Today’s blog post is pretty self indulgent, its not a diary post and it’s not really a life update. This is just going to be a rambly narrative of a string of thoughts I had in my head and wanted to get down on paper (or screen). Since this blog started as a place for me to share my thoughts and feelings I figured this is not really that out of place.
So here goes.
Ever since I was a young child make believe is never something I’ve struggled with, playing games turned into drama lessons and performance rehearsals. And believing that if I wanted something enough and I worked hard enough for it that I could achieve anything was instilled in me my whole childhood.
So it’ll come to no surprise when I tell you I’m not a realist, I’m a dreamer by nature. When I was applying for university I had my sights set on one of the top 5 in the country, because in my head I’d romantised the idea of studying in ivy covered castles and wearing capes to lectures. When I realised there was no way I was going to get the grades I needed to get it, I took it as a reflection on my own self worth, but what I realise now is that although I ended up going to a different university, I wouldn’t have made the life long friends that I have, or have met my boyfriend if I’d have gone anywhere else. I wouldn’t have been able to visit home as often as a I did, I loved my university experience from start to finish and now I wouldn’t change it for the world.
This issue for me started when I was a teenager, I’ve always been a dreamer and I’ve thankfully been taught to dream big. So when I grew up the ideals in my head started to prove harder and harder to achieve and when I didn’t achieve them it felt like my world was falling apart. If I didn’t achieve a certain grade in an exam, or if I didn’t lose a certain amount of weight by a certain party, or get a certain role in a play then it felt like I’d failed.
Something I’ve definitely started to come to terms with is that, the idea in my head of how things should be isn’t always what’s best for me.
So for instance, earlier this year I decided to move to London with my boyfriend and we decided to move in together for the first time. In my head, we’d both start on September the 1st and would have found and moved into our flat a good 4/5 days before that so we could settle in. In my head it was an entire flat to ourselves, it was in South-West London and I was going to be working for an agency. Another thing is that my imagination is vivid and that’s putting it lightly, when I say the flat was in south west London, what I mean is that I could tell you what colours the walls would be and what the view would be like out of the windows, I day dream a lot and there’s rarely something I haven’t dreamt up at some point.
Well fast forward to now and the reality is that my boyfriend did start his job on September 1st but I started my new job, not in an agency but in-house at an events company and a month later than him on the 2nd of October, and so far I’m absolutely loving it and can see myself in this company for a really long time. Our flat situation is that yesterday (October 20th) we moved into the master en suite room of a three bed flat in east london that we share with two other people.
Now none of that is how I imagined it would be.
It’s not how I planned it in my head.
But I’ve honestly not felt this genuinely happy in years.
I’ve started more and more to believe that the universe delivers us what we need if we put our faith in it. So no, I did not think I would be sharing a flat when we moved, but I also didn’t think we’d be able to book a holiday anytime soon but thanks to the amount of money we’ll have saved each month on rent, we can. I didn’t think we’d have to spend three weeks living in an airbnb waiting for our flat to be ready, and although it’s been expensive and not ideal, its given us a chance to see some new parts of London and we’ve found a room twice the size of anything else we looked at.
So I think the thing I’m getting to is that, although I’m always going to be a dreamer, from now on I’m going to try not to fill in the details. I’m not saying I’m going to lower my expectations, I’m just going to try and make my expectations less detailed, more negotiable with myself.
I’ll still dream up the big picture, draw the lines but let life fill in the colours.
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