Blind hope.

You're laughing and joking and making plans, for the weekend, and the summer, and the future, and then suddenly life throws another curveball and everyone just stands there, looking at it, like, 'SHIT.' 

I am lying in bed, cocooned in my quilt, and I can't shift the attitude that life just isn't fair. Certain individuals seem to be handed the worst of hands, and it doesn't seem right, or okay, or fair at all. With crossed fingers and toes, tense chests and heavy hearts, we hope things turn out okay. There is no other option, nothing else we can bare to entertain. This is the only outcome we can fathom, so no pressure, SCRATCH THAT, all the pressure in the world is on your shoulders, because after all, even Duffy Moon can do it. 

91.

The number of posts I have to write before the end of the year to match last year's blog post total. So technically, let's make it 92 and exceed last year. 

A lot has happened in a year. Too much to even let float around my brain altogether, because it may just make my head explode. It's been a damn good year really, and I'm praying it gets better. It just needs to. It's really important it does. 

Lucky bitch.

It's Thursday, it's January, and the sun is shining. My dad is sat at the table in my peripheral vision, watching Pulp Fiction. I'm only half-listening, although I've never seen it. My phone is buzzing happily every time I receive a message. A smile sits so effortlessly across my face. It's sixteen days into 2014 and there's a feeling I just can't shift. I honestly can't believe how lucky I am. Okay, side note: I'm getting more absorbed into Pulp Fiction every second, so I'll keep this short yet eloquent. I'm surrounded by the best people ever. I can sit here confidently and swear that the people in my life are some of the best I've ever met. The funniest, kindest, most incredible individuals I could ever know. The people who make me tick. Know me inside out, my good traits and bad habits and stand by me when I need them most. There's certain people I'd honestly do anything for. Recently, I've come to know Amy, a girl who, although we've never met face to face, I consider a very good friend. Amy and I got to know each other basically through blogger and twitter, shared writing, creativity, drunk snapchats and vodka memories. We're hopefully arranging to actually meet in person this year. She's amazing, funny and such a talented writer. I fully believe she's going to be some big-shot writer one day with her latest novel bound in expensive leather backing, and hopefully she'll sign my copy personally. Anyway, that aside, Amy is one of not many people I trust with a hell of a lot. She's one of the strongest people I've ever known, she's been through a lot and yet always comes out of the other side, stronger and more determined than ever. A risk taker. She knows that despite writing being shrugged off by many as a less than conventional career prospect, she's doing it anyway. I can honestly say, I know she will get something published, because if you have enough guts, and enough sheer determination as she has, there's no other outcome, and I find that blindingly wonderful. I'm smiling stupidly, as if I've just been told I've hit the jackpot. You'd think I was lying on a bed, surrounded by a mass of £50 notes, money heaven. Pound signs in my eyes. The cha-Ching of winning something incredible. I'm gushing so much, but I don't care. I know how lucky I am. Surrounded by an amazing family, friends and boyfriend. I can't even begin to describe how strange it is writing that. Lukas is probably grinning reading this. Stop it. I won't be smiling unless you bring me tequila.

:) 

Rough diamonds.

Contrary to popular belief, media slurs and silly internet trolls, nobody is perfect. Everyone has flaws, failings and things that make them something other than perfect. It makes us who we are. The little funny things we do that aren't always right, the mistakes, the differences, the traits that are ours and only ours. The way you drink your tea or walk across a room, the amount of times you say "like" or fidget when you're uncomfortable or laugh so heartily. It makes you who you are. The negatives we are told, and even convince ourselves about, are just really quite irrelevant. If you think you can sing, then sing. If you want to dance on a table in a pair of six inch heels, even if it is ill-advised, go ahead. If something makes you happy, you should usually pursue it, regardless of what other people say, think or feel. Just think about it, do the people around you always worry and respect your opinion on every decision they make? It would be impossible and unrealistic to think so. Mistakes are just things you can, eventually shrug off, shut out or sweep under the nearest rug. There is no such thing as the perfect body or the perfect life, it is just what you make it to be. If you wake up every morning frowning, you're not giving yourself time to appreciate the nice things to come. Instead, wake up and smile, look in the mirror and take it all in. You may not be perfect, but you sure as hell are amazing. There are people that do think so.  After all, I'd much rather have a rough diamond than a perfect stone. 

Breathe easy.

Well that's it. My poetry assignment has been handed in, a dreaded eighty lines that took me much longer than it should have. Eighty sodding lines that caused me a lot of aggro, stress and headaches, but now, I can breathe, if only temporarily. The real tester will be Friday. The dreaded unlucky 13th has, for some sick reason, been the day that our Early Modern Cultures exam has been assigned to. The joys, ey? I'm not at all prepared, and a little bit too tired to put in the right amount of effort. The sooner 11.30 on Friday morning arrives, the better, in my opinion. 

I keep saying it, but the tequila will be got in at the bar. I'm deadly serious. Even if it is before 12pm, I think it's someone's duty to have a little tipple waiting for me as a congratulations it's all over kinda thing. Yeah, we've established I do not hold up well under pressure, so you probably know, uni is making me a lb even more miserable version of myself. On the upside, I'm starting to get into the Christmas spirit. I've just purchased a few gifts to begin with, and still have quite a few more to go. The decorations are up, the fairy lights are shining and even the pubs have started playing Christmas songs at 2am amidst broken glass and dirty pints. I'm smiling and getting excited to spend time with my family and friends, and of course, the very amazing Christmas dinner prepared by one of my fave peoples on the planet, (MASSIVE SHOUTOUT TO THE LEGEND THAT IS MY GRANDMA JUNEY!) so, happy times are coming in full-force. Plus, I kinda think I'm about to be very happy indeed. Surrounded by people I really need and want in my life. I'm so lucky. I can breathe. 

Would you like a gag with that compliment?

Receiving a compliment is weird. It's kind of positive, but it's also kind of negative in one sense. While I like to think I'm quite good at accepting compliments, (not because I'm vain, or think the person is right in what they say) but purely because I think sometimes, it's better to accept a compliment, than deny it and somewhat publicly humiliate the complimenter by throwing it back in their face. Its like, that just isn't very polite. I also feel that if I deny a compliment, someone might actually take offense and feel that I'm being weird and stand-offish, when that wouldn't actually be the case.

Meanwhile, refusal to accept a nice remark or comment made by someone, whether it be a friend, relative or stranger, can actually make you question yourself further. Someone recently told me they thought I was pretty, and I immediately jumped up, defensively, and shrugged off their compliment, when deep down I could have (and should have) just smiled and realised that actually it was a nice comment coming from a nice place. While this person was complimenting me, I was going over and over in my head listing the things that were, in my opinion, wrong with myself, both internally and externally, and why, in my opinion, this comment was not fitting for little old me. Compliments are sometimes back-handed, yet this is unintentional. Cue a Mean Girls quote: "Oh my god, I love your bracelet, where did you get it?" and shrink back with disdain and hatred we collectively share for arch-nemesis and ultimate bitch, Regina George. What about these: "Is your hair different, it looks nice" makes you think "does it look a mess usually?" "Have you lost weight?" Is that a hint that you probably need to shed a few pounds? A comment on your physical appearance makes you feel analysed and subjected, and yet happy/sad/worried at the same time. I don't ever think I've had bundled of self-confidence, but every so often, there will be peaks and troughs, just a everyone has.

When someone comments positively about me, maybe I don't believe them because previously, someone who has said the same or a similar thing, turned out to be lying/not really bothered/not who I thought they were, so maybe their judgement isn't to be trusted. Am I afraid of what the compliment means, in both surface meaning and deeper meaning? Yes. What if someone I like tries to flatter me and I turn all gullible and believe every word they breathe in my presence, then later turn out to have been taken for a ride, and end up looking stupid and foolish. Yet another reason to avoid accepting and believing compliments. An outfit praise, a "thin" comment or a realisation that my hair is different to what it was yesterday can all spark the same gut-wrenching reaction. We jerk backwards. We recoil. We hide away from the positives and seemingly attract the negatives like magnets. It is, of course, proven that while you can receive a hundred compliments and doubt every single one, yet one insult or negative comment, and it will dwell and stay with you for years.

Ross: Rach, come on, look, I know how you must feel.

Rachel: No, you don't, Ross. Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now, how would you    feel if the one person you trusted most in the world not only thinks them too, but actually uses them as reasons not to be with you.

Ross: No, but, but I wanna be with you in spite of all those things.

Rachel: Oh, well, that's, that's mighty big of you.

Ross: You know what? You know what? If things were the other way around, there's nothing you could put on a list that would ever make me not want to be with you.

Rachel: Well I guess that's the difference between us. See, I'd never make a list.