It is no secret from my blog that 2020 was an incredibly difficult year for me. With the start of a new year and 2021 coming up, in my current circumstances, the idea of a fresh start rings truer than it has ever done before. I am not a fan of the whole new year, new you because I don’t believe that a new year necessarily means drastic change - I believe in taking things step by step rather than expecting a transformation out of the blue. But, the opportunity to start fresh (especially around new year) has always appealed to me and even more so this year.
I turn 20 today- it does not seem real and although it is my birthday, it doesn't quite feel like it. I used to think that turning 20 was a lot, and even though it really isn't old, it feels old to me. It really goes to show how everything is all about perspective because in the grand scheme of things, I am still very young.
2020 has definitely thrown a lot of new situations at everyone that we did not expect to experience. It might mean that plans we originally had have gone out the window. I have had various realisations recently - all of which are not what I originally had in mind. It has been a little scary because I am going against the norm, or a case of this just is not the circumstances I would thought I would be in. But, I know that I am not the only one and that COVID-19 has changed things for everyone. Whilst we are isolated, we do have a common hardship we are all going through- a very rapidly changing world and environment.
With the announcement of a second lockdown in many countries, it is safe to say that there are a lot of things going through everyone’s minds. At the moment, it is so easy to get caught up in everything and feel like we’re constantly on go - constantly worrying. That everything is just too fast and we can’t keep up. Lockdown is challenging enough and we are all in different circumstances fighting our own battles. Switching off can be difficult and somehow I still feel the same amount of pressure to carry on as if everything is normal when it really isn’t.


I am one of those people that typically tends to want to sort things out myself. I think it can be good to try and find your way out of your own issues- or at least be proactive in solving your own problems. But, this doesn't and should not mean that you have to always do this by yourself. I can recognise that when it comes to my personal life, I don't like asking for help as I find it difficult to reach out. This is something I am still working on, but am hoping I can change. I hope that this blog post serves as a reminder that it is OK and healthy to ask for help, regardless of how big or small you think it might be.


I have written about friendships, and being okay by yourself, but realise I have never touched being single and happy. Over the last year, I’ve thought a fair amount about being single. Something about moving to university with the pressure and expectation that I am meant to find the love of my life at this point in my life has me thinking a lot about relationships.
I have found this year and generally this academic year difficult for multiple reasons- a lot in my life changed quite quickly and I was forced to adapt to changes (some not so nice or ideal in a short space of time). As a result, I have been reflecting more on what being strong means to me. I think it can generally be quite easy to have this idea that being strong means never feeling weak, or never feeling like a mess and always feeling like you have everything under control. This year more than ever has taught me that is definitely not the case (or at least that is not the way I interpret it). I want to talk about in this post how this year has redefined my idea of what I feel strength is.
I used to see growing up as just getting older- little (and by little I mean when I was a child) me did not see it as anything else. It was just the excitement of being able to do more. Now as an older individual, I see that growing up is so much more than getting older: it is change; in your identity, in your life, discovering new things. Sometimes it is pain in order to learn. It is getting lost and finding your way again.
I think there’s a real tendency in society to put things off until we feel ‘ready’ or until there’s a better moment. I was recently thinking about moments I’ve really enjoyed or something I was proud of myself for and found that in most of these cases I didn’t feel as ‘ready’ as I thought I would, but I went ahead and did it anyway. That either allowed for self-growth or just for spontaneous moments that make life fun.
Finding my own voice and realising what I stand for was something that took me a while and I think is always an ongoing process. Writing this blog in many ways has helped me find my voice and has given me a platform to share things that are important to me. Learning to utilise it and discovering what I believed in has been one of the biggest things in boosting my confidence and self-esteem, which at one point in my life was very low. Hopefully, this can help someone on their journey to discover their own voice.
Being in isolation is definitely challenging - as a person who sees myself as an ambivert (both an introvert and extrovert) not being able to surround myself with people, especially friends has not been something I have found easy. But, being at home more and the world having pretty much stopped has given me more time to think - to reflect, to pause. Here are some of the thoughts and things I would say I have learnt.
I guess this is a little late considering we’re already halfway through February. I’ve never done a month in review. But, January was a difficult month for me and so I wanted to document some of the things I’ve learnt this month, as it is when you go through difficult moments that you learn and you grow as a person. These are things I can hopefully take forward for the rest of this year.

Being present and able to take things in is so valuable. But, in a world with social media and technology, it has become so easy to be there physically, but not mentally. Below are some things I like to do to ground myself a little and make sure I’m living a real life- to make sure I am 'living in the moment'.
I recently turned 19 (in December) and I just wanted to document a little on how it feels or at least part of the journey on growing older. This is a little reflection on what I have learnt over the years and this will of course inevitably grow as I get older.
I usually always do a post at the end of the year. But this year, I wanted to do 2. Not just one on what I learnt in 2019, but also a general reflection and year in review. I say this every single year, but I truly have no idea how 2019 has somehow come to an end. Here's some general thoughts on what I make of my experience of 2019.
So somehow 2019 is almost over and I am back writing one of these posts again. I really like looking back on my previous posts just to see how I have grown and the different things I learn each year. You can read my 2017 post here and my 2018 post here. So here are some of things I learnt in 2019 (top 5). I feel like the ones this year are a lot more about what I have learnt about myself rather than life lessons.