Hi, I’m back with another blog, and if you think you’re experiencing some déjà vu it’s because a years ago I posted a similar blog when I turned nineteen. However, if there’s something I know, it’s that a lot can happen in a year… And I’ve learnt a lot in this past year. I think that 2020 has thrown a lot at us, most people I believe can agree with this. But, with it’s struggles also comes some of the good bits.
In this blog I’m covering some of the good lessons I’ve found, and also a lot of the bad. All of them, I think, have an important message in them, at least to me, so I hope you enjoy. (Also, this blog was going to be super long – it still is – but I’m splitting it into two parts simply because it will be easier for me to deal with, and easier for you all to read (that’s why there’s only ten ‘things’ so far)).
It’s okay to be able to see a future for yourself.
A few months ago, just after the end of the first lockdown, I wrote C a letter where I explained how thankful I was for him giving me the ability to finally be able to see a future for myself. If you’d asked me any when in secondary school or college where I could see myself in five years, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. It’s not because I didn’t really see myself making it, it was because I couldn’t see a future for myself that was solid. I could see multiple futures, but none of them were clear; they were all hidden behind a wall of strange fog.
I could see myself living alone in London, with a very green house and a window seat where I could read books and be happy. I could see myself moving out into the countryside with a partner one day and having a little home with dogs and going out for walks. I could roughly see a little family some when down the line, maybe when I was thirty and I’d had the opportunity to really work on my writing.
Now I see my life progressing in steps. I see myself getting a car, getting more independence, and then moving out. I see myself moving from a flat to a house, to somewhere relaxing with a garden that fits all the criteria I want in life. However, now I see someone by my side. I see myself being happy, getting married, having kids. I see myself letting go, caring for the man I love, and slowly fulfilling my silly little dreams that make my heart feel warm (which I will mention in part two in more detail).
Struggling with everything changing into something a future that’s perhaps pretty good is weird. Maybe this future I see won’t work out – I really hope it does – and that will be okay, but at least I can see it for myself. It’s a lot more reassuring that nothing, or a weird wall of fog.
It’s okay to fall in love.
Younger me thought that I would never find someone who loved me as much as I loved them. I always thought I was going to be someone who loved so hard that it hurt, that the sacrifices I made for someone would eventually equate to nothing. Younger me didn’t realise how much you grow as a person – how much you grow into yourself – when you find someone to love. Being with C was scary, I was always worried that I would do something wrong, that I would push my boundaries, or that he would fall out of love with me when my mental health wasn’t doing as great. Sometimes being with C is still scary, but it’s scary for a different reason, one that comes with life always changing and being out of our control.
If I could go back to speak to eighteen year old Emily, who was so scared about trying to navigate a relationship when knew she wanted to work out, I would have told her not to worry. C has rarely given me any reason to think I’m unloved, and sometimes things can be tense – which is especially the prevalent when it comes to lockdown – but it doesn’t stop me loving him, and we never have a serious fall out. I would tell her that yes, being with my C is scary sometimes but i would have reassured her that it’s usually just in her head and ‘hey, relax, it’s okay to fall in love. It helps you grow so much’.
It’s okay to be proud of my pride.
A few months ago now I wrote a blog about me being bisexual, and it took quite a lot of confidence for me to be able to express that part of me to the internet; to you. After almost five years of struggling with thinking I’m not good enough, that there’s something perhaps not too normal about me, I’m learning to live with my pride. I’m learning to grow with my confidence. After all, there are a lot more people out there supporting me than hating me, and being bisexual doesn’t make me any less of a human being (I’m sorry, but if you think that yes, it does, then get out of here. Homophobia isn’t the answer and it’s not welcome here).
If turning twenty has taught me anything, it’s that it’s okay to be proud of my pride. It’s okay to wear silly tops and homemade bracelets which support the LGBTQ+ community and my fellow bisexual friends. It’s okay to hang up flags and sew on badges to jackets. It’s okay to talk about it, because it’s a part of who I am, and why should I hide that? For someone else’s sake? I shouldn’t have to suppress myself for someone else.
I think also with being prouder in my pride, I’m also learning to love myself more. Hiding a part of who I am meant that I couldn’t fully be myself, and I didn’t realise that was hurting me to the extent it was until I came out. I’m so glad that I now get to be myself.
Holding a sword is probably one of the coolest things ever.
I’m a nerd. I’m willing to accept that because what I’m about to talk about is probably going to make me sound like the nerdiest person. A couple months ago, I was chilling at C’s (I think we were watching Moana at the time – it’s a very good Disney movie) when I looked over at the two swords he has sat on his wall. I mentioned how I had never held one before and so he got one down for me. We had a quick discussion about whether I wanted to hold the broadsword (which is most like the swords the characters in my Dimensions series hold) or whether I wanted to hold the anime sword (which I also did but wasn’t too fussed about).
I have to admit, it was heavier than I was expecting, although I was fully expecting not to be able to lift it off the ground. I was so distracted by my excitement that I didn’t really think much about how carefully I should hold it, and as a result I think I did almost hit C. Either way, I just had a good time, and we took it to my house the next day to take some photos (which you can find on my Instagram here).
If you’ve never had the opportunity to hold a sword before, I highly suggest you go out and find one because it’s such an empowering feeling – especially if you’re a little bit of a nerd like me.
Pokémon is awesome.
On the subject of being a nerd, it would have been wise for C not to introduce me to the mythical world of Pokémon. However, he did and now there is no going back. I downloaded Pokémon Go about a year and a bit ago and I didn’t understand it to begin with. There are lots of different parts to learn in Pokémon GO, but I eventually picked it up and now days you can hardly get me off it.
For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Pokémon GO is a game which you download onto your phone where you can catch Pokémon that are chilling in the game around where you live. It can also unlock special awards for you depending on how far you’ve walked and where you’ve been.
Now that I think about it, it’s probably a total breach of your privacy – but I think every phone is tracked now anyway (especially if you’ve got the Covid-19 track and trace app (if you don’t, I highly suggest you download it because it could save your life, or someone else’s)).
I’ve forgotten what I was going to say now… But Pokémon is amazing, and I need to let you know that some Pokémon are just so cute! I mean have you ever seen what a Bulbasaur looks like? Or like a Jigglypuff?
For my birthday I asked my lovely parents if they would buy me Pokémon Shield for my switch, and you cannot get me off the game now. I think that Pokémon itself has definitely helped pull me through some tough times lately and I’m thankful for the distraction it can give me when my head isn’t being particularly nice to me.
(I was also a huge nerd and brought six embroided Pokémon patched off Etsy to sew onto a denim jacket – which I’ve spoken about on my Insta – and I’m excited to get in the post hopefully next week that i just wanted to let you all know about them!)
Getting a new job is quite reassuring.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a new job. I don’t really know how much I’m allowed to speak about it – for professional reasons – but I didn’t realise how much confidence you gain from getting a new job until now. I still work at my local garden centre, but I am now inventory controller there and I was so surprised to get the job that I think it took a good day for the news to sink in. Now that it has, I am over the moon, and excited to work a little more independently than I did as a sales assistant.
All of my colleagues have been super supportive, and the lovely lady training me has really helped me settle into the role. Getting a new job is an amazing feeling, and I’m so excited for the opportunities it’s going to present for me.
Buying a house seems impossible.
Hi, I’m twenty and hopefully after I pass my driving test (if they stop moving it about so much) I’m going to look into moving out and starting a life with my awesome boyfriend, C. I think moving out is going to be great for my independence, and for C and I’s relationship… But why is it so impossible to achieve?
We spoke about moving out properly about half a year ago – which is when we started saving – and decided straight away that we would much prefer to buy than to rent (mostly because renting is messy, there are a lot of rules, we probably wouldn’t be able to keep his snakes and geckos (we want to keep his snakes and geckos), and we don’t want to get stuck into the even more impossible cycle of renting). With this comes a lot of problems, however:
- We need to save up quite a lot of money for a deposit – 15% of the house or flat value, we will be first time buyers, and the average house price is £256,000 and flat price is £221,053. (I want to cry looking at those numbers).
- Mortgage is a thing – kind of a bit like monthly rent payments except from what I gather you can negotiate with your bank and perhaps pay more some months and less the next. But it does mean we have a house (or most likely a flat) which we just have to pay off for it to be ours.
- We need a pretty good credit score, and as of right now I do not have a credit score. I do not own a credit card, I do not own a car (you can build your credit score by paying monthly for your car insurance… I’m pretty sure?), I do not own any kind of property. In fact, I’m not even sure if my monthly phone bill is building my credit score.
So yes, as you can imagine, I’m pretty stressed about the whole buying a house thing, and C and I desperately need to look into seeing a mortgage adviser so they can help us realistically find an average for a flat we can afford and help us find a property with a deposit which isn’t ridiculously high. As someone who just wants to start a life with the guy they love, I am struggling a bit with how impossible it is to go out and do all this alone – just the two of us.
Trying to build a platform and get a career in writing is super exciting, but super difficult.
I am slowly but surely learning how difficult it is to build a business from the ground up, if my writing can even be called a business (I’m pretty sure it can). Luckily at the moment I work almost full time, which is helping financially support me, but it isn’t what I want to do with my life forever. In fact, most of you know that my dream job would be becoming an author – or at least a good enough author that my writing can financially support my life.
When I started out just over two years ago, I don’t think I realised how much effort you have to put into something you want to achieve, and I definitely know now that I started out wayyy too soon. You have to post on social media every day and interact with your followers every day and back in 2018, I was scared of the internet and the people on it. However, now I’m realising that I need to start showing more of my life online in order to get people interested in what I do. If all I am is a book series, no one is going to want to stick around for long. I need to show that I’m a person too.
Setting up this blog has also helped me gain some confidence when it comes to creating an image for myself online, and I’m super glad that I’ve been brave enough to let you all glimpse into my life. It has helped me release something cool almost every month rather than just every year of every couple of years – as planning, writing and editing a book is such a huge thing which takes a lot of time.
I have a small platform, and I’m pretty sure only a small but awesome majority interact with me and read these blogs. That alone is super exciting (hi, if you’re here, you’re amazing), but I am hoping to be able to grow and expand, which I’m starting to realise is going to take a lot of time and energy.
Intrusive thoughts are designed to wreck your life.
Thinking about writing this, my brain is in fight or flight mode because talking about the intrusive thought you’re getting are bound to bring them in just in time shit on your day – and mine has been pretty productive so far. But I wanted to talk a bit about them because I think they are probably a part of a lot of peoples’ lives and maybe admitting that I get them too is going to help someone who is struggling.
A few weeks ago, I didn’t really know what intrusive thoughts were. I knew that sometimes I though about things too much, sometime to the extent that it would distract me for a large portion of the day, but I never had that weird feeling in my gut. Intrusive thoughts are weird, they say things to you that make you panic. For me, it makes my gut flip, and it makes my heart sink and feel super tight. It makes me want to escape my body; my mind. It makes me want to just scream “STOP!” as loud as I can because there is no way to get away from them. It makes me feel sick. I’d never had that before.
They got worse when I saw something online, a short video – I don’t even think it was a minute long – but it changed my whole way of thinking. It kept me up at night worrying and it wasn’t necessarily just that video, it was the whole subject it was related to. It was the whole wider picture. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. All I could do was cry, hug this dumb shark teddy I got, and put on a brave face for work.
For the first week I didn’t tell anyone, then I told C the night I saw the video. Then I told my mum. It seems silly now, keeping it all in my head, but everyone seemed to be fine and happy, and I just really wasn’t. I didn’t want to upset them when I could just keep it all to myself.
If there’s anything I’ve learnt from my intrusive thoughts other than that they’re there to ruin your life, it’s that telling someone what’s wrong seriously does help. I’ve also learnt that it’s never the wrong moment to tell the people around you that you love them, because you never know what’s going to happen. So, to anyone reading this, I want to let you know that I’m super grateful for you. And to my family, my grandparent, aunties, uncles, cousins, sisters, parent, and even to C’s family, I want you all to know that I love you guys and that I’m so thankful to have you in my life.
Waking up so hungry you want to puke is a horrible feeling.
I thought I’d end off this part of the blog on a sort of jokey subject to lighten the mood after talking about something so negative… Therefore, let’s talk about food. I should have learnt by now that I should always have at least a small snack before bed (this is usually a biscuit, such as a custard cream or rich tea finger), otherwise I will wake up in the night so hungry I will want to puke, but alas I still refuse to eat a snack some nights and as a result wake up paying for it.
When I’m at home, I usually am pretty good at rolling over and going back to sleep – mostly because my fear of getting up and going downstairs alone at night for food trumps my hunger – but when I’m staying the night at C’s, I will hunt down a snack until I pass out. This is mostly because I get a lot hungrier for some reason when I wake up in the night at C’s. I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate at three in the morning at his house and also a good number of bananas too.
For most people, I’m not sure what it’s like for you when you wake up hungry, but for me it feels like my stomach is trying to eat itself and it kind of hurts, and as a result I want to puke.
I want to clarify that so far, I haven’t puked, I just get super hangry and grumpy but either way it is a pretty horrible feeling, and not one that most people want to feel in the middle of the night… That’s all I have to say on nighttime snacks.
There we have it, part one of this blog. I hope this was a little insightful to some of you, as I think I kind of lost the sway of things compared to last year’s blog: Nineteen things I’ve learnt since turning Nineteen. I’ve spoken a lot more personally this year, and I hope that it helps you all get a better view of who I am while reading it, especially surrounding the more vulnerable topics such as my intrusive thoughts.
I’m hoping to upload part two towards the end of the week, so be sure to keep an eye out on my Instagram (@emilybrownauthor) for any details surrounding this – I tend to post them on my stories (are Facebook stories a thing? I could try posting on them if you all fancy it?). If not, you can check out any social media posts from me on my Facebook @emilybrownauthor or you can keep an eye out on my Website (you’re on it right now :D).
If you haven’t already, you can check out my last blog post while you’re waiting: What I’ve learnt about my life since staring my relationship.
Also, if you want to support me but don’t know how, did you know that I tend to drink a lot of coffee? If you want to, you could buy me a coffee or two. Feel free to check out how to do that here, or by finding the little coffee button on this website (either on the side or the bottom of your screen!) Thank you!
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