Happy New Year everyone!
I fully intend to blog a bit more this year. I've had a few blog posts saved in drafts for the last couple of months but I just couldn't bring myself to post them. I have this blog to make things and reach out to all my amazing readers but I also keep my blog as a sort of diary; I hope one day I'll look back and have this record as a memory jogger as well as a source of pride. After all that's happened this year it seemed insincere to simply get back to the happy cheerful content without mentioning what I've been through this year. I'll keep it short, I promise.
This year has been really trying for me, you've probably noticed that something has been up from the little I've posted. Basically this time last year I found myself in a situation where I was living with people I just couldn't get on with. After trying and disagreeing for a few weeks before the Christmas holidays there seemed to be a mutual understanding that it just wasn't going to work and we sort of fell into an arrangement where I stayed in my room and we didn't talk. It was unhealthy and sad. I spent last Christmas terrified to go back to university and I spent the following months becoming more and more mentally unhealthy and confining myself to my room. From speaking to a couple of people I know this can be quite common at University. If you've been through that sort of thing I'm sure you know just how horrible it can be to feel unsafe and unwelcome in your own home. If you've never had that I hope you never have to.
So there I was, beginning of the year. Stressed, unhealthy inside and out (avoiding the communal kitchen meant a lot of take-aways and skipped meals, starting to lose my hair due to stress and performing pretty badly at Uni.
So that's the bad bit over. The violins can stop playing now because the cavalry arrived. My wonderful friends and family were the best support system ever when I was really at my worst. They whipped me into shape, talked me into making the most of my time with studying and convinced me to get on with moving out (I don't know why I didn't earlier really, I guess I'd convinced myself I was just a terrible room mate? I don't know). As a lot of my friends were going abroad this year I didn't have anyone to live with and so I did what all sensible people do. I went on gumtree and found three men to live with. I admit I did not consider the safety implications of this, I was only thinking of New Girl.
So I moved out. That was amazing. It's really good walking away from a house you hate and not looking back. Like, really good you guys. I then had a long Summer to recover. I focused on my health. I did a juice cleanse. I really learnt about how to look after myself more. I kinda got a bit better. My hair continued to fall out but it seemed a bit more manageable.
At the end of the Summer I took the plane back up to Edinburgh. I was damn terrified. I had such bad memories of that place and it was just me and a suitcase moving in with people I had met once. I was shaking like a leaf. And then I just wasn't. Within ten minutes of walking in the door I was eating spaghetti carbonara and watching a new girl box set (their idea!) with my new flat mates. Within ten minutes everything was just fine and I wasn't worried anymore.
So that was my weirdest year yet. I had nine months of stress and adventures into mental illness and then three months of America's Next Top Model marathons, communal cooking, epic group-fancy-dress costumes and basically just a really happy normal uni life. I started the year completely awfully and ended it really happy and hopeful that 2015 will be amazing.
