A life of fear, is a life half lived...

Sometimes it takes someone to say it bluntly to help you see things in a new perspective, sometimes you could do without it. Sometimes I wish someone would understand how I felt and agree with me but help me all at the same time.

So I'm this confident person when I'm in a group, when I meet new people and know at least one person. But when I'm in a situation where everyone knows each other and I'm the newbie, I can't help but struggle. I fall through the cracks unless someone helps me and I just disappear until someone spurs me on.

I know part of being an adult is "sucking it up" and getting on with it. I will go and it'll be awkward it'll be painful (as I've said before) but I don't think anyone realises how much of my life is ruled by fear and how many times I've tried to free myself from it. I know that fear is the start of a long downward spiral to nowhere good but I can't help it. It presses itself on me like a thousand bricks to my chest and makes me feel breathless and ill.

My fears:

• Meeting new people (especially when they all know each other)
• Being a failiure-to this day I still feel like I've failed with things that were meant to be.
• Driving Test
• All things new-I love doing new things, just in a comfortable environment where there is a safety net or some sort of comfort zone nearby.
• People's expectations or thoughts about me-not the way I look or the way I act, but something deeper than that, it's different. And I want to live up to MY expectations as well as everyone else's and I rarely do.
• I fear looking back and being annoyed at myself for not doing something, or making the wrong decision (even if something good came out of it).
• Phones etc-I always feel like I'm taking up people's time and that I'm disturbing them (same with msn)
• Being vulnerable

I have never been more grateful to God then for the friends I have made. Whether you believe it or not and whether its cheesey or not, I don't think I actually care! .

So I guess where earlier I couldn't put my finger on my problem/thoughts/feelings I just did. Lets get back to smiling.

Torn...

So most things are back to normal now, the drama has subsided, well until another day. They seem to be coming in spadefuls all the time!

Torn-the one thing I've found so difficult at uni is going between groups of friends, I have one group of friends from church and the new friends I need to make at church but then there's the flat mates and other close friends here. I love spending time with them and then feel bad because I'm not spending enough time with my church friends, I find it more effort, because obviously they're not here I have to actually go and see them.

So tomorrow I'm having dinner with my cell leader, a desperate attempt on her behalf to find out why I haven't been at cell and how I'm finding things, it's kind of a loaded and obvious answer to the question, but I guess she wants to hear it from the "horse's mouth" as it were. Already I am feeling apathetic about going but I can't cancel now I've already had to rearrange twice.

But I must fight the fact that I'm out of my comfort zone here and that when I'm back home I re-enter that comfort zone. I can't always be comfortable and that is where God comes in, to keep me afloat and guide me through it all.

Challenges come, challenges go and we grow up, move on and get over each and every one of them I suppose. Like they're just hurdles in the race that we like to call LIFE.

Signing off xxxx

Assignments...

A teacher once told me that "an essay is like a swimming pool, it's daunting until you take the plunge. Once you're in...it all goes 'swimmingly'".
(spot the cheesy pun)
I never thought I'd actually be quoting those words in all seriousness 3/4 years later.
I've started assignments and they're a killer. That's putting it nicely. You get started on a question (which takes me AGES to decide on) and then realise there is not a chance that you'll be able to write 1,000 words on it. That number is daunting to me, I hate it. It's my new worse nightmare.
What makes assignments harder, is when you're mind is whirring with a thousand and one other thoughts, ridiculous thoughts, but they cloud you're mind and thought pattern until all you want to do is scream, run or just break down in tears and wish that there was some dark cave to crawl into and run away from it all.
Can you tell that I'm an English student?? It seems to become more and more apparent to me in these blogs, that seem to drip with drama and are full to the literary brim with metaphors and similes.

Ups, Downs and Inconsistencies of Life

Just been to lectures, you know when you go to something and come out of it again wondering what the hell was the point and what on earth did I learn? That was one of my lectures today...pointless!

Today my adventure of uni had its ups and downs, its incredible to think that week by week I encounter down after down with a few highs thrown in to keep me going. I call uni an adventure to make me think that it will end soon. I do love it but it's just so difficult sometimes.
I am an optimistic person honest, my blogs will probably not reflect it BUT I honestly am...mostly.

So the housing hunt is on for next year...it's a scary concept as I'm one of these people that puts things off for as long as possible, until they can't be ignored any longer. All my flat mates and closest friends here now have their house sorted, great. No, I am thrilled but it's just a reminder that I actually have nowhere to live and need to sort it out soon. On the up side (I am an optimist) I have found people to share with, 2 girls from church, which will help me HUGELY.
But I'm just increasingly aware that my life has not been stable for the last month now and isn't likely to get stable until my second year possibly even later. I've just about got settled with this flat, this room and I already have to think about the new room I'll have to live in. Is there no consistency in this world? At the back of my mind I can hear a yes...God is constant-never changing and always there.

And although I'm optimistic, hopeful even I know that I probably won't see or speak to these people again, which seems all too pointless to me as I've had soo many good times with them and been so honest with them. (They're all living together apart from me and 2 other guys) It'll feel like I've wasted a whole year on people that will become just faint memories.
Seems bazaar to say the least. We say we'll stay in touch and talk and catch up, but it'll never be the same. Me and one girl I really want to stay close to, she's just like me and this guy who I'm pretty close to, but I have the feeling that he won't keep in touch, but I'm hoping they both will. They're all great, so i'm hoping it'll work out...but I guess like most things I'll have to wait and see.

So many people come in and out of our lives, each one having their own effect on our lives. Whether its the smallest thing or the biggest.

First Blog!! (All things NEW)

Ha, bet that title has never been thought of before!
Well, this blogging thing is a whole new adventure, which is fitting really as I've just started the adventure of uni.
I say just started, really I've been here over a month but it still feels all new and there are still a load of new problems that I guess can be expected when you go on a new adventure.
But there will be no complaining...yet. That will come in later blogs.
Thought I'd start the first step in a big, long path of new steps to actually saying what I think and feel, instead of doing the normal thing and bottling it all up or worse still (perhaps) telling the wrong people.
So, what better way then to post it internationally on the web?!
Why is it easy to write thoughts down on a computer and post it publically, then to tell the people closest to us or those that are trying to get close us?
Seems odd to me.
'Til next time (how are you meant to sign off on a blog?) xx