It's OK To Deal With Things In Your Own Way

I've had a tough few weeks, and if you know me at all you would know that that sentence alone is hard for me to even admit.

I'm very private and I would say I'm quite guarded. I don't choose to share a lot of my life with people and when I see others sharing every detail of their life, I can't help but question why. Why would you want to tell someone that you're going through a tough time? That something awful is bringing you down and you can't stop crying? What do you gain from offering that information?

I come from quite a large family. My dad is one of six, and I am one of 16 grandchildren, and then we have eight grandchildren (four more are on their way). Growing up, I didn't even realise I had a big family, I didn't bat an eyelid.

Now this is the hard bit for me. In the last six months, we've lost three people from our family. My Auntie Lou, Uncle Kevin, and most recently, my Grandpa. I've experienced grief before, but I've never lost anybody who was that close to me. So, to lose three in six months has taken a huge hole out of our family. I come from a family of very strong people, I idolise my dad for his strength and bravery. Over the last six months he's had to make so many tough decisions, and had to take the reins on so many situations on the behalf of our family. Everyday we remind him that we don't know how we would have done it without him.

I love my family to bits. But somewhere in all of us, we have it engrained that to show suffering and pain is a sign of weakness, and if you show somebody that weakness they could use it against you. I always liked that I was private and that I don't need nor like to lean on people for support or help. Like I said, I question why others would want to share this kind of information with others. I personally do not think it would help me very much.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a few people in my life who I willingly share things with. I'm not afraid to cry in front of people, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm hurting or I'm not OK. I just struggle to find the desire to seek others for help.

After recent times, I've now realised how hard that makes me as a person to be around. It must be hard for my friends to want to be there for me, to offer their support, but be met by a brick wall. Effectively, that is what I have been at certain points. This is something that dawned on me this week, when I was met with messages from my friends asking questions. I started to beat myself up about the fact people were trying to comfort me, to help me and I was rejecting it completely.

Then I realise that the only way I have gotten through these last few months is that way and that way only. I realised that every message I have replied to has been my honest response at that given moment, if I said I didn't want to talk, it's because I didn't. No attention seeking, I wasn't actively trying to be private, I just didn't seek a conversation at that point in time. And you know what? That's OK.

So really, this post is a kind of 'To Kirsti', for the future. When I start to question whether my actions are right, or whether I should deal with it in that way, the answer is yes. Whatever your gut tells you, whatever your instinct is, is perfectly OK. Grief and mourning are an awful but strengthening period, and if the people around you tell you you're doing it wrong, they aren't the kind of people worth leaning on anyway.

Kirsti x

It's OK To Never Feel At Home...

Moving out gives a whole new meaning to being 'home sick'. 

So often you find yourself wanting to go 'home', and then you get there and it's never what you needed it to be. It's no longer a place you go and fit into straight away, instead you find yourself feeling like a guest. 

Is it because you know that you being there is temporary? Or because you have your own way of doing things now, ways that you actually prefer (sorry, mum). 

You get so used to doing things for yourself, that to try and fit into a different routine makes home far from the relaxing place that you desire it to be. 

When you get lonely, or want to escape from the routine you are starting to dread, you think of home. But your perception of home is past tense. What you're really missing is the way home was before you left, it's not just home, it's the life you had before. 

As soon as you get home, you start to miss the life that you've crafted yourself. Leaving home was scary, and to overcome the fear you put your everything into your new life, but this meant that without realising you were replacing the home you had before. A home that deep down you will never allow to feel like your own anymore. 

This sounds like an unhappy post, but it's not. This is the next stage of your life, a chance for you to do things your way. Have a mum that insists on all the kitchen being matching, but you love mismatch? Now's your chance to create it. 

So often we seek comfort in the way we have been brought up, but now is the time to learn from your upbringing and use what you loved about home in a life of your own. 

If you're at Uni you won't feel at home just yet, as it's hard to feel at home when something is temporary, but you need to accept that you cannot go back. Your home will come, and Uni is the perfect trial for how you will create it.

It's ok that you don't feel at home anywhere just yet, having somewhere to live doesn't mean that you will feel at home. 

That first week of freedom

It's getting to that time of year where many of you will be preparing to enter the next stage of your life and head off to university. Believe us, we know it's daunting.

While some feel that it is right for them to stay at home, we both wanted to move to a whole new place, and were probably tempted by halls more than university itself.

Right about now you're probably picturing yourself in each of the locations you visit, are excited about the prospect of getting away from your boring old town and equally as petrified about the strangers you will be living with.

Now it's probably worth mentioning that our story isn't quite like others. We are both studying advertising, and entered the wonderful world of Facebook to 'virtually meet' beforehand. As we nattered away about all our uni woes and worries, we were completely unaware that we would be not only in the same flat, but the rooms next door. After the initial squeals were over and done with we were just relieved that not everyone around us was a complete stranger.

While this is pretty unusual, and we were extremely lucky, it's important to note that most people you will meet when moving in are friendly, and won't be strangers for long. No seriously, wait until the next morning where you are all hungover and feel as though you've known each other forever.

In fact this whole friendly feel will stick through at least the whole of freshers, and if you're lucky even longer. But what people don't warn you about, is that what you are going through is what students refer to as the 'honeymoon period'. Like a relationship, everyone is happy to please at first. Do each others washing up here and there, have the standard 'family fajita night' and feel like you know everything there is to know about your flatmates sex life through playing 'I have never'.

This does fade. This is normal.

And while we don't want to dampen your thoughts of the 'fabulous freshers' (because if we could back, believe us we would!), I guess we just want you to enjoy it while it lasts. You're finally free from your parents, it's completely acceptable to cook a pizza at three in the morning and not get out of your pjs all day. The clubs are just at the bottom of the lift, and there will be that one night when you are so drunk that you end up back in your bed before midnight, don't worry we've all been there.

So yes you will be nervous, and probably cry when your parents leave (no? just us?) but freshers is the time of your life and every moment of it should be spent either drunk or hungover. That being said there will come a time when you realise that you didn't need to rush out of home so fast, and you will eventually appreciate it more than you ever have before.

I guess what we are trying to say is that you will absolutely love uni, and your new life, but we wouldn't be us if we didn't warn you of the moans that follow.