Randomness of Life

I’m just going to jump right in. I’ve heard at least two variations of this saying. One being “You need to love yourself, before you can expect others to love you.” the other being “You need to love yourself, before you can truly love others.” I am aware that there are many variations of these sayings but these two are the ones I’ve heard the most and I never liked them...especially the second. I always understood them to mean, that if I can’t love myself, then the love I have for others just isn’t real love. I know this might seem somewhat dramatic but it made me feel like people were trying to tell me, that my feelings weren’t real and that what I thought was love...well wasn’t. It’s only recently I realised what these sayings really meant (I still don’t fully agree with them but I’ll get into that later). I finally understood that it was saying I needed to make myself a priority, to take care of myself and my needs, be nice to myself and show myself understanding and empathy. Fo

Hate is a strong emotion. A bit of an ugly one too. One says it's the polar opposite of love but at the same time so close to it. For my sake I really hope that's true. My mother told me from a very young age to not hate people. Not for some ethical reason or because she was trying to label it as wrong. Her reasoning was or more is, that if you hate someone (again a strong emotion) you're giving someone you really dislike, a lot of power over you and your energy. And that really resonated with me, so my entire life I have tried really hard not to hate anyone. Sure there were a fair few people I disliked but I'd never let myself hate them, no matter what they did because they just weren't worth my time or energy. For years I thought I'd been successful. Regardless what other people threw at me I wouldn't let them get the better of me. But obviously I wasn't; otherwise I wouldn't have titled this "The one person I hate" now would I? Althoug

So...it’s been a while hasn’t it. Life (or more uni) took over a bit the last few months. However, I have finally taken the time to sit down and write again. And boy have I missed it! I really need to work on making time for things I enjoy, which actually brings me to what I wanted to write about in this post: New Year Resolutions. At the beginning of last year I was not in a good place. My mental health wasn’t doing too well, I’d just broken off uni with no idea what to do next or where to start looking. I was not looking forward to the months ahead and felt so unsure about myself and everything in my life. Now 12 months later I think this past year might just be the best year of my life. I travelled for the first time by myself, to see relatives abroad that I’d missed and hadn’t seen in a while. Then I decided to go visit another country with a good friend of mine. I organized the whole trip (something I’d never done before). Said good friend and I are now dating (to absolutely