I didn’t realise it had been 3 months since I published a blog post. To be fair, the only reason I found out is because I thought my domain might have expired, and decided to check!
I’ve made several attempts at writing blog posts over the past few months. In fact, over the past 7 or 8 months. And for one reason or another, they just haven’t felt right to me. Either I’ve started writing about a topic, and decided I didn’t like how it was going before shelving the entire thing, or I haven’t published it because my feelings toward the topic changed before I had a chance to take a photo or two for the post.
I can’t sit here and say I’ve been super motivated to blog or make videos, either. If I had the motivation, I’d have fixed those posts I mentioned, instead of leaving them on my desktop, making me feel guilty because I didn’t post them.
A couple of weeks ago, I tried to record a chatty update kind of video. I like making those, because I can just chat away and I don’t have to worry about trying to be entertaining or funny or overly enthusiastic about a topic – it’s just me and my camera. And I couldn’t even do that. I must have tried to record the first part of that video in excess of 30 times. And I scrapped the lot. It just wasn’t happening – things weren’t coming out of my mouth the way I wanted them to. And I never script my videos – I think that makes them look less authentic, I’m no actress!
Rambling on about what’s been happening in my life over the past 3-4 months would probably result in a reasonably lengthy novel as opposed to a little blog post – so I’ll try and keep my points brief!
I’m going to university
I should be more excited about going to uni. I’m not particularly bothered, to be honest. I actually wanted to go out into the world after my HND and get a job in the field. In fact, I wanted to do that after my HNC. Turns out that companies want someone with a degree for pretty much any creative job. One particular job description had duties such as updating the company’s Snapchat account, and making YouTube content. And they wanted a degree. For a job that didn’t even pay £16k a year.
So I’m going to the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) in Ayr to study Broadcast Production for the next 2 years. I’ll be specialising in radio, which should be interesting – I’d just much rather get a bloody job and start working my way up. Ayr is an hour, and two financially-crippling trains, away from me – which brings me onto my next point.
I bought a car
This one I’m a lot more excited about! The cost of travelling by train or bus to Ayr would involve me having to take out a student loan – something which, fortunately, I’ve managed to avoid up until now. The other option was using a large chunk of my savings to pay for it – not ideal. I decided to make a bit of an investment instead and buy my own set of wheels, and I’ve never looked back since!
After various discussions and debates (some rather heated!) with my dad about the best car and the most affordable car (which, let’s face it, are completely different things) I opted for a Peugeot 107 Allure, which I’ve nicknamed Aurélia. She’s 5 years old, and she’s bright red! I’m going to talk about the car in more depth in a separate post, so I won’t say too much here – but considering I hadn’t driven for 8 years, I’m doing alright!
I did a trial journey down to Ayr last month with Johnathan, which also happened to be my first proper drive on the motorway – I made it there eventually, that’s all I’ll say!
My MH hasn’t been great – but I’m sorting it
This point probably explains the lack of motivation I mentioned earlier. Since around March of this year, my moods haven’t really been stable. I’ve found myself becoming irritable at the drop of a hat; I’ve felt so stressed as a result of many different things including my college deadlines and part-time job; I’ve been upset and crying at the tiniest little thing. I’ve also been experiencing symptoms of anxiety, which I haven’t had to deal with in nearly 15 years. It’s impacted, and been impacted by, every area of my life – my relationship, my friendships, my attitude to work and my health, particularly my diabetes.
Some days I feel absolutely fine – and other days I’ve been a mess. It’s made me feel like a bit of a fraud, to be completely honest. I’ve tried writing blog posts about it, saying how bad I was but how I’m feeling better, only to have a bad day the next day.
I’ve been lucky enough to access a short course of CBT sessions with a psychologist – it’s another area that I want to talk about separately, so again I won’t go into too much detail now – but it really has helped. We’ve been looking at how my mind works, how I react to things, and how to help change it. Understanding how I think has definitely helped me become a lot more self-aware.
I’m working on self-care
One of the biggest realisations through visiting the psychologist was that I don’t look after myself properly. I’ve thought that for a while, but someone external saying it made me realise how bad things had become. She asked me what I did for fun, or to relax – and I genuinely didn’t have an answer for her.
I’m so busy trying to please other people, and not let anyone else down, at the complete detriment of my own self-care. So I’ve taken a few steps to try and help.
Since buying the car, I’ve been able to re-join the gym – my main reason for not going was that it was an absolute NIGHTMARE on public transport. It’s only a pay-as-you-go membership and I’m only attending once a week, but I’m doing my favourite class – Les Mills Body Jam, which I love. It’s a high energy dance class; and since I was a dancer for 20 years, I have so much fun. It’s not massively technical, the instructor isn’t strict at all, and there’s a lot of twerking (honestly, my arse was killing me after the first class!)
I’m turning 30 next week (and having a party!)
It’s no secret that I have a complex about getting older. I don’t feel my age; after all, I’m about to start university (albeit in third year) and I still live at home! But as the big 3-0 approaches, I think I’ve finally realised that I can’t stop time – so I decided to celebrate by having a party! I didn’t have a big party for my 21st, and by the time I reach 40 I’ll probably be twice my current weight with 3 chins, so I decided to have a party where I’ll be able to feel pretty.
That must sound incredibly vain – but I’m getting my hair and makeup done for the first time ever, I’ve bought a gorgeous dress and shoes (well I actually bought 3 dresses and tried on a million more, but don’t even get me started on that!) and I’m looking forward to it so much. I’m never the person that people say “omg you look stunning” so for the first time, I feel like I’m going to look pretty and feel good about myself.
I was in two minds about having the party for ages – the problems with my mental health being the main culprit for that. But you’re only 30 once – so with 3 weeks notice, I booked the party. I know that it’s short notice for a lot of friends and family, so not everyone is able to make it, but I hope it’ll be a great night. I also hope I don’t fall over in my shoes…
That’s all for now in terms of an update, I think I’ve rambled on long enough! I hope you’re all doing well, and I’ll try not to leave it so long next time. I’ve got a few post ideas for the coming weeks, so hopefully you’ll be seeing more of me on here and on social media.
Thanks for reading!
