God, I Want to Throw a Strop Right Now,

As most of you know, I don't really play the whole 'New Year, New Me' game, but something I did promise myself was that when I moved into the new flat certain things were going to be different. 

Now, some things are different. I've managed to cut my morning commute dramatically. What used to take an hour and a half - depending on trains, so sometimes more than that - now takes me twenty minutes. I have more space and the kitchen is my own, so it is always how I left it (not always a great thing, but such is the joy of living alone) so I cook more. I also gave having a pet a whirl, although that didn't go so well since I'm not here all the time so Dave is going to be rehomed. 

The problem is, those were not the things I promised myself would be different. 

I made a promise to myself that I would make a really big effort to keeping the place tidy; I would be lying if I said I had stuck to that. I haven't put enough effort into that. It looks a damn site better than when I first moved in since there was stuff everywhere and not much furniture for a long time, but it's still not quite there. Actually, probably not by a long stretch thinking about how I would like it to be, though I know that that is on me. 

I promised myself that this would be the weekend where I got a lot more sorted, and the truth is that that didn't really happen either, but...

Whereas most people get to February and their NY resolutions go straight out of the window as though they never really existed, I'm at the stage where I am reminding myself that Rome was not built in a day, so I shouldn't expect to cajole all of my chaos into order in the same space of time. If I'm making progress slowly, well that is still progress.

The same goes for the novel. Despite my somewhat foolish addiction to NaNoWriMo, I don't need to try and write everything I ever write at the same pace. I'd burn out within a couple of weeks for one thing, and for another, I would have even less of a social life.

I am accepting my weaknesses and limitations. I am setting it as a long-term goal to have the flat exactly as I want it. I am fine with the fact that this thing I am working on is going to take closer to a year than a month to write. Whilst I will not let go of and forget the novel I was writing for NaNo, I have accepted that now is not the time to re-write it and there is no more time at all to dwell on it. And so, onwards.

Though even when trying to accept all of that, I want to throw my toys out of the pram because one of my biggest weaknesses is impatience. 

Catch you later. 

Act Natural,

This blog is just going to be a quick one because I have something pretty important to be doing tonight, and it's not going to do itself. (Then again, what does?)

Last night I changed my hair colour, and I expected it to look completely barmy and outrageous to the point that I was killing myself to change it. It didn't come out as wrong as I thought. What I have heard a few times today, though, is oh, it looks quite natural. It's cool, but I would have to be a serious sort of a mess, the type where DNA has been through a blender to create this masterpiece. 

The reason I'm not falling over myself to change it though is because changing my hair is usually associated with the word fix, and this doesn't need so much fixing. If I were going for a creative job, instead of admin roles as I am, I would probably keep it a little while and just let it be. It seems like nothing I do to my hair, even the highlighter orange, is too much for me just to accept it, dig my confidence out of the bottom drawer and just live with. It's less styling it out than not giving a crap about most people's opinions or assessments of me. 

Now that last sentence is a weird one for me because a lot of my 'fears' or anxiety comes from the question, but what will people think? Back when I was 17 I asked myself that question and a lovely, strong voice would yell back (in my head) WHO CARES? It's something I'm trying to work my way back towards because in the end it helped me prioritise my happiness. It got me to London, to study Philosophy and it got me to self-publish a book. Yeah, it also got me into trouble a few times, but what's a river without a few rapids? 

Basically, I'm trying to act natural, without the fearfulness, and then hopefully, at some point, it won't be an act, and I'll have beaten it. Practice makes perfect. Practising writing this blog every day is making me practice sitting down and committing to writing. It can only be a good thing.

Catch you tomorrow.