Strawberries and Daises and Sharpened Pencils

2am. 1°C. 

I’ve just finished my favourite movie for about the 152nd time, on a night when I should have been 3 hours into work instead. It seems like something I should regret, but I cant. 

Is it still a bad decision if it made you feel so good? I feel like there’s euphemism there, but I can’t be bothered – not tonight. I feel too good tonight.

Its that time of year again – crunch time.

Late nights.

Too little sleep. 

Too much coffee (Yes, there is such a thing)

I want the next month to go by in a second and yet not want it to come at all. I'm so nervous. And scared. Excited too. But mostly nervous. The past year has just whizzed by and my life has changed so much. I've changed so much. 

All I want to do now is relax. I want to go to the market and pick up baskets of strawberries. I want a vase of daises on my window sill and a bouquet of sharpened pencils on my desk. I want to causally sip coffee while reading outdoors (no one reads outdoors anymore. You notice?) I want to stroll around the park and watch the dogs playing in the lake. 

I want to slow down, but everything's speeding up. Its okay though. 

That's the way these things go. It'll get better soon - just a little while longer

After 36 hours awake, you begin to appreciate the little things. Little pleasures. Little victories. 

A hot shower.

A deep stretch.

Sunlight beaming in.

Coffee *inhales deeply*

All I could think of this morning in the shower was how good that water felt. I was 19 hours in - cold and stiff and in want of coffee. Something as simple as a hot shower instantly lifted my mood. I couldn't remember the last time I had so deeply savoured the feeling of hot beads of water beating down on my skin. I was tired and beaten down and the warmth enveloped me - held me tight and rocked me gently. I never wanted to leave.  

Its alright - a few minutes more. The real world could wait. 

It's Been Awhile

Its 2016.  

I hadn't thought about this blog in years till I was asked about it in passing. I lied - said I had deleted it. Why? I was extremely embarrassed.  The thought that my childish musings were still floating around the internet after all this time. I needed to get rid of them.  

I came here this evening with the intention of deleting this blog permanently - these cringe-worthy weekly ramblings of someone that I used to know. I didn't want to read any of it lest I recoil back in a fit of disgust. I cant tell you why I regarded my past blog posts with such a raw hatred. I guess I've always hated pictures of myself, I just assumed I'd feel the same about fragments of my past.

"Nostalgia is a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed"

I had come back, a very different person, to discover that my (edited) memories had been wrong all this time. This blog, instead of being a source of deep regret and disdain, was in fact a clear snapshot of my life at that time. It seems a perfectly obvious trait of a diary to so explicitly preserve your memories - I dont know why I didnt realise that that was what this blog was doing.  

I liked what I read.  In fact, memories came flooding back as I poured through post after post. It was a little surreal. I have become a very different person, and this blog is proof. Thoughts about sadness and suicide no longer plague my mind. I never thought it possible at the time, but I've become happier, joyful & optimistic (My past self would deeply disapprove of this word).  

I've experienced so much since then. I've moved - I'm living abroad for a little bit.  I'm studying something I've been waiting all my life to do. I'm glad that I've kept in touch with old friends and made new ones along the way. My relationship with my family is so much better. My relationship with myself is so much better.  

I guess the blog's staying up for now.