Um...hey.

You know, I really don't think I realised what time of year it was until a few days ago when suddenly it was the 31st August and I went onto Animal Crossing and Isabelle told me September was...the next day. I was shocked because so far this year March and April felt like six months and June, July and August just slipped away. Like a moment in time, as Taylor Swift would say.

Believe it or not this is the first September in seventeen years that I haven't had plans for. Usually this time of year is about stressing over whether all my things will fit in the car, looking forward to being back at university, buying new stationery and whatnot, but this year I'm kind of just...at home. I'm hoping not to be - I actually applied for an MA in English Language & Linguistics a couple of weeks ago and I'm waiting for an answer from that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed so hard because I haven't really thought about what the plan is if I get rejected, but hey - we will cross that bridge if we come to it.

Other than that life is pretty slow still. I've spent most of the last few months feeling a little bit stagnant, a little bit "sit-at-home-and-watch-Netflix" vibes, and it really isn't a bad thing I don't think. It's the first summer in three years I've been able to do it so it's been quite relaxing. I made a few Tiktoks here and there - although none have gone viral again which is a bummer - and considered starting up YouTube again but unsure how I feel about that. I also started about three blogposts and never finished them, and took some Instagram photos but never uploaded them...there's a bit of a theme here. I'm trying not to feel too bad about this though, I will get out of my rut when I feel like it.

I have also seen my boyfriend which was lovely - there were a few days the other week when he was alone in his house so I took the opportunity to ~legally~ see him in Manchester. The drive was pretty horrendous but hey, I had an amazing few days with him. One of the blogposts I started was actually going to be about adjusting to a long-distance relationship so that may still be to come.

One thing I've been doing for the past month is running, actually. When my older sister moved back to London (she came home for the duration of lockdown) my dad seriously missed his running buddy so he decided to try one more time to get me into it. If you know me, you will know I detest running - I tried to get into it so many times but I always found it so boring and so hard to breathe and just generally difficult. But we started off doing gentle 500m jogs to and from the village church and a month later I can comfortably(ish) run 4km!! I want to be able to get to 5km and Dad thinks it could happen in the next week or so. I didn't do any exercise since the climbing centres closed and honestly, I forgot how good a bit of exercise makes me feel. And I'd been feeling a bit off about my body after losing a lot of my strength so it feels good to be leaning up again. My abs are coming back!!

I've been listening to folklore, having socially-distanced brunch at my grandparents every Saturday, re-watching Gilmore Girls and all the Marvel films (I started with Black Panther after Chadwick Boseman's passing hit me way hard and got into that Marvel hole of wanting to watch all of them), playing Animal Crossing and Dragon Quest Builders, thinking a lot about white corporate feminism and crying here and there. So life...really hasn't changed that much, and is beginning to feel a small semblance of normal again. We're going away for a week on Saturday to Cornwall, and a staycation is well anticipated by everyone in this household right now!

September will be good for me, and I'm looking forward to it.

How are y'all doing pals?

Em xx

I Graduated And I'm Unhappy

Oh it's been a long time. Once again I had an accidental hiatus, once again I swore I would do better and start writing more, and once again it just didn't happen. Why? I graduated, and I'm seriously unhappy about it.

This is what university does not set you up for. It does not set you up for the crushing reality of moving back home, a job market devastated by a global pandemic and the feeling that everyone around you is moving on with their lives but you're not. I helped my sister move back to London the other day which sucked. She came home for a few weeks at the beginning of lockdown, a few weeks turned into a few months and she finally got her life back right when I feel like I lost mine. And I am decidedly despondent. My good friend Han wrote about post-graduate depression on Twitter the yesterday and I don't think I've ever seen it summed up so well, so I thought I would add my two cents into the conversation and just talk about how I'm feeling.

Graduates this year obviously have it hard, as I mentioned in my last post we didn't have graduation, nights out etc, but now that the dust has settled on that disappointment we're having to deal with the next hurdle and that's how dire the job market is looking right now. But Emilia, weren't you going to do a Masters course? Why do you need a job? I hear you ask. Well yes, you're right. But after a lot of thinking I've decided that maybe a two year very expensive MFA isn't the right path for me. I'm still considering the MA route but there's a lot to think about and take into account. It may still happen, but we'll see.

And on top of all of this, I have debilitating existential anxiety that comes over me in gigantic waves the size of a tsunami. I've suffered with death anxiety for a long time but never in this way. My life suddenly seems stretched out ahead of me with no direction and no purpose and I'm just constantly thinking "one day I won't exist anymore" and this thought is just the most crushing thought I've ever had and I just can't seem to shake it at the moment. And how on earth do you even cope with this?? I'm feeling extremely nihilistic and helpless at the moment, and that along with just nothing to do is a pretty desperate combination.

I don't think we talk about post-graduate depression enough. Sure, there's the handful of students that get accepted onto graduate schemes and graduate jobs pretty much fresh out of university, but the majority of us don't have that and like I said earlier, reality really does hit hard. Finishing a chapter of your life as big as uni is never going to be easy and I just think there's way too much pressure put on graduates to "start life" when we've barely come to terms with the fact that life as we know it is over.

I think that brings me to the end of my brain fart. I'm not really sure what I wanted to get out of writing this post, maybe just to check in with myself and get all these thoughts down, but also to check in with any of my friends. I know a few of my online pals have also graduated this year and just wanted to put my feelers out and make sure you're coping okay. If you're not (this is something I repeatedly tell myself) this will not last forever! We'll find our places in the world soon enough, and we don't need to put any pressure on finding it.

With love,

Emilia xx

From Student To Graduate | Finishing Uni In The Time Of Covid-19

Hey friends. So...life got pretty weird in the few months since I last updated this blog, didn't it? One minute, things were normal and we were going about our daily business, and the next minute we're in lockdown, unable to see our friends and family, go to work, university, the shops...anything, pretty much.

Firstly, how have you all been coping? I'm okay - after a lot of consternation in my house I moved to live with my boyfriend, it was the right thing to do and I've had a great time here the past few months. It's given me time to focus on myself, getting used to a new routine, spending time with G and most importantly, finishing my degree.

So that's the other weird thing - as of the 14th May, I handed in my dissertation and completed my undergraduate degree. And boy, has it been anticlimactic. I think I speak for the entire class of 2020, all around the world even, when I say that. Our end of uni nights out, our trips and holidays away, our graduation ceremonies all just gone out the window. I've got over my initial upset, I think. When the email came round to say our graduation had been cancelled I got pretty sad, as I've worked incredibly hard over the last three years, especially this year, and to not be graduating when I should have been is incredibly sad for all of us, I think.

I'm trying to continue asnormal - I'm heading home at the end of June as my lease ends, so I'll be saying goodbye to Manchester but only for a few months, hopefully. My longterm plan is to continue with my studies in September and am in the process of applying for an MFA in Scriptwriting, while also finding some sort of full-time job....and I'm not really sure what that looks like right now!! It's fair to say things are pretty uncertain right now in terms of applying and interviewing and getting jobs but fingers crossed I'll be able to find something. 

My jobs for the moment mostly are sorting out my damn CV, my personal statement for my MFA application and a myriad of things on my Animal Crossing island....fictional games aside though, I also have to go back and pack up my house which I really don't want to do given that I detest packing with every fibre of my being!! But it does mean I've got enough to keep me busy for the moment, which is what I've been struggling with a lot since finishing my degree. Coronavirus aside, I've really lost all sense of purpose since finishing university! I've got about three months before starting my Masters with pretty much nothing to do since both of my summer jobs are obviously off, so trying to stay motivated to work and create things is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I'm not really sure how to tackle this, though, so if any of you have any tips for motivation in the time of Covid, it would be great to hear them!

I think that's it for now - hopefully y'all are staying safe and staying well! Lots of love my friends.

Emilia xx

So, I'm In An Open Relationship | V-Day Special

Hoooooo BOY it's a big one!!! 14th February and guess day it is? Yep, Valentine's Day - the day every couple everywhere (and friends if you're talking about my best friend Jess and I last year) celebrates their love for one another and go on cute date nights and just generally be in love. It's nice! And the story is cool. 

But I kinda wanted to do something a bit different and I thought what better time to write about this than now? It's something I've wanted to talk about a lot on the blog but never really known how to go about it, so I thought I would do a little "commonly asked questions" or "myths vs facts" about being in an open relationship, talk about how it started, why we're in it and how I'm finding it and the future. (Hope you're ready for a VERY long blog post)

So for those of you who know me in real life, you'll know all about the background to my boyfriend and I meeting - we met in mid-May 2019, a month after I'd broken up with my ex and a couple months after he broke up with his. Neither of us were looking for anything serious (in fact he was my first date after my breakup and I was adamant I wouldn't be getting in a relationship any time soon after that) and wanted something very slow, very casual but fun at the same time, so we embarked on a sort of friends with benefits/booty call arrangement. If you also know me in real life you'll know it's very odd for me to be able to do this without falling head over heels in love with someone - I am very clingy so the fact I was so chilled with it just showed me that I really didn't want or need a committed relationship at this point. Around July time we sort of started having feelings for each other but decided we wouldn't do anything except acknowledge it and carry on as we are. We liked each other as more than friends (so rebranded as a booty call with feelings) but neither of us liked the idea of not seeing other people or having restrictions on dating/shenanigans with others. I was also very conscious of the fact that I've never really explored my bisexuality that much and I didn't want to be in a relationship where I couldn't do that.

Obviously summer 2019 we spent a couple months apart but when I moved back to Manchester in September we started spending a lot more time together and going on dates and everything else and we started talking about where it was going and agreed that an open relationship would work best for both of us and fit exactly with what we wanted. Open relationships work differently couple to couple but we don't really have any restrictions on who we date or sleep with, it's pretty much a free for all (although I think if he slept with one of my housemates or my sisters I'd have a problem...). 

People like to judge open relationships and the amount of "what if" scenarios people bombard me with when they find out (what if he falls in love with someone else? What if you get married, would it still be open? That kind of ilk) is kinda crazy. And the "oh, I could never be okay with my boyfriend sleeping with someone else" is a bit annoying. I think for me, it's a lot to do with my attitude to sex and how that's changed in the last year or so. I don't particularly see sex as a big thing, a relationship to me isn't about having sex - it's more about the connection I have with the other person and the actual emotional relationship I have with them and honestly that's probably why I'm okay with my boyfriend having sex with other girls. 

It's also helped both of us be way more honest and open and communication definitely isn't one of my strong points - I get very caught up in not wanting to upset people so I tend to just not say anything at all and this has definitely changed since being in an open relationship. Gus always says too that it takes the taboos away from finding other people attractive and makes jealousy less of an issue and that's really been the case for both of us. I haven't really found myself getting jealous of him since we've been together and he doesn't with me either - if anything, it's kind of fun to be able to talk about finding other people attractive and wanting to sleep with other people and date other people rather than being ashamed of feeling that way and hiding it.

We don't really talk about the future. We don't really discuss the "what ifs" because there's not really any point. If he had feelings for another girl he would tell me and we would talk about it then - it's not like I would be surprised or shocked by him suddenly leaving me for someone else because that just isn't how a relationship like this works - you have to be open to not only other people but communicating with each other and checking in on your feelings constantly. It sounds like a lot of work but honestly, I've had a happier and healthier year with him than I have done in any previous monogamous relationship (which is something my friends have also noticed in me) and instead of being worried about how the future will pan out for us, I'm kind of looking forward to it more than anything.

I LOVE talking about my relationship and sex and all good things so if you have any more questions for me about this please don't hesitate!! I'd love to hear from ya.

Em xx

2020 & January Bullet Journal!!!

OMG pals!!! Here it is - the 2020 bullet journal update!!! Be excited because I sure as hell am.

So, I made some changes this year. Firstly, I've got an entire new journal. There wasn't enough space in my last one to make it a satisfying end so I thought hey, let's start a new one. Plus, the yellow cover was getting very grubby, and I was really ready to move onto something else this year. I was going to get a new Leuchtturm but I'll be honest with you, I've been slightly disappointed with them recently. The paper of them is rather thin and I was noticing my pens were just bleeding through the paper way too easily, so I went on the hunt for a new brand with thicker, better quality paper but not too expensive.

Lo and behold, I landed on this beautiful lilac one from Stationery Island. It's still A5, still dotted, but the paper is 120gsm so feels more like card than paper, and feels very smooth and lovely to use. I also got my hands on some black paper too which I've been wanting to play with for so. long. and I really think I've surpassed myself with this spread. I've also really dialled things back this year and taken it right back to basics - I haven't put anything in there I won't use, for example my goals, memories and ideas pages just went to waste last year and while they're nice to have there's no point having them without using them so I've ditched them and literally just put in a year at a glance and a future log and I'm really, really happy with how it's turned out and I hope it'll be much more productive to me this year. I kept it really simple with a black, white and grey theme and didn't overcomplicate anything too much. The idea is that all those other bits, the more emotional, personal stuff is going in my new journal, and this is purely to keep me organised this year.

For my January spread, I've gone for some kind of star/flower theme, I really don't know what it is, I just started doodling and didn't stop but I do love how it's come out. Again, super simple and just the pages I'll actually end up using so just my calendar and expense tracker. I did add my habit tracker in again, which I haven't used in ages but I think I'm going to try again with it and see what I can do. Then just heading straight on into my weekly spreads and that's pretty much it.

I sort of fell out of love with bullet journalling at the end of last year but I'm really hoping I can stick with it this year and make it something I love doing again - organisation and time management is high on my list of priorities this year so hopefully my bullet journal will keep that going and be a healthy and wholesome way of keeping myself in check!!

~ products used ~

✨ Stationery Island lilac a5 dotted journal

✨ Tombow dual brush pens

✨ Tombow fudenosuke soft tip brush pen

✨ Pigma Micron fineliners (0.3mm, 0.5mm and graphic pen)

✨ Crayola supertips

✨ Uniball white gel pen 0.3mm

What do your 2020 bullet journals look like?

Approaching New Year Slightly Differently

So here's the thing - I've never really been one for goal setting. I don't know if you guys who've stuck around a while can tell. A list of things to try and achieve has always put me off trying to achieve anything really, and to be honest, I think that's where I've been going wrong for the past twenty years. You see, I put way too much pressure on myself to meet goals if they're very specific, for example number goals, or career goals, or money goals. There will come a time in my life where I think I'll need to have goals like that but friends, that time is 100% not now.

So let me tell you how I'm approaching the New Year slightly differently this time round. I was off to a good start last year when I said I was going to try and stick to a 'life motto' of trying harder but I also think that was a little too broad. This year, I'm trying to find a happy medium between the two and that all starts with an outlook change. In my eyes, anyway. Maybe I'm spurred on this time round not just because it's a new year, but an entire new decade - and let's be real, if you can't change yourself for a new decade, when can you?

So Emilia, what is this new outlook you're talking about? Well friends, that is simply not giving a fuck. You may have read the genius book by Sarah Knight named "The Life-Changing Art Of Not Giving A Fuck" and I am currently reading it, and decided that it's basically the best thing I've ever read and I definitely need to start employing these techniques into my life. It also comes along with the realisation that there are a lot of things in my life that I worry about, care about or stress over way more than I should, and things that do deserve that stress but don't get enough of it because I'm too busy worrying about other things. Does that make sense? So along with giving less of a fuck, I'm going to start being more mindful (zen is the word I've been using a lot recently) and apply worry, stress and fucks where they are needed, and take them away from where they're wasted.

This comes hand in hand with a newfound interest in the law of attraction, manifestation and general interest in mindfulness and meditation and I think I'd really like to learn more about these techniques and methods and start using them in my day-to-day life. I'm also going to try the Full Potential Challenge, where essentially you just look after yourself and see what you can achieve when you're at full potential - I really let myself go in December and as a result have some health problems I need to try and tackle before they spiral any further and I have to go to the GP (no thanks) and I think it was definitely a wake-up call I needed to just get a bit healthier really so that's also on the list.

The full potential also comes along with trying a bit more to be fully myself - and this for sure means my outward aesthetic. I've been wanting to explore my personal style for so long now, lusting after dreamy clothes and fashion on Instagram and I've decided 2020 is going to be my year to finally grow the balls to wear the clothes I actually want to wear rather than hiding away. It also means going out with gold stars and glitter on my eyes if I really want to. I'll be trying to share this more on my Instagram (which has been so inactive recently and as a result I lost like a hundred followers).

2019 brought a lot of growth and change for me - I went through heartbreak, lost a once close friend (for the right reasons though) and had some very down days indeed, but I also found the healthiest relationship I've had with another human for a long time, moved in with my best friends (best decision I have ever made) and learned to be much more open and honest about my feelings and who I am rather than hiding my bad bits because I'd convinced myself people wouldn't love me as much for them. On the contrary, sharing my bad bits has brought me closer to the most important people in my life and opening up is something I will continue to do in 2020.

Bring it on.

Em xx