Take a deep breath... and blog!

For a while now, I've harboured this great desire to blog. I'm not going to lie. At surface level, it's because blogging is cool. It just is. But when I actually think properly about why I really want to blog, and I really really do, I think there are a lot of reasons.

1. I want to have a-thing-that-I-do. A hobby, if you will. In recent years, I honestly haven't done all that much, and truthfully that kind of frustrates me. For so long, I've been someonewho sits on the sidelines, watching everyone else do cool things and thinking 'one day I'll do something'. But why can't that day that I finally do something be now? I am really trying to make a conscious effort to get rid of the mentality I have of 'waiting for my life to start'. I know that I can't spend my whole life waiting for things to happen to me; I have to start doing things that I want to do for myself.

2. In many ways, I am quite an insecure and shy person. I often feel awkward in social situations and always worry about having nothing interesting to say. My hope is that my blog will be somewhere that I can be myself without worrying about what other people think, and I hope that blogging will give me more self-confidence to talk to people and be a happier and less worrisome person! (well that's the dream anyway!)

3. Another reason is that I desperately want to be more creative. Creativity in others is something which I admire a lot, whether it be photography, artwork, songwriting, craft, writing or anything else. Being able to express myself in a creative way is something that seems amazing to me, and linked to that, projects. I absolutely love projects. Anything I can work hard at, gradually building up my skills to produce something I proud of excites me immensely. Blogging for me, will be one big project, with the added bonus of loads of little sub-projects, which just excites me even more!

4. Going back to what I wrote earlier about being a do-er, I want to do something actively online. I have watched and been inspired by so many absolutely brilliant youtubers and bloggers, like Sprinkle of Glitter and Zoella, for years now, but have only commented on videos or blog posts about twice. I think youtube is a step to far for me write now, but blogging, that's something I can do. I really want to become part of the blogging community, and maybe even make some friends while I'm at it!

5. Finally, and most simply, I just want a memento of my life right now that I can look back on in the future.

Well, that was quite pretentious and cheesy, but to be honest I'm quite excited to post it! It feels both good and scary to have finally expressed all the things I've been feeling about blogging. Hopefully I'll blog again soon!

xxx

The first post

I'd envisaged myself starting this blog on the first day of the summer holidays. I had thought I would be writing new posts everyday, ones that somehow managed to be effortlessly intelligent, witty and though-provoking all at the same time. Ergo, by this point in the holidays, I would have an impressive portfolio of such posts, proving to the world that I had done something worthwhile with my time.

Well, it was a good plan while it lasted. It's now the 40th day of the summer holidays. That's a thought that scares me. I have passed the midway point of the very holidays that seemed, a mere month ago, to stretch on neverendingly into the distance in what can only be described as an extremely staisfying manner. Now look at me. Half way through and feeling decidedly mopey about the fact that this hasn't been the most amazing summer of my entire life. Statistically (I'm assuming), it is very unlikely that summer 2013 would have been the single best of my life, yet there was a little part of me that thought it just might. Every year I do this - convince myself that this summer will be my summer.

Despite the fact that I read books at a rate of one every couple of months, I will read books every single day and appreciate them intensely, perhaps starting a book club to share my insightful views. After years of bottom set PE, I will take up tennis on a whim, discover my great natural talent for the sport and be competing in Wimbledon by 2015 (at the very latest of course). Naturally, my friends and I will decide to embark upon a spontaneous camping holiday or trip to the beach, where by day, we will swim in the beautiful secluded lakes we happen to discover and, by night we will gather around the campfire, toasting marshmallows and staying up all night sharing secrets. I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic pursuing the perfect summer.

Unsprisingly, I had similar ambitions for the summer of 2013, some wildly unrealistic (i.e. the secluded lake pool party), some less so (i.e. read more). Although I have done some of things I had wanted to, and don't get me wrong I haven't had an awful summer by any means, I can't help wishing for that little bit more. What I haven't done, is anything outside of my comfort zone. But now I am ready to try something different, push myself a bit further and take on a challenge. And that is the reason I am starting this blog,