2017 // Is It Really New Year, New Me??

Whew, so keeping up with true emilia blogging style, this post is eighteen days late. Clap clap to me. Ah well, better late than never, am I right?

this is one of my four cacti, Caroline. she is now my favourite plant since my beloved Olivia the orchid dropped her final beautiful petals two weeks ago.

New Year is a very odd time of year. On the one hand, you're energised and you're going to make positive changes in your life. You're going to join a gym and eat healthily and start bullet journalling and do more photography and just generally subscribe to a healthier lifestyle. 

On the other hand...what's the point? You know that two weeks later your journal will be discarded at the bottom of your school bag/laptop case/whatever bag you carry around, or maybe it'll just be lying on your desk staring at you, making you feel guilty for not sticking to it. Your gym membership will glare at you every time you open your emails or your purse to see your card, reminding you that you still need to use it for perhaps the third or fourth time. The massive bag of kale and the box of quinoa you bought in an attempt at going vegan? Forgotten. 

So really, is New Year New Me real? Or is it just an ideal we all subscribe to at the beginning of January because we think this year, 2017, is going to be my year, I'm going to find myself this year, I'm going to be who I truly am. 

It's certainly an ideal I subscribed to. My new year new me positivity lasted for all of four days. It didn't help that on the fourth day of 2017 I broke up with my boyfriend and on the fifth day I had the worst parents' evening of my life - yes, even though I am nearly eighteen years old I still get told I'm failing by my teachers with my parents there - and on the sixth and seventh days I cried for a long time. 

But at the same time, none of that really matters. Yes, me and my boyfriend, someone I cared deeply for, broke up. But it's okay - it was the right thing to do, life moves on and if you watched my Letters to November you'll know how important it is to me to love yourself before you can love anyone else in the same way they love you. So that's okay. I'm not there yet - but nearly. Parents' evening? That's easily solvable. Do more work and plan your time and actually just for fuck's sake knuckle down Emilia. There are five months left of this. Five months and then you are free of school and this whole crappy education system. Five months and then the rest of your life begins. It's not that long in the grand scheme of things. Someone who's just got pregnant won't have had their baby by the time your exams are over. Weird analogy, I know, but it's true.

So yes. I had a few shitty days at the beginning of 2017. But I can still make this year my year. So many huge changes are happening this year. Like I said before, my school life ends in five months. I have a whole year before I go to university to do whatever I like. I still haven't decided what I'm doing yet but I am going to make the absolute most of that year. This Christmas I'll be in a completely different place doing a completely different thing and while that terrifies me, in another way I am so, so excited. I'm looking forward to a new chapter of my life this year.

And yes, I still have depression. But something changed recently and I realised that actually, while I might be depressed for the rest of my life, I don't have to be like this for the rest of my life. I can get myself better, no one else can do it for me. What changes with depression is the way you deal with it. My outlook on life has hugely changed in the last six months and in a way I feel like I'm finally realising who I am. 

And this is me.

I am a girl who loves horoscopes, oversized sweatshirts, boyfriend jeans, studying in Costa with cups of tea and being pretentious trash. I have depression but I'm coping through my art, writing and surrounding myself with people who are going to make positive changes to my life. And as for A Levels? Well, I am a girl who is going to prove everyone wrong. My teachers who told me I'm going to fail if I don't do something? I'm going to do it. I know you don't think I will, and I know you don't think I can do this - but I can and I will and I'll wave my results in your face on Results Day in August before phoning my favourite university to accept my place for September 2018. 

And then the rest of my life begins.

Here's to 2017.

Emilia xx

here is a list of people who have changed my life in 2016.

♥ claire

♥ duncan

♥ jess

♥ heidi

♥ victoria

♥ rach

♥ jack

♥ becca

♥ vicky

♥ emma

♥ james

♥ beccy

♥ sophia

♥ izzi

♥ christian

♥ izzie

♥ honor

♥ libby

♥ georgia

♥ georgie

♥ tom

♥ catherine

♥ conor

♥ jake

...and everyone else who has constantly supported me through mistakes I make when I've drunk too much vodka.