me... me.

I hope all is well with you...

x

2012: The Summary.

Summary of 2012.

Coming into the year a taken girl.

Their final 6 months.

The best Valentine's Day ever. <3 -="" br="" london.=""> - The theatre.
- A hotel miles away.

Hitting Liverpool - the Hen Do.

Getting treated badly.

Turning 20. Being forgotten, and being loved.

Assignments galore.

1 whole year.

A wedding.

.London's calling and it's WICKED.

The dreaded exams.

Getting treated even worse.

Work Based Learning.
- Meeting some lovely children.
- Loving helping people.

Getting a permanent part time job!
- Learning.
- Loving the people.

Finishing and saying goodbye.

A long, long summer.
- A few days there and a few days there.
- Mostly here.
- Being so lonely.
- Driving again.
- Anger because of a whole month.
- Growing up.
- Losing the weight.

House hunting and failing.

Our first holiday.

Losing my favourite thing. :(

Finding a lovely place. Our place. Belonging.

Trying with my attendance and failing. Try harder next year!

Their graduation.

Nights out with people, old and new.

Putting it back on again.

Stomp & War Horse.
- Not what we'd usually go for, but incredible all the same.

Never drinking wine again!

Having to wait around to come home.

A shock from a friend.

Break ups and proposals.

Bad throat before Christmas.

A wonderful Christmas, as usual.
- Giving really good presents.
- Receiving good presents!
- A beautiful heart and a flashy card!

Seeing my favourite people.

Decisions, decisions about New Year.

Being a 12.

9-5.


I said 2011 was going to be my year and the 2012 was going to be even better.
2011 & 2012 have been the best two years of my life, and I can probably put it down mostly to one person. Perhaps not. University and everything that came with it, including that one person.

I still love my life. More than ever.

Happy New Year. I hope 2013 brings you all the love and happiness in the world. :)

Fate.

I'm sitting alone in an small archive room, bagging old files to be shredded (which is unbelievably boring, and always gives me paper cuts), listening to music very quietly on my phone.

Into The West by Annie Lennox came on. It's the last song in Lord Of The Rings : Return Of The King, so the chances are you've probably heard it. Anyway, its a slow, sad, beautiful song that made me start thinking. Not because of the lyrics particularly, but just because if the slow, hopeful sadness that the sing gives off to me.

I started thinking about life, about how we don't really have any control over it. I mean, I know we make choices everyday that affect our lives, but at the end of the day some things are just not meant to be. Or maybe a better way of looking at it would be that some things just are meant to be. 

My first thought, from listening to the sad song, was that I can't believe my cousin and her boyfriend have split up. They broke up yesterday and although they have been arguing a lot, she wasn't really expecting it, and I was expecting it even less. I thought they were great together, but I guess, what do I know? What does anyone know? Noone can predict the future, or what's going to happen.

So this is how I got on to life. I decided that there is nothing you do about certain situations. There was nothing she could do to stop that happening, from stopping the inevitable. Maybe the inevitable can be delayed, but whatever is going to happen, will happen, eventually. 

Now that doesn't mean that everything is permanent. Although something is inevitable, such as a break up, it might just be part of the journey those people walk. They might meet again. Hopefully when they do, they're on much better terms. 

It's just that some people match, and some don't. Some people's personalities and situations go so well with certain other people, that theu get on so well and nothing will change that. But in other cases, if one of the people's situation changes, and it doesn't match the other person's, that's when the disagreements or drifting starts. Like losing touch with old friends, or breaking up with a partner. 


I had a conversation with my boyfriend about fate. It was a long time ago, before we were together, before anything had ever happened between the two of us. He asked me if I believed in fate, whether our lives were already planned out for us and the decisions we made had already been decided for us. That was what fate was. Our decisions actually didn't really make a difference because they had already been chosen for us.
I said that I did believe in fate, to a degree. I thought that some things were meant to be, but we could change fate, if we wanted to, if we made a different decision to the one we might normally have made.

Then he said, if I thought decisions made a different then it couldn't be fate because that would mean that every decision made would have an affect on the future. It could be a minor or major change but a change all the same. That meant there were potentially billions of different outcomes in life, and any single one if them could be the one that actually happens, depending on a series of events and decisions.
I think there are certain things that are inevitable, but I guess nothing is completely concrete, every outcome can be changed if the people involved want it to be.


So, no further in my decision on fate, but at least my time in the archive room hasn't been quite as boring as it could have been. I guess it must be fate that Into The West was one if the first songs to come on, so that u could spend the time thinking, and writing this at the same time.

Do you believe in fate? I may have written a blog about fate and asked that before, but it does interest me, what people think of it.

I hope you make all the right decisions so that you're happy. But I guess whatever decision you make, it's the right one, right?

x

Forgetting.

As you may know if you have looked through this blog, I do a summary of my year in short and sometimes cryptic bullet points. I love writing that blog and I keep a draft all year around that gets updated with the new, recent things that have happening so that I don't forget anything that might be have been significant at the time. I enjoy sometimes have to work out my own memories by the cryptic clues I leave myself so I doubt most people would know what they are, but I can't tell everybody everything!

I love doing that, and it's important to me that I remember everything that was important to me. I know now that some of those events and bullet points don't even matter to me a year or two down the line, but they affected me at the time and they made an impact on my life in some small way. They were very important to me at the time they were happening otherwise I wouldn't have included them.

Sometimes, I worry that I'll forget about the things I love and have loved in the past. Things that I got excited for, that I watched or listened to or read or played with over and over again because it made me happy. Songs, books, films, TV programmes, greetings cards, cuddly toys.

For example, my Dad bought me a cuddly toy dog who went by the name of "Doggy". He was an Afgan hound puppy but you would never have guessed, and I had him since I was 2 years old. He was my favourite inanimate object in the whole world for my whole life. He still is. My boyfriend and I also love Tigger from Winnie the Pooh and we had a little baby Tigger and he was adorable. I loved them both extraordinary amounts for a 20 year old. Except I had a disaster. We took then on holiday with us to Tenerife in September and when we got to the airport on our way back to England, I realised I didn't have them. I was distraught. But I never want to forget them because they, Doggy in particular, had a huge impact on my child and adolescent life.

I think it's hard to remember everything you loved when you were younger. TV programmes and films and songs that you will never make a physical notes of to remember them, Maybe that will be a new blog for me. "My favourite things". Just so I remember.


I encourage everyone to remember their favourite things, even once you've lost or outgrown them. Once upon a time you were excited for it, you loved and lived for it, and most of all, it made you happy. Maybe you can look back and remember and take happiness just from the memory, or seeking it out again and remembering why you loved it so much.

You should always try to take as much happiness as possible for everything, living or inanimate.
Try to remember.

x

Being an adult.

For the first time ever, I actually feel like an adult. I'm currently homeless and therefore living at my parents and commuting to work, an hour and three quarter drive there and back every day for another two weeks. Well having the freedom, ability and independence to drive on my own and being able to afford my own petrol and everything else makes me feel like a grown up.

My tasks for this weekend are to find a house for September and book a holiday for my boyfriend and I. It'll be the first time I've had to do either of those things alone too.

I find it really strange. I've never wanted to grow up. But I've never felt old enough or independent enough to class myself as a real adult. It's scary to think that now it's time to start fending for myself.

Well, another year of university and then going travelling will delay my fully growing up for another couple of years. Maybe by that time I will be ready to grow up and settle down. But let's not assume or rush into anything just yet.

Life is happening. We had all better make the most of it while we can.
x

A "Heartfelt" Letter... From A Long, Long Time Ago.

I wrote this blog a couple of years ago, but I never posted it. For obvious reasons, I guess. I wanted to get this off my chest, and I did tell him. It was by text the day before I left. He knew. And he said it was awfully bad timing. Maybe I should have told him all that time ago when we were walking home and he were trying to find out what was wrong.

Things have worked out though. We're both happy. And in love. I guess people are right when they saying "things can only get better."

I know you're probably never going to read this. Maybe that's why I'm not too worried about posting it. But you do make me happy. Just as much now as ever.

"Someone who's opinion I value very highly said she thinks I should write a "heartfelt" letter to him. It'll explain how I feel and why I'm telling him now, just a few days before I leave.


Well... Here goes...


*You*,


I know a letter is a bit impersonal but we both know that confrontation isn't my thing - the last time I tried it face to face with you, I told you one of the few things that I was planning to, and after that one I couldn't bring myself to tell you the rest.


Remember when we walked home that one time and you kept asking me what was wrong? I didn't tell you, I didn't feel I could. I got really upset when you left because I thought I'd upset you. Whether you'll admit it or not, you'll looked really hurt and it broke my heart. I was really scared that you would think I didn't care for you enough or trust you enough to tell you which definitely wasn't the case. You said that you appreciated I was being a friend and looking out for you. I couldn't finish what I wanted to tell you because I didn't want you to think that there was any alterior motive than being a friend.


The whole point of this letter is to tell you how I feel about you. I know you probably already know - I know you knew five months ago when we were walking home but you were adament that you didn't and I should tell you but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. How are you supposed to say this kind of thing? "I like you a lot - yeah, like that", "you mean the world to me", "I care about you so much in a different way that I care about everyone else".
Or... "I love you."


I don't know whether bringing this up now is a good idea, just a few days before I leave. It might make things more complicated and confusing but the potential benefits of telling you outweight the downfalls so I thought I might aswell bite the bullet now instead of waiting and maybe wishing I had if I didn't. If I don't tell you now, after a few weeks of not seeing you I'll convince myself I'm moving on, it'll be fine and I can deal with it. I know that when I come back home and I see you, I'll be back to square one and be wondering whether or not telling you will help. I don't want that feeling every time I come home: being nervous because I'm thinking of telling you, never knowing where I stand, always wondering what to do.
I love you and your company and it'd be nice if I could just enjoy it without having thoughts spinning around my mind, worrying about what to say to you or what you think.


That night we walked home, you said that I'm more likely to regret something that I didn't do over something that I did do because if I did, at least I know I tried. I won't ever have to wonder "what if".
Well here I am, taking your advice, because "you're always right". But don't count on me ever saying that again.


You've made my life better just by being in it, and you'll never know how much I appreciate everything you've ever done or said to me. You've helped me in ways you'd never imagine. Thank you.



I care about you a lot, and I imagine I always will. You make me happy. I'll never underappreciate anyone who has the ability to make my happy just by being alive.
x"