Here's a different one.

This time last year I remember thinking about how my life would look a year from then, which is now. I was in a strange place in a lot of different ways - although I was in a relationship at the time, I still felt deeply unsettled and ultimately isolated, I spent a lot of time just feeling down and there aren't many pleasant thoughts that come to mind from that time period. I knew at the time that I was headed to Vancouver in January, and was nervous but relatively indifferent. I had reapplied and had my pre-screen interview for Disney World and after being let down about it in 2017, I kept my hopes at bay, leaving me with the same subtle nerves but relative indifference. All I knew was that there were so many ways life could go and so many ways that my life could change in the next year.

I had no idea how big an impact my experiences this year would have. The friends I've made, conquering life long fears about my body and general anxieties around food, achieving and completing some of my biggest dreams. I didn't know how easy it would be to fall in love with a city in the same way I fell in love with Vancouver and the people who showed me the best of the city. I was gifted with experiences that restored a lot of the self-worth I had gradually lost over time. There was a million sunsets, and beaches, and solo night runs around the same paths that became a huge comfort. I got to stand topless on a nude beach (with crippling body confidence issues, this never would have happened last year - and it was SO empowering). I was taught that I'm worth more than someone who couldn't remember the most basic details about me, and that I can be interesting and worth listening to.

My time in Disney World taught me that it's possible to squeeze every moment out of your day if you just push for it. There were no 'real' days off in the 2 and a half months I was there. Park in the morning, work until midnight, potentially go out afterwards. Orlando was my oyster, and Glasgow can be too over the next year. I gained a new appreciation for people who can't afford time off, people who need to stay constantly busy to stay afloat financially or to raise kids or just to keep themselves happy and occupied - I survived while I was there but the second I got home I began to crash from exhaustion I'm still dealing with 3 weeks later.

Now, I'm sitting on my bed, writing this blog after the same night time routine I've had for years. Nothing has changed, but everything has changed.

Despite trying to live in the moment and be as present as I was mentally able, I couldn't help look forward occasionally throughout the year, to think about what it would feel like to be in my current situation. For the first time in years I have nothing 'set' to look forward to. I started this month in Orlando, and came home to complete a road trip which kind of sadly wrapped up the best parts of my time in Vancouver (in the best possible way). Starting uni again this week didn't feel like a new beginning so much as the closing of a chapter, and it's been a tricky feeling to deal with. The urge to call this blog 'losing September' was strong but I know that I'm not losing as much as it feels like I am right now. I'd like to remember it for the good rather than the upsetting.

That being said - it IS a new beginning. Being home again gives me the chance to finish my degree, hopefully. I can now look forward to the future from the comfort of my own home, even if it's the last place I'd like to be right now. It's also confirmed my suspicions that my time in Canada was never really over when I left Vancouver. I'm itching to find the peace I found there once again, even if involves starting from the ground up in terms of having a new housing arrangement, new friends, new job and ultimately a new life there. Whether it be for only a year or two or longer.
Regardless - I'm excited to get started.

(Okay so after reading few a couple of my past blogs I've realised that these always come either from a really happy place or a really sad one and this year has been an emotional rollercoaster, I promise to try and provide at least some decent content after this one lol)
I’m writing this at the side of a pool, enveloped in glorious sunshine on arguably one of the most pleasant days weather-wise since I landed in Orlando over two months ago. I start every one of these blogs saying that I only ever tend to write when trying to unravel my thoughts and this is no different. This summer has been physically (for lack of a better word) one of the best of my life. Although I’d still call Christmas my favourite time of year, Summer is the time where I feel the most free, and I’ve found in recent years especially that sunshine improves my mood dramatically. I’ve spent the past 10 weeks in one of my favourite places on the planet, with so many wonderful friends, and getting paid to be here. Shifts were (very) long and the work not always as entertaining as you’d imagine working at Disney World would be, but it was still the best job I’ve had and will likely ever have again. Why then have I spent a good part of the past few months fraught with anxiety and allowed myself to feel progressively more isolated and trapped within a body I’m just not happy to be in? (Which is a complete contrast with the note I finished my last blog on, are we surprised? Not really.) It’s definitely not all to do with physical appearance although I’m very much aware that it plays a major role - but more to do with a lack of acceptance for who I am, how I think and handle situations. My ability to manage multiple friendships while balancing and working on individual relationships has deteriorated over time and what time and energy I used to spend dedicated to others is now being put towards nothing but the anxiety of losing people. It’s a vicious cycle. This blog isn’t intended to reap any kind of solution or result, but more to acknowledge a flaw in myself that demands my time and attention in the coming months as I resettle into some kind of normality - and hopefully to try to explain to anyone who has felt me slip away over the past year in particular. It’s time to take a step back and truly appreciate how privileged I am to have been living in a literal dream for the past 9 months. It's not every day (or year) that you can run around Epcot a few times before work, or just jump on Space Mountain, or tipsily SCREAM along to your favourite Disney World songs at Jellyrolls while laughing at incredibly niche Disney World humour with best friends that you practically live with. All this a couple months off the back of skiing, hiking, going to multiple improv comedy shows, coffee shop crawls and the most stress free exam period of my educational career. AND (??!!) I've traveled down California; hiked halfway up Yosemite Falls (next time I won't be too ill to do the whole thing, mark my words), climbed the hills of San Francisco, went to vintage/thrift shops on Haight-Ashbury, had lunch on Santa Monica Pier, managed to end up the Griffith Observatory 3/4 times in a 3/4 day period, and DISNEYLAND! The ORIGINAL!!! - all with my best friend (the best person on the planet). The idea of going home and dealing with everything that comes along with it is a nightmare right now, and it feels selfish to say it. Returning to normality means accepting and processing negative emotions, loneliness and grief that I've been lucky enough to be able to put in an 'out of sight, out of mind' position over the course of this year. I always knew this wouldn't last forever, and I think that is where a lot of the anxiety I've been feeling for the past while stems from. Uncertain about the feelings people have towards me, uncertain about how my life will look when I get home, uncertain about who will still be there. That all being said, on the same note as I left my last blog about being 21, I’m excited for the opportunity to try and better myself again, placing a bigger focus on my mental health, education, fitness and reconnecting with and empowering and supporting friends.

I feel like I have to constantly apologise to myself for never blogging when I always promise to commit to it, but honestly I'm mostly put off by the realisation that I always want to say the same thing: life is unpredictable, busy and exciting. More so in this past year than most.

Being 20 has taught me more about myself than any year preceding it, if you told me this time last year about the position I'm in right now I don't know what I would have felt. I am much more confident and empowered than I ever have been before. I've overcome a lot of my anxieties around food which have kind of plagued the majority of my life, I've dealt with my first experience of grief and handled negative relationships, and for the first time ever, I actually have some sense of comfort in my own skin.

Living in Vancouver was the greatest experience of my life, without a doubt. The thrill of moving so far from home and immediately feeling an overwhelming excitement and simultaneous comfort never wore off. The city means so much to me, and so does every single person I met there. The mountains, the familiarity of the streets, the beaches, sunsets, food, greenery, the shiny floor-to-ceiling windows of the buildings downtown; every single aspect of Vancouver is my favourite thing. My almost lifelong dream has been to work in Disney World, and this week it comes true. I'm still in complete disbelief that I found so much love in Vancouver that the idea of going to Orlando instead of going back there for the summer has made the whole thing bitter-sweet. To quote a certain Flynn Rider/Eugene; I've found my new dream.

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet, because I have so much to say and no amount of words I throw together will ever fully explain how extraordinary this past year has been. Being 20 has been wonderful, and I've changed for the better. I'm excited to start my next trip around the sun with a much more adventurous mind when it comes to new experiences, and I want to carry both the confidence and love that I've felt this year with me for as long as I can.

Here's to everyone who has made 20 what it was, whether their impact was a learning experience or an enriching one.
Here's to taking every opportunity that comes and embracing them wholeheartedly.
Here's to vulnerability, to storytelling (and listening), to new friends, new places, making the most of the four seasons, celebrating and appreciating the people you love, to laughter and to (probably many) tears.

Happy birthday to me 😊

Every single year, without fail, Valentine's Day hits me with a weird kind of misery. True, all my past Valentine's Days were spent alone, and I guess this year isn't completely different. I'm very much physically alone in the sense I don't have someone to romantically share the day with, but I'm not alone on the level I have been in the past. Events of the past year and the past few months in particular have taught me lessons about myself, my sense of independence and self worth. I know I won't be alone forever, which had always been my greatest fear - whether or not I'm with one person for an extended period is another thing altogether that I won't touch on right now. Valentine's Day always felt like a reminder of something I was missing out on, and this year it's a little different.

A WHOLE MONTH. I can't believe January is over, and how much I did this month. Genuinely easily the busiest and most wonderful month of my life for so many reasons.

You can judge my general mood and spirit based on when I post blogs because they always come with some intense burst of emotion, and it's been nice to have a more positive motive to write compared with my last few blogs of 2018.

Vancouver has been the world's biggest blessing, and has mended a lot of stuff I was struggling with before leaving. I've pushed myself in a million different ways, pushing my fitness, testing my time management (I'm still not good but I think I've accepted that being chronically late is a part of my personality), pushing myself into a lot of scary new social situations, and putting myself in genuinely scary thrilling adrenaline fueled situations. I've met people who have restored my sense of self-worth, and demonstrated single-handedly the impact that new people can have in such a short space of time.

I've been all over, a bunch of different beaches, the space centre, art gallery, the lookout, Canada Place (x100), the aquarium, a bunch of parks, a bird sanctuary - this list goes on. I've seen the a million sunsets, a bunch of different viewpoints, walked along the Iona Beach jetty INTO the sunset and back (10k !!!!!), and I saw the Super Blood Wolf Moon over the Vancouver skyline. A FREAKING ECLIPSE!!!!! IN A CLEAR SKY!!!!!! I'm still not over it.

In the past two weeks alone I've had my first ski lesson in the ROCKIES!!!!, went dogsledding and have spent a good bit of time zooming around on the back of a motorbike, and it was all magical, and thrilling.

It's weird to think that a year from now everything will be a memory. Even at the time - when you're flying through Stanley Park in the dark on the back of a motorbike, with the driver's foot firmly on the accelerator, flying past through the trees and past fleeting glimpses of the bright city skyline in the distance through the breaks in the branches - nothing feels real.

It's shown me how much I'm capable of, and how many crazy amazing unbelievable experiences there are here and anywhere else. Life is wonderful, and the more I experience the more I get excited about it.

This blog is short and badly written but I have so much to say about this past month that I don't even know where to begin. It's been better than I could have imagined. The takeaway from this blog is that I urge the very few people that read it to seize every opportunity you get. It could be terrible, it could be the best experience of your life, either way, it's a good story to tell :-)

Lucy x

I've been in Vancouver for a week now!! and WOW has it been a long week.

The downside of mild social anxiety is that large groups of people are overwhelming and often look faceless to me, names and sometimes faces are difficult to distinguish, and that has been what the majority of this week has been for me. Like one giant storm of people, and it's difficult to get a grasp of.

In my first 3 weeks of uni, right at the very beginning, I tried to quit. Completely tried to drop out, for the same reasons as I've described above. I had no idea how to make friends, Freshers events seemed like my worst nightmare (and still are, wish me luck for this week coming), no one from high school was doing my course, and with a crowd of 300 odd students, it just seemed like a faceless crowd. It seemed impossible.

Turns out, it wasn't impossible. I've met the most wonderful pure lovely extraordinary people through uni, and I couldn't be happier, but it took time, and that's what I've had to tell myself this week.

BUT it's not all bad. Like I mentioned in my last blog, over the past couple of years I've become fiercely independent - and it's proving to be a blessing. Although having friends to physically interact and share experiences with is always preferable, I'm confident enough to venture out on my own, and because of it, I've been able to experience things I never would have been able to otherwise.

Travelling on your own allows you to navigate the day on your own accord, you can chop and change plans within a moments notice, you can dart from place to place without a second thought. If you want to see as much as you can that day, then travelling on your own is the way to go AND it's a lot easier to make friends with strangers this way. In one day I was able to have 4 different conversations comparing Scotland and Canada, and as a result I learned about family links and got offered a free coffee.

Spending more time with yourself allows you to discover your own capabilities and subsequent limits in the same way that you would be learning about a friend you would have taken with you. Be your own friend. Learn more about yourself. Push your own boundaries. If, like me - cripplingly so, you can struggle with confidence issues, then this is one of the easiest ways to gain self confidence. Taking ultimate responsibility for your own physical actions, with no one to help navigate in any sense, is incredibly enriching.

I'm not going to pretend it's an easy thing to do - especially for people who feel dependent on others for comfort and security reasons. The beauty of being fairly introverted is that I've become totally comfortable in my own company, and it's just fine. It doesn't happen overnight, and requires work and patience, and maybe the ability to prove to yourself that you can do it; but you can.

Everyone can. Everyone should. Travelling solo means limitless opportunities. Go wherever the wind takes you. (not to quote Pocahontas or anything lol)

Lucy x

My past couple of blogs have been a bit ~ negative ~ and I feel like that's a really bad representation of my year. I won't lie about it, it's been tough; I spent a good bit of the year feeling like I wasn't good enough for anything, suffered loss, rejection and I had my first real experience of grief, and it all took a bit of a toll on my mental health.