Lonely

“In a world full of people we can lose sight of it all”
That’s the line to stick with me the past couple of days. I’ve listened to this song (true colours), in particular Joshua and Erin Evans version (this one), a good few times in the last week. On each listen through it has meant something different. At first, I was grieving Josh’s loss along with him. And then I just listened because I love the song and how their voices suit it. But today, today I feel alone. Again.

I say again because I’ve felt like this for a while. I can be surrounded by people, be with a few friends or with my family here and still feel so alone. I can talk to my friends at home about how much I miss them and how much I want to see them again and feel the love of so many people at once and still feel like I have no one.

I love the opportunities life has given me. I couldn’t regret my decisions for a second. I am not taking away from how lucky I have been to have these experiences. But why does all of this have to come at such a loss? Why do the goodbyes never get easier? Why do the bonds I make only become stronger and harder to let go of? Why do some of the most amazing people I am fortunate enough to meet and call friends have to be the ones I get to spend so little time with? 

This place and these people in it changed my life. I have never felt more in love and more alone all at the same time. I will carry this with me forever.

And I will leave you with the words of E. E. Cummings. Today these words are for the heart of this country that has taken me in for the best year of my life and for the people I will never forget.

“I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart.”

If I were Taylor Swift

Thoughts run through my head, then I write them here and they’re on the internet forever. So this is this weeks thought… If I were Taylor Swift, who would be in my cool af girl squad? (I actually have these thoughts, the mind works in mysterious ways).

So I’d start with actresses and the obvious Emma Watson, Mila Kunis and Helena Bonham Carter.

Then singers with queen TayTay herself, the god that is Idina Menzel and Adele.

Youtubers have to be involved also and I’ve narrowed it down to Jenna Marbles, Gabrielle Taryn, Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Colleen Evans and Rebecca Zamolo.

And then adding some cool af guys too because I’m Taylor Swift and can do whatever the fuck I want, so I’ll have Matty Healy, Orlando Bloom, Tom Felton, George Ezra and every Olympic gymnast I can find.
Done.

Christmas and new year in the sun!

Well christmastime in New Zealand is definitely different to England! We spent from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve camping on the beach. Every day pretty much was gorgeous sunshine, spent reading, chilling out with Julia’s family and friends and swimming in the creek. A definite highlight was jumping off the tree on Christmas Day and swimming in the lovely (albeit slightly cold) water! It was such a different Christmas experience, not just being in the hot but being away from my family, although it was great to be able to Skype them on Boxing Day morning, Christmas evening for them and know that they had a great Christmas too.

On New Year’s Eve we drove back to Whangarei to send my last couple of days with Julia’s school friends and ring in the new year with a BBQ, a couple of drinks and playing some pool (losing at pool)! 

The whole trip with Julia has felt like a big extended holiday but now I’m in Geraldine, moved into my new home with my new family and ready to start my year in this beautiful country.

These goodbyes

I took my final 10 days of holiday from work to go home and spend some time sorting last minute bits for New Zealand but also to see as many family members and friends as possible before I leave.
Some of the goodbyes weren’t too hard because they are people I don’t get to see often but I know I can have quality time with when we are all free. Some of them however are people that I try and see as much as I can because they are the closest people to me.
I’m finding those goodbyes really hard.
As I’ve been told many, many times: it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later. Not knowing when and where I will be able to see these people again, I can’t begin to comprehend this in my head.
New Zealand is really far away.
I am so excited and so grateful for the opportunity, but there’s something bittersweet about not having a plan to come home at all.
Those goodbyes were hard but I have the worst to come.
My best friends and my parents.
How the hell I’ll get through those without crying I really don’t know.

22 things Taylor Swift explained perfectly

In 22 years of life I’ve learnt some important things.
The majority of these things can be explained using Taylor Swift lyrics (obviously?!).
So on my 22nd birthday (I don’t know about you but I’m feeling 22), I give you: 22 things Taylor Swift explained perfectly…

1. I was a flight risk with a fear of falling, wondering why we bother with love if it never lasts.

2. I could build a castle of all the bricks they threw at me.

3. Everybody here was someone else before.

4. Band aids don’t fix bullet holds, you say sorry just for show.

5. I just realised everything I have is someday gonna be gone.

6. Don’t think it’s in the past, these kinda wounds they last and they last.

7. I know it’s long gone and that magic’s not here no more, it might be okay but I’m not fine at all.

8. I’m on my guard for the rest of the world but with you I know it’s no good.

9. Dreaming about the day you wake up and find that what you’re looking for has been here the whole time.

10. I took a breath, you took a shot, you might think I’m bulletproof but I’m not. You took a swing, I took it hard, now down here on the ground I see who you are.

11. Maybe it got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much and maybe this thing was a masterpiece until you tore it all up.

12. Nothing lasts forever but his is getting good now.

13. Lights change like the weather, I hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new.

14. Breaking down and coming undone, it’s a rollercoaster kinda rush and I never knew I could feel that much.

15. We made quite a mess babe, it’s probably better off this way.

16. Turns out freedom ain’t nothing but missing you wishing I’d realised what I had when you were mine.

17. I’d tell you I miss you but I don’t know how, I’ve never heard silence quite this loud.

18. I’m not a princess, this ain’t a fairytale, I’m gonna find someone someday that might actually treat me well.

19. I just wanna tell you, it takes everything in me not to call you. And I wish I could run to you and I hope you know that every time I don’t I almost do.

20. I’d like to be my old self again but I’m still trying to find it.

21. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at 15.

22. I don’t know what I want so don’t ask me cause I’m still trying to figure it out.

I’m a real girl!

I have gotten so much better at being a girl.
I used to hate “girly chats” and talking about guys all the time but now I’m so much more used to it.
Not living with three guys and having lots more girl friends from work has rubbed off on me in a good way I think.
I used to find it quite hard to open up to girls and I never really understood the way they were. Now when I go out with the girls from work, or even, like yesterday, we sit and have a quiet drink after work, I feel so much more comfortable. I don’t feel out of place. I feel like I can talk openly without judgement and trust that if I wanted anything kept secret it would be.
It’s nice to be back in this state of mind and situation after three years of basically being classed as a boy and never having any quality girly time.
I’ve met some really influential people in my last year, pretty much all through work. They’ve taught me some really important things. The fact that I get along so much easier with boys is still there, I don’t think that will change in me. But I’ve met some girls who I can call true friends and I can be myself around.

Being in a relatively large group of people and feeling comfortable is a new concept to me. I kinda like it.

Breaking hearts

I’m going to get emotional here, so if you’re reading this and you’re not into the whole honest emotions thing then this is your warning.

Everyone and their mother seems to have had their heart broken before. It’s in every romantic film, song and book. But nobody seems to talk about how it feels to break someone else’s heart. The feeling when you break up with someone that you cared desperately for but you know you can’t make it work with.
Everyone seems to know the hopelessness that is apparently felt when your heart is broken. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced someone breaking my heart. I have however broken somebody else’s heart.
If you haven’t done this, then you won’t ever know the feeling.
The feeling that you’ve let down the one person that was counting on you. That you’ve promised your heart to someone and had to take it back. And that every time you’ve said I love you is now meaningless to them. Along with feeling all of that, you also have to deal with the thoughts that someone that you shared everything with not just hates you, but doesn’t believe you were ever in love with them and will never trust a word you say again.
Being the reason someone is feeling so much pain is horrific. But knowing that nobody has any sympathy for you because you are the “bad person” in that situation is also so shit.
Moving on when someone else has broken up with you is hard because you feel like you still love that person so deeply. Moving on after breaking someone else’s heart is horrible because you don’t ever want to flaunt your own happiness knowing someone that you care so much about is hurting so badly.
Even after a long time passing, seeing that persons face again can still bring back those feelings of hate for yourself for doing that to someone so important. But depending on how you leave things after the break up can make all the difference.
I guess I feel this way because things were not left.

This now just seems like a lot of rambling. But I feel like people on my side of the break up issue never get their say.
So this is that. Our view.
The view of someone that has never had their heart broken, but has broken someone else’s.

False smile

If you think someone is the best person you have known for a long time?
Get away.
If they make you feel needed, necessary, alive, trusted, able and wanted?
Get out.
If you get butterflies when you see them or talk to them?
Turn away.
If you take the leap to ask them on a date?
Just don’t.
If they are oblivious to all of your advances, hints, asking and flirting?
Pretend you’re joking.
If they then end up with one of your friends?
Run. Run and don’t look back.
If that friend leaves and they act fine about it?
Ignore them.
If after all of this they still kiss you and act like it won’t break you into a million tiny pieces inside?
Cry.

Plaster on that false smile for everyone to see and pretend like nothing has ever gone wrong in your life.
Make them think it meant nothing to you.
When in your head, just the sight of their face makes you breakdown.
Nobody needs to know what you’ve been through in the past year.

Why should anyone care?

I used to be nice

I haven’t blogged in a while. I seem to start a lot of posts like this but I genuinely just haven’t had anything inspiring happen to me to write about. But I just read something on twitter…

I’m not as nice as I used to be, getting fucked over does that to you.

And honestly, how true is that for most people. I genuinely used to be such a nice person that wouldn’t hurt a fly or ever want to be mean to anyone but getting screwed over changes the way you look at life. You start to be a lot more selfish.

I can’t decide whether it has changed me for the better though. I think I used to look at life through such a rose tinted lens. I thought everything was good and everybody was kind and if you are nice to everyone all you will receive in return is niceness. But that isn’t true. Sometimes I think I’ve been snapped into reality in a good way. I’ve learnt to understand who I actually should spend time caring about and who doesn’t matter.

I was once told that if the problems you think you are having now are things that will affect your life in a years time then they are genuinely problems to worry about. And I’ve started to think of people in the same way. If I want someone in my life in a years time that’s a big commitment for me and definitely worth the hassle. If they aren’t there in a year due to my issues or theirs at least I know I bothered.

I’m definitely not as nice as I used to be, but I’m a lot more real.

I look at life in a more long term perspective even if I can’t decide something as little as what to have for dinner tomorrow, at least I know that I have people I want to be around for more than a year and people I care about.

Those are the ones I save my nice moments for.

Me again.

A couple of months ago I did the first inherently selfish thing I’ve ever done to try and make myself be happy again and maybe become the person I used to be and the person I want to be.

As much as every single day I find it so hard to think I had to do something that drastic and awful, every day I am grateful that I did it.

I’m starting to feel like me again. That girl I used to be that just didn’t care is coming back and I’m so much more comfortable being me again. I’m happier. Stupid little things make me smile.

This morning I put make up on and just had to take it off, it wasn’t me. I bought some cute little hair clips and can’t stop wearing them. I wear stupid socks with my favourite boots constantly. I dyed my hair dark again even though it makes me look (quote my mother) “pale and washed out”, but I love it. I’ve opened up to people I was scared of letting into my life.

Most importantly I’ve started making things happen for myself. I’ve taken control of my life and my happiness and it has massively paid off. I’m proud of myself.