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...

Control.

I hate losing control of my life.

For the last couple of weeks, everything has been so up-in-the-air. I've had so much to do, and with so many new things in my life I'm trying to balance I have felt completely out of control, as if life was happening to me, rather than with me... if that makes sense?

This week, I finally realised I needed to take control. This was because on Wednesday, I made the conscious decision to do something during my lunch time rather than eat. I actually thought, "well, I don't want to eat so I won't" and I am so, SO angry with myself. I haven't had that sort of stupid thought since I was 18 and whilst it only happened once because I became very aware of the decision a few hours later, it made me realise that food probably does still rule my life. Even though I am currently controlling myself by forcing myself to eat more, I am still in control of how my body looks through food. When I feel that I look good, I feel good in myself and so that sense of control is completely ruling my mood. Even worse, is that on Wednesday, I actually felt more in control after having spent an hour working and not taking the time to eat. Even though I felt weak and sick in the afternoon, I felt happier.

I am so angry with myself.

And this was the point I realised I needed to take control of my own life back. I hate other people messing with my routine, making decisions for me, taking up my time... I find it stressful and I find myself struggling to sleep and having those pangs of anxiety I thought I was able to stave off. I've cried on three different occasions this week (without a real reason as to why) and I found myself feeling very de-motivated, as opposed to the usual self-motivated, highly driven person I have become in recent years.

So, from now on, I am taking back control of my life.

if I want to do something, I will do it.

If I need to do something, I will just get it done.

If someone asks something of me, unless I actually want to do it, I will say no.

Time to be selfish again, knuckle down and sort my life out. MY life, not anyone else's.

A reverse bucket list.

I'm inspired by Mama Kat's writing prompts again today. The challenge is to write a reverse-bucket list of 10 things I hope I never have to/want to do in my life, which is surprisingly difficult!

My Reverse Bucket List.

1) I will never smoke. Why would anyone ever do that to themselves?

2) I have no intention of running a marathon. Again, why would anyone ever do that to themselves?

3) I will never have an empty savings account again. It was great to use the money I had on setting up my own life when I moved, but not having a financial security blanket scared me.

4) I will never have the same job for more than 4 years. I couldn't stand to be stuck in a dead-end job, plus I get bored very easily. My Mum has always instilled this in me, as she is in the situation I seek to avoid, and I will not be like her.

5) I will not settle for second best. Again...

6) I will not drink a strawberry milkshake. They make me physically sick.

7) I will never learn to dance in any way. I move like a plank of wood, I've dealt with that and I can't change now.

8) I will not fall out with my Mum again. She's actually pretty awesome.

9) I will never swim with sharks. Seriously, why would anyone ever want to do something that horrendous?!

10) I would never go skinny-dipping. Call me boring or prude, but I just don't fancy being that exposed?

So there you go, you know the most boring side to me! I'd love to hear some of yours so please comment away :)

I don't trust myself.

I don't trust my gut instinct anymore.

I am very aware of the fact that I have felt similar to this before about a guy and then had my whole life completely ruined by him. Which may sound like an exaggeration, but he took everything: my home, money, dignity, sense of self worth... You name it, and he took it.

And now I'm worried that I have met someone who I genuinely believe is amazing. He's not my type, but with my previous record, that can surely only be a good thing and everything, right now, is... perfect. Everything from how compatible we are to the timing of it all and what we want from life/a relationship are in sync, and it suddenly seems so easy. Relationships have always been hard, stressful, a balancing act but this doesn't feel like that. It's easy and natural and all my gut instincts are screaming that this is right yet my brain keeps saying "ah yes, but remember the last one. You thought he was ok too. And the one before that..."  Don't get me wrong, I feel completely different about this one (don't ask me how it's different, it just is), but still, there's a part of me which doesn't want to get too close yet just in case I'm wrong. Again.

Because, let's face it, when I get things wrong I get them spectacularly wrong. This is why I don't make decisions, because I'm absolutely dreadful at them.

And with the prospect of a new job offer in the next 3 weeks, I have another life-changing decision to make. In theory, it's my dream job, but it isn't the easy choice. The easy choice would be to stay put at a school I like 3/5 days a week, rather than go for the only job I have ever enjoyed 5/5 days.

It may seem pointless me talking about this when I haven't had the interview yet, and in fact, I haven't even applied. But one of our headteachers has been seconded to run a federation of schools and this is one of them so I've already been told if I want the job, it's mine. This means that at the point I decide to apply, the decision is made. I'm procrastinating from the decision until after half term, but it's funny how time flies when you don't want it to. Half term will be over in a heartbeat and I'll have to decide: to go or not to go, to stay at my school for another year (because another year would be more than enough) and consolidate what I have achieved there, or skip my plan ahead a year and take one of only 2 jobs in the borough which are what I want to do.

I HATE MAKING DECISIONS.

*has a tantrum*