Yes, the first time I admit I am an adult.

I love my Plymouth girls so much. We've grown up together, known each other for so long I can't remember being without them, but this weekend I think we all realised that actually, now we have grown up (as much as I hate to admit that I'm not still 18...) our friendships have changed.

I came back to Plymouth to see everyone for the first time in 8 weeks but I had missed nothing. No-one has been out on a night out, celebrated anything or even met for a coffee in that time and whilst it's great to think that I haven't missed anything, it was sad to realise that this is how "grown up" friendships actually work: Hardly seeing each other because we're so busy working, so tired when we do meet that we can't be bothered to go out and (the other girls more so than me) spending most of our free time with boyfriends.

I guess this is what growing up feels like, or so my mum said.

Plus, I now feel like the odd one out for not being in a "serious relationship", whatever the hell that means, whereas only 18 months ago I was the odd one for being in one. Because I'm not desperate to get married in the next 2 years or not even in a relationship which is anything more than casual, I now get the patronising, "ahh, well, that's ok..." comments which suddenly make me feel like I'm strange.

Am I strange for not wanting those things yet? For not wanting to be tied down? For wanting to be able to take any opportunity which comes my way without having to worry about someone else? For not wanting to be held back, or potentially hold someone else back? Don't get me wrong, I love being in a couple again but I couldn't go back to the ties and commitments I found myself in before. I've just turned 23 for goodness sake, why am I the odd one out for not being in a rush to grow up? Don't get me wrong, I'm SO happy my friends are happy and feel ready for that commitment, but we're young, surely it's ok not to want that?

I don't really know who I am yet, never mind be sure what I want for the future. That isn't really that unusual, surely?

Shared experiences.

It's funny, really, how blogging can make you see life for what it really is. Even when you feel alone, like you are the only person feeling the way you do, it makes you realise that hey, it's not only ok to feel like this, but pretty normal! I finally caught up with my favourite blogs today, and I would have to say, 3/5 of them had blogged saying exactly the same things that I have been thinking and feeling recently. It really was a massive comfort to realise I don't need to beat myself up about having a 'down' week.

We're all human, right?

For the last couple of weeks I have been finding it hard to stay positive. Life has gotten quite hard, and not because things are bad, but just because there is suddenly a lot of pressure from every avenue of my life (work, friends, health, relationships) and this has made me feel much less like my self. For example, earlier this week I spent 48 hours crying, almost constantly, and that is so unlike me. Normally, even when I'm in a shit mood I strop around the house like a grumpy toddler before eventually picking myself up, but this didn't happen. I also found myself with no inclination to work, chat with friends, blog... all those things I usually love. Things were just not right in my life; for the first time in ages I felt truly awful.

Today, however, I'm feeling much better. Yesterday was my birthday and I had a lovely day, feeling really loved and appreciated by everyone in my life. It really made me smile, and today I have had a lot of fun meeting friends, planning hen dos and taking some 'Extreme Reading' photos for my class (I wish I could share them, I actually got to go in an Ice Cream van. Exciting!) so hopefully, just hopefully, the fog has cleared and I can go back to being my normal, sunshiney self.

I hope, if you have felt the way I have in any way recently, that you start to see the sunshine soon.

Dear 22.

Dear 22,

Well, tomorrow I say goodbye to you and I welcome 23 into my life. I wanted to write you this letter to say thank you for an amazing year, which to be honest is an understatement: you were the best year of my life. You brought me my dream job, my graduation, my freedom, my independence... you have given me change and opportunity, yet stability and introduced to me to so many new people, whilst helping me to keep in touch with the people who I love.

So, thank you. Thank you for the smiles, the laughs and the hysterical tears. Everything I've done this year has proven that I can do anything I put my mind to, and for the first time I'm proud of myself. Which sounds incredibly self-centred, but it's taken me a lot to get to this point.

I'm happy now. When I turned 22 I couldn't say that about my life, but now I absolutely can do so, 22, thank you so so SO much.

Now, 23, you have a lot to live up to! You had better brace yourself and step it up because the last year set the bar pretty high. You had better make the jump.

Lots of love,

Summer. x

"Happy Birthday to meeeeee..."

Funny mood.

I have just written this blog post and thought I'd warn you up here that this is a load of self-pitying, waffling crap. I am still going to post it because I hope one day I look back at this and remember how I have managed to pick myself up again, but you guys probably don't want to read it. 

I apologise for the silence recently, but work has been pretty busy (no surprise there) and combined with a fairly substantial social life (admittedly compared to my own fairly low standards), I have often been struggling to find time to sleep, let alone blog.

I am still here, I am still alive.

However, I don't feel like I'm much more right now. That really is it. I'm living, apparently.

I have been in this strange, strange mood for the last week, one where I feel like life is just happening around me and to me, and I am just floating around within it. I still don't feel in control of my life and for the first time in a long time, I don't feel in control of my moods. I used to be able to change my mood, either with music, food, doing a particular activity, but at the moment, I am stuck. I have been floating above my own life for a good week now, not really sure what I'm doing or how I'm coping. I am coping, and for the first time in a while I am back to my normal organised self and so haven't forgotten anything or done anything silly in a while, but I still don't feel like me.

I realise I am not explaining this very well, but I guess I'm not too sure what this mood is or why I'm in it. If I were, I would be able to work out how to get myself out of it, but I can't.

I know that most of my confidence has gone. For whatever reason, for the first time in a very long time, I don't feel like I can achieve the things I want to. I feel like everything is just out of my grasp, nearly possible but not quite and that my fate is actually not in my hands.

I have always believed in fate and luck, but I believe that you create your own. Recently, though, I am starting to doubt that, doubt my own ability to make my own luck.

I think I need someone to tell me that I'm doing ok. Maybe I didn't have as much self-confidence as I thought, maybe it has always been completely reliant on people telling me I am doing well. In teaching, though, you don't really get that. Someone watches you teach, spends 2 minutes telling you what was good and then 20 telling you what you need to improve on. In a new relationship, you constantly feel self-aware, worry that you are doing/saying the wrong thing.

Plus, as happy as I am for my friends at the moment, their lives are just serving as a reminder that whilst they are growing up, getting somewhere in their lives and relationships, I am not. I feel like I am taking steps backwards in some respects or, at best, standing still. Career, relationships, friendships...

I haven't felt this shit in a long time. A long, LONG time...