Naughty or Nice?

It's nearly time to be thinking about Christmas! Yay!

That's Okay...

I’m not sure if it’s a symptom of depression or just my personality but I am constantly worrying about what people think of me.

I keep a personal journal and, no word of a lie, I worry about coming across as a moaner with the amount of times I pour out my heart to its pages. Coming across to whom? No-one reads my journal and no-one will ever be allowed to read my journal. So that means that I’m effectively worried what people who might read it long after I’m dead will think of me.

Seriously?

Am I living up to the stereotype of crazy or what?

I know that it sounds ridiculous but I seem to have this perpetual fear of what others may think of me.

The same is true of this blog. I initially started it as a way to escape my depression. Then, I realised that I couldn’t gloss over the fact that depression is a major part of my life and if I wanted to work through it, I couldn’t avoid talking about it.

The repercussions of that is that people reading my blog might also think I’m a moaner if I go on about depression and the mindless number of ‘setbacks’ and steps backward I seem to take.

Man, all this thinking is exhausting!

And do you know what? That’s okay.

The fact that I seem to have minor setbacks on a weekly basis is okay too.

I have depression.

So do 20% of all adults. So I’m not that unusual - hard as it may be to believe!

If I put myself out there people may think that I am endlessly moaning. But, there might be one person, just one person who reads what I have to say and thinks ‘thank God, someone else isn’t finding it as easy to climb out of depression’.

It’s not easy and that’s not just okay - that’s the truth.

This is a real blog and I have to be true to me and truthful with my battles. If people think badly of me, my blog or anything I have to say - do you know what? - that’s okay, too.

Hopeless?

I found this the other day while I was "cleaning" out my computer files. It made me laugh.Probably because it's true!

It's Your Life...

The Simple Life...

Don't Change...

I saw this quote this morning when I was doing my daily (hourly?) trawl through Pinterest.

I just love it.

I love it.

I need to have this tattooed on my brain.

So with that in mind, I'm going to list a few things that I don't tend to tell people for fear that I'll be judged from one group or another!

• I like doing jigsaw puzzles.
• I love trashy TV shows like The Real Housewives and Jersey Shore.
• I'd love to be a housewife. I mean a real housewife, not like those on the TV!
• I prefer books to people.
• I'm scared of horror films. I mean terrified. I can't even watch the adverts.
• I like Star Wars and Star Trek.
• I adore cuddly toys and I still treat them as if they are alive. Try and convince me they're not!
• I don't like 'fancy' foods. All these frou frou flavours - not for me.
• Anything you say to me will be disected at length when I'm alone.
• Small talk exhausts me. Sometimes I need to be alone to recharge.
• I prefer animals to people.
• I sometimes pretend not to know or understand things so I don't upset other people or come across as a know-it-all.
• I worry so much about what other people think of me that my mind never shuts off.
• I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• I don't drink alcohol.
• I love musicals.
• I've never seen the film Titanic.
• I don't like what I look like but don't have the willpower to change.
• I worry more about other people than I do about myself (and I seriously worry about myself!)
• I'd prefer to stay in than go out.
• I don't have many (any?) friends.
• Chatting online (even emailing) is just as horrible for me as conversing in real life!

Okay, this is getting a wee bit upsetting for me now so I'm going to stop.

But that's me - warts and all.

I've just realised something - I've got to be the real me and love the real me, too.

Frame of mind...

I always liked the following saying and I find it's so true. It's all about your outlook and frame of mind.

Being the main character...

I have felt like crying of late but it's in no way like the crying I did at my lowest point. With no job, I've been busying myself sorting out the material aspects of my life and having fun getting organised. It's been keeping me nice and busy as I take the time to get back to myself and find myself again.

It's strange that every now and again I feel tears threatening.

It bubbles up and I'm somewhat taken aback.

Probably more taken aback in that I'm feeling like crying because I'm happy.

I need to get a job as I don't have the money to continue being a lady of organisation and that is bound to put pressure on me in the very near future. However, the nightmares about my previous work have finally stopped and I find myself singing and thinking thoughts of planting tomatoes, baking and writing.

I'm happy.

It's such a mind-blowing thing. Why didn't I do this earlier?

Drowning...

There are lots of things going on, not just with me but with people that I care about, that made this quote really hit home.

Yep, I'm a badass!

Sometimes I feel like it's all too much but when I saw this it made me laugh so hard...

I want to write...

At the moment, I'm in a little bit of a crossroads in my life.

I've decided that I'm leaving my 'old' life behind and moving into an exciting new world.

It's not without a lot of fear. Am I doing the right thing? Will I have enough money to live on? Will I regret my decisions?

I had stepped onto the path when my first challenge came; I received an offer of an interview for a great position in the city. No matter having decided to walk away from the rat race, I have to admit that I wavered. This was the easy path dangling a carrot in front of me - tempting me away from what I had decided upon.

It's not so much the temptation that was a problem, it was the way that the little devil on my shoulder used the temptation to whisper negative thoughts into my head. Suddenly the path that I have chosen and the one I really want, felt a little, well, tarnished. My conviction was being chipped away in the light of my never ending dilemma - dreams vs responsibility.

At the same time as I'm having a life overhaul mentally, I'm having one materialistically, too. I'm going through everything I own deciding what I want to keep, what I want to sell, what I want to donate to charity and what I just want to turf!

While doing that, I've found so many bits of paper that I kept because they had funny sayings on them or things I wanted to keep but had nowhere to store. (It's like my whole life I've been crying out for Pinterest!). I found the following list of the top reasons I should be a romance writer.

I'm taking it as a sign.

Nice words...

Are you laughing at me?

You can always count on Jane Austen to come up with some awesome quotes.

Taking Back My Life...

I think I was in primary 1 when I first got glasses. It didn't bother me - they were pink with My Little Pony on them!

I wore them all through primary school where I was good at sports and did well in classes. Only one other girl had glasses in my class but I don't remember anyone ever making comment on them.

Things seemed to change when I got to secondary school. Glasses = swot and there were plenty of people who felt inclined to point it out to me. Regardless of the misery of my high school years, I still worked hard enough to get into university.

In uni I studied marketing and business law and graduated in due course.

After that I got a placement with an agency then moved onto a company and worked my way up to marketing executive. I've been in marketing ever since.

It can be quite a fun job and I'm quite good at it (if I do say so myself). The thing is... I don't want a high power, stressful job.

I would quite like to work in my own cafe or bookshop. Working away but with enough time to spend on the things in life I enjoy - writing, reading, family, crafts, gardening, baking.

The problem is that I've busted my ass and my mind for my career over the years. Surely if I give up now it will all have been for nothing. I'm also worried that people will think that I've failed somehow if I give up my good job for something they deem as, well, less.

What worries me is that I fear that the "people" I'm worried about might just be myself.

Regardless, I am determined to make the decisions to take back my life and live it the way I want to live it.

This year...

I always love resolutions and the start of a fresh New Year.

There two images show just how I'm feeling at the moment.

 

Luck...

With my last job, I was desperate to be kept on when my contract ended. Not because I was doing my dream job but because it was tolerable and it kept money coming in.

I didn't get what I wanted.

When I saw the quote below, I realised that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

 

Time to plan...

I'm sure I've mentioned just one or two times that I love the fresh start that new year brings. I watch Hogmanay on the telly, kiss my loved ones with the bells and then am straight off to bed. No hootenanny for this gal - not on this day, anyway!

So, I've made my dream board for 2014 and now it's time to change it into a planning board. What is it that they say - a dream without a plan is just a wish.

This year is going to be AWE-SOME! So I need to find out where I'm going and get going on that path.

 

J x