Stitches, Beads, Rock N Roll: June 2016

Tuesday 14 June 2016

Time for a re-boot!

I'm super happy to report that turning 29 wasn't nearly as traumatic as I feared! I had a really lovely and relaxed birthday (I even wore a dress!) spending the day in Brighton with Helen wandering in The Lanes and spending far too much money on Vinyl! It was topped off with an evening of playing 'Fibbage' with Helen, Amanda, Chris & Vana.

Lemon Sorbet!

How adorable is the window display at Cyber Candy?

It was such a lovely day and gave me a gentle nudge to remind me that birthdays are something to celebrate rather than to be used as a tool to berate myself about my perceived lack of achievements. I've also been trying to remember each day that life really is so short and instead of moaning about things I should make the effort to change what I can. Some things just aren't changeable, I can't change that I have a mental illness but I now have a key worker to help me learn to work with my condition rather than allowing it to work against me.

I've been doing so much wistful thinking about it being 5 years this year since Helen & I did all our travelling and how much I miss those days. Aside from those 3 trips it's also the 2010/11 Jen that I miss. Although I did still spend a lot of that year battling bad anxiety issues, relationship break-ups and the passing away of my Grandad I also was much more resilient and bounced straight back from the dark days. Whereas now after a crisis I can barely lift my head up again. Back then I was still pretty positive about life and confident in who I was and what I wanted. I was a lot slimmer then, about a size 14 compared to the 18 I am now (more of that later) but more than that, I'd started to like how I looked after years of feeling ugly and unattractive, I also felt 'worthy', worthy of being happy, worthy of wanting to have fun and go places.

This picture sums up that entire time period for me. Aside from the fact it's a photo of me and my favorite band it represents how happy I was - look at my smile! How good I felt about myself and the get up and go that I had to fly around the damn world!

Big smiles!

So instead of feeling miserable that all those days are long gone I want to try and recreate that state of mind and that feeling. Whilst I doubt a trip to America with it's perk-up qualities is on the cards (unless I win the lottery .... in which case see ya!) it's not to say that some other super fun events aren't on the horizon ready to be grabbed.

So in an effort to re-create 2011 Jen I've set myself some goals to reach by the time I turn 30.

Diet - I eat like crap, I really do, there's no hiding it. I'd lost weight last year but have put 6 kilos of it back on since the start of this year comfort eating because I've been so damn miserable. Although this goal isn't about aesthetics, if I lose weight then great, this is about looking after my body. Ditto with exercising, when I worked at the library I was walking around all day every day whereas now I'm on my butt all day every day. And being brutally honest it makes me feel sluggish and quite gross really. So I intend to try walking home from work and (with Helen's er encouragement) get off my arse and do something at least one day of each weekend.
Learn a new craft. I love my photography, jewellery making, drawing, sewing and cross-stitching - surely adding another one on top of that can only make me happier?
Go to the places I keep threatening to go. If I had a £ for every time I said "I really want to go to The British Library/National Portrait Gallery/Tate Britain etc" I'd be able to afford that trip to America! Plus for the most part they're free, all it'll cost is a train fare and my time.

Basically the goal is to have more days like these -