Month: December 2015
Am I wrong in giving out my website URL to someone I barely know? After all, I do bare my soul and share things that I wouldn’t tell a stranger, so isn’t publishing it on my blog the same thing?
What am I afraid of? If I stand by my desire to be an open book, surely this shouldn’t worry me. Perhaps I’m not as carefree as I like to think and I am genuinely bothered by how people perceive me. Will I be judged on my past discrepancies? My health? My (dire) previous relationships? My experience with Voldemort?
Then I remember, this is what he did to me. I started this blog without a second thought about sharing the details of my life. I’ve always been honest and brave and quite frankly, a bit like teflon. If people judged me, perhaps it would hurt for a moment or two, but I would quickly shake it off, think “that’s their shit” and then move on in the blink of an eye. After him, I worry. I have been engrained with caring how people perceive me, filled with insecurities about what they must be thinking. All the thoughts he put in my mind…am I crazy? Am I broken? Am I damaged? Am I fat? Am I unattractive? Am I high maintenance?
Then I remember the person I was before he came along – the real me, before that pathetic individual planted these seeds in my mind – and I remember my resolve to be openly, completely, unashamedly me (warts and all). I recall how I spoke out on FGM and received a hate message from someone who was disgruntled because he thought I was attacking our religion – I apologised for him taking offense, but I stood firm in my beliefs. That’s the person I was when I started this blog, openly talking about my bipolar, insecurities and the nuances of being a young single girl navigating the mind field of jerk guys out there (who I seem to be a walking magnet for). I’m the girl who receives messages from women saying how they can relate to my life. I’m the girl who people approach to applaud me for speaking out and sharing my experience of depression, saying that they can relate. I’m the girl who gives out advice to other girls to empower them after they’ve been heartbroken. That’s who I am and that’s who I want to continue to be…regardless of who’s reading.
Write what you feel; not
To be noticed or envied,
But to be honest.
In response to Voldemort telling me that I’m broken – yes, I am. I’m broken wide open for everyone to look inside and see my soul. And honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.
For new readers: Welcome to my world – feel free to look around 🙂
Christmas: My favourite time of the year. Growing up in a Christian country, my sweetest childhood memories are singing christmas carols, Father Christmas visiting school and giving us gifts, the christmas card postbox at school, christmas lunch, seeing the christmas tree, pantomimes and many, many others.
The sweetest memories of all are those of my grandmother. This will be my first Christmas without her. Days are filled with activities that remind me of her – Christmas was her favorite time of the year, where she spoiled us even more than she did year-round (which was hard to do!) There are so many Christmas memories with Nanny – her taking us to see Father Christmas at Harrods, christmas lunch in Kensington and of course, spending christmas day with her . In the last few years, I would take Nanny to buy christmas presents for the family and help her wrap them, a shopping trip that she would look forward to for weeks.
A lump forms in my throat when I realize that this will be my first christmas without her – no shopping trip, no christmas card with her familiar writing and no seeing her and hearing her brighten up when she saw us and wished us a merry christmas. A large part of Christmas will be missing this year, and my heart fills with sadness when I realize that this is the first of many more Christmas’ to come without her.
Until I see her again, I’ll continue to remember her – year round – but especially at Christmas.
Season’s greetings Nanny, wherever you are. x.