From Manchester, With Love

"You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” - Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

So, that's it, my friends. Three years, one degree and countless hangovers later, my time in Manchester, for now at least, has come to an end. It's a strange sort of feeling. On one hand I am in complete denial about the fact that I am moving back in with my parents after three years of living on my own; but on the other hand, I feel as though, at long last, the world is my oyster.

It's been a pretty special journey. I've experienced more than I thought humanly possible and I am, in no way, shape or form, the same girl that practically sprinted up the M6 on A Level Results Day. It's been hectic and crazy and messy and wonderful and painful and liberating; and I am proud to say that I have not a single regret.

In the past three years I have found that best friends come in all shapes and sizes. They are the people you get drunk with at 6am and spill your heart out to. You meet them whilst working 14 hour shifts, for crappy money and little recognition. They are the people who surprise you by being there when you least expect. They live right under you and they live miles away. They are the people you call with your broken heart, and the people who call you with theirs. They teach you that families are not always related by blood. Sometimes they are there forever and sometimes they are only there for a short while. I got so lucky. I am leaving not having made any friends but having created a family. My own messy, non judgemental, beautiful family.

I spent a lot of 2013 with a group of people who showed me a whole new meaning to the word 'family', and although they are no longer a part of my day to day life, I hope they never stop showing people that meaning, it was pretty special to be part of. I spent nine months working in a bar with the messiest, most ridiculous and sometimes most disgusting group of boys a girl could wish for. But they believed in me in a way that I often struggled to see for myself and I will never be able to tell them how much that meant. I've cleaned up the vomit of drunks with girls I will have in my life forever. Girls who will go off to be, no doubt, leaders of entire empires, putting Queen Bey to shame, and I know I'll be able to pop round with a bottle of wine at 2am and they'll always have room for me. I have spent three years battling a crazy, disorganised department bonding with some of the world's most talented and creative individuals. They've single headedly got me through crappy units, nasty tutors, mental tutors and my SODDING dissertation. They've got me drunk by 3pm on a Friday afternoon and have joined me in celebrating exams they didn't even sit. They are the brightest of the bunch and they're my friends; I'm not even sure how it's possible.

I have lived, for the past three years, with a group of women I would be insulting to merely call 'my friends'. Nah, them bitches is my sisters. They'll be on my hen do and at my wedding. At my 25th and at my 50th. We have battled everything from drunken spats, to broken hearts and even the scariest of diseases, and I admire them in a way I don't think they'll ever understand.

Equally, I don't think I could have been prepared for just how much you learn outside of the lecture hall. I have learnt that be it in a bar or in an office- if you love the people you work with (as I always did) you never really do a days work. I have learnt that you have to know when to cut your losses, life is hard enough without working at friendships that are actually toxic.

I have learnt that it really is ok if you fuck up, you just gotta pick yourself up, learn the lesson and move on.

I have learnt that falling in love is the easiest thing in the world and I have learnt that I can love as easily as breathing. But I have also learnt that I have my limits. I learnt that two people merely loving each other doesn't always put them on the same page. I have learnt that sometimes the love doesn't go but the relationship has to come to an end anyway, simply because it’s no longer working, and that you've just got to be thankful you got out before it got truly sour because there isn't always a bad guy.

 I have learnt that appreciating what you have is so much more important that crying over what you don't. I have learnt, finally after years of education, that if you actually dedicate yourself to your work, your mark will reflect that. I have learnt to be less afraid. I have learnt that sometimes life makes no sense, but I've also learnt that everything happens for a reason. I have learnt that what you have planned for life, life doesn't always have planned for you- you've just got to go with it. And I have learnt that sometimes you've just got to pull an Elsa and 'Let It Go'.

I have grown. I am not the girl I was three years ago, 18 months ago, six months ago or six weeks ago. I have made the most amazing memories, ticked a lot of crazy shit off my bucketlist, met people I never dreamt of meeting and lost people I never dreamed of loosing.

It's been the best three years, with the best people and even though the last six months have been tough in just about every possible way, all they've really done is made me tougher. I wouldn't change a single thing.

Years from now I'm going to look back on the night I dressed up as pumpkin for Halloween and walked home at 6am through the dusky streets of Manchester still in costume and laugh a laugh that starts in my belly and pours out of me.

I'll never be able to say thank you enough to every, single person I've met along the way, but I thank each of them with every inch of me. If the rest of my life chapters are like this one, I am going to live the greatest life I could possibly ask for.

-xo

A Splash of Love

If you have been anywhere near the internet today, you will not need me to tell you what all the fuss is about...

Team GB Medallist, Tom Daley, has announced that he is in a relationship. A relationship with a man.

Almost as soon as Daley had tweeted the link to his video announcement, choruses of  'I told you so!' and 'I knew it!' could be heard from miles around. Despite the fact that he never once labelled himself within the video, it has been decided: Tom Daley is gay.

Firstly it should be recognised that he has not, come out as gay. He has come out with the news that he has fallen for someone and that someone just so happens to be male. He has admitted he still fancies girls, which would make him Bisexual and bisexuality is not something that should be shrugged off as 'not a thing'. It should be accepted just the same way being singularly attracted to girls or singularly attracted to guys is.

Tom's confession, although not really that much of a big deal (I mean, surely he is allowed to love whoever the hell he wants, right?) has left many people wondering why he even needed to bring it up anyway. It is 2013 and this is modern Britain. The fact that one of UKs most beloved and cherished sports stars is in a gay relationship should have nothing to do with how we view him as a human being. It should not still be 'a thing' when a person 'comes out'. It saddens me that we still live in a world a person is distinguished by who they fall in love with.

Daley's actions today were, without a doubt, brave... and this is someone who throws themselves (gracefully) head first into a pit of water from 10m up. Despite the fact that I am straight and would never claim to fully understand the fear a person must feel in the years, months, weeks and days leading up to telling the people around them that they are gay, I will say this; admitting you have fallen for someone is TERRIFYING.

The first time I was really honest about my feeling towards my boyfriend, it made me feel almost sick. Its just not the kind of thing you can take back. Once you admit to falling for or loving someone, once you put that out there into the universe, you cannot have it back. I cannot imagine what it must feel like then, to face the fact that you are in love alongside the fact that there are going to be people condemning you for having those feelings at all. Even Daley admitted that, upon telling his wider family, it created a mixed reaction.

It is wonderful, that in a society that still sees such high levels of homophobic bullying, a young, talented star has been brave enough to step forward and say 'This is who I am'. We need more people like Daley to step up and say 'it's ok to fall for someone who makes you feel happy and safe, even if they are the same sex as you', so that young people all over the world have role models they can look up too. Being a teenager is hard enough without limitations being put on who we are expected to fall in love with.
Fact of the matter is, Daley's news in no way changes the fact that he is a credit to our nation as a sports personality nor it does not affect his ability to leap and flip through the air into diving pools and countless medals in sporting events around the world. We should still want him to get to Rio 2016 and bring back medals. As a nation we should support him as an athlete because that is what he works so God damn hard for.

I hope you're relationship is a happy one, Tom. Falling in love is such a special and momentous thing, and I for one, am happy to support love in a world that appears so filled with hate.

- xo

If you haven't seen his video, check it out here.

It's a Carrie 2.0

Whilst Blair Waldorf is my home girl (do excuse the experssion), there will only ever be one New York girl who truely has my heart;  Carrie Bradshaw.

She is just about everything I want to be, and because technically, she isn't a real person, I might actually stand a chance of seeing it happen. With a warbrobe busting at the seams, Vogue on speed dial, amazing friends, Big AND a successful career being paid to write about her own life and opinions.
She pretty much is the dream.

Ok, so I was just too young to catch SATC when it was in it's prime (a girl can't help when she was born), but I spent a lot of time playing catch up, and can now pretty reciete the 6th season and the first film. Naturally I was over joyed when Candace Bushnell realesed The Carrie Diaries and Summer and The City - tale of Miss Bradshaw back when she was still at school, still trying to find herself, still a virgin and still helplessly in love with the city.

Sound familiar, much?!

It was time for a new era of Carrie's to take the reigns, of course we were lucky, we already Queen B and Serena, but now that they are off the airwaves for good *sobs* The Carrie Diaries can FINALLY take centre stage.

It doesn't disappoint, Anna Sophia Robb is kinda perf as the young Carrie, the outfits are great, especially the scenes shot in New York (I mean, obviously), and at long last a TV show about young women who lose their virginity and, praise be, actually say that it hurts! Hoorah!

I look forward to my Bradshaw/Manhatten obsession kicking back into full swing, I look forward to being reminded exactly what it is I want to do, who it is I want to be and quite why Carrie is so important as a female figure within the public media. Because fictional as she may be, Carrie Bradshaw and the rest of SATC girl really have inspired and shaped countless amounts of women.

And who knows, maybe I will possess the writing skills of Ms Bradshaw, the edge of Ms Waldorf and their wardrobes combind and actually make something of myself... One day...

If I ever finish University!!

Much love xo

It's A Love Story

I think when I meet my soul mate, it'll be in a bookshop or a library. We will both be flipping through the titles looking for something new and interesting. He'll be taller than me and kind of geeky, think Clark Kent meets Henry from Ugly Betty. I'll have my hair in a perfect falling ponytail (this is how you know it's a fantasy. My hair has never fallen in a perfect pony for the entirety of my life and shows no signs of changing), wearing a pretty floral dress and a cute blazer. We'll awkwardly bump into each other and apologise, before one of us inquires about the other's choice of read and the geeky book chat starts. Eventually we both end my recommending our own favorite's and being completely offended that the other hasn't read it and insist that they buy it and do so immediantly, meaning neither of us leaves with a new book, but a classic to add to our collection instead. Having been intrigued as to why I think Jay Gatsby is a better romantic hero than Romeo Montague and Mr Darcy put together (a story for another time), he'll say he was going to head for a coffee after the bookshop/library anyways and would I like to join him, to which I will nervously say yes. We then spend hours sat in a small corner and once our literary discussions have finished, we'll end up talking about everything from favorite pizza toppings, to childhood holiday destinations and politics. Eventually, one of us will check the time and see that we have just spent four hours in the company of a complete stranger and yet never felt so at ease in our lives, but realise that it is time to make a move. We'll pack up from the coffee shop and head back out onto the street where, finally, phone numbers are exchanged and we have to part ways.We spend the next few weeks texting quotes from the books we chose and going for drinks, which eventually leads to things like going to the theatre and being together and then we get married in some very picturesque church after a ceremony at my church back in Chalfont and we live happily ever after, just like in the stories...

Well, a girl can dream, can't she? 

It is also possible, that I spend too much time in Waterstones.