(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.

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