There Are A Lot Of Things In Life That Are Mediocre, Don't Let Relationships Be One Of Them

They always tell you that your days at school will be the best of your life and everyone just shrugs it off. Then years later, you look back and realise that the best parts of those years were the bits you didn’t even consider at the time. Waking up that day and only thinking of the 24 hours ahead, going to sleep and thinking of the previous 24 hours and that is it.

Now, I have to think days, weeks even months ahead. My friends ask to make plans 6 months from now and I have to ‘let them know’ because everything is just so up in the air. It’s frustrating and increasingly annoying but mainly because I took my teenage years for granted. So much so, that I had no idea how happy I really was. I was so content with the way things were at that very moment, I had no reason to look forward.

When I think about my life right now, all I think about are things that I would change. I’m a worrier, I’m an organiser and I always think ahead - that’s just the person I am. I am an absolute perfectionist and I cannot stand doing the bare minimum for anything – it’s all or nothing, I see no in-between. So it’s natural for me to want to make anything better that I can and that includes all of my relationships.

Like I said, we all look back at our school years and wish we could go back to that simple life. That life where you saw your friends every day and you all would have the best times together. But the truth is – that isn’t real life. As much as I say I would like to go back to that time in my life, I also realise that I was a naïve girl and all was not as it seemed.

Life was simple. Your friends were always there for you, always there to pick you up when you were down and you always spent your free time together. Reality? Far from it.

This was life because there was no other way. You had nothing else to do on weekends but be with your friends, so of course they were your first choice. Now, I have to arrange with my friends weeks in advance just to make sure they have spare time. This isn’t because they are bad friends, it’s because we have so much more going on with our lives, that seeing each other is an effort. It’s not just a filler of time. It’s actually time-consuming.

That sounds really harsh. I love my friends and I love spending time with them. But because I have a busy life now, I constantly assess every minute of my day. If I didn’t spend an extra hour with you I could have replied to some emails… That’s OCD. And that’s something I’m personally trying to work on. But it’s a balance I have to find.

When I look at the way I am towards spending time with my friends now, compared to when I was at school, I realise it’s a now a choice. If I desire to see somebody, I will make the effort to do so. If I don’t… I won’t bother. At school, you would probably spend weekends with people you wouldn’t even say ‘hello’ to now. Isn’t that crazy? But you didn’t care then. Because your time wasn’t precious, or at least you didn’t think of it as being precious.

At least I enjoyed that whilst it lasted because now my time is precious, and boy don’t I know it. When I started to grow apart from friends I was upset, I clung onto them hoping it was just a phase. I clung onto someone who I would now describe as a shitty friend. I was fighting for someone who’s time had become precious, so they became distant. And suddenly now I get it.

Time is precious. Fill your time with people who inspire you, who make you laugh til your gut aches and who truly care about your happiness. Whether it be a boyfriend, girlfriend, bestest friend or a work friend, if you desire to spend time with them, it’s for a reason. Don’t waste your time on people who add little to your life. Time is precious so fill it wisely.

There are a lot of things in life that are mediocre, don’t let relationships be one of them.

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 Have Different Friends

It’s like we are taught from a young age that we will always be in a group of friends. I don’t remember ever being told that, but it was always portrayed as the ideal, wasn’t it?

Look at Sex And The City, four girls who are best friends. They are a solid group who always meet up and are just always friends, no matter what. And Friends, a group of six people who just fit together. They have other friends who flitter in and out but those six always stick.

The problem is that this is unrealistic. But this is also saddening. Most of us feel that if we aren’t part of some sort of friendship group that we no longer have any and nobody really cares about us. We feel like we’ve failed in society and that it must be a personal thing - we must have something wrong with us?! Surely?! No. You don’t.

As I grew older, I realised it was less important to have one best friend who fulfils every purpose. Now, I have friends for different reasons. I have friends who I trust, these are the ones I would confide in or moan about something if I’m having a really crap day. Then I have friends who I primarily see to get drunk with or just go for lunch now and again. 

Now there are plenty of other roles that friends fulfil, and some tick more than one of those boxes. But the point is, it doesn’t make them less of a ‘friend’ to you because you can’t trust them, or you can’t say something crude to them because they don’t quite have that sense of humour. This is normal. I promise.

I love my friends for all different reasons. I dislike them hugely at times too, and this is a major thing I really picked up on at university. When I moved away and started to make new friends, I realised things I found there were things I desired in friendships – then I realised that this was a really fixed way of looking at it. Why am I looking for characteristics in people that I already have in others? Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of friends who are very similar to each other, and I get on with them for those reasons, but it’s OK that some of my friends are the complete opposites.

In fact, I love it. It gives me so much variety in what I can talk to people about, I’m not flittering between people repeating the same conversations and receiving the same answers. If I have some kind of issue I want opinions on, I can gather a complete range because my friends aren’t all clones of each other.

What I’m trying to say, is that at school it was drummed into you that your best friends were the people you got on really well with, or the ones that always invite you over to their house. This was incorrect, because when I left school I soon realised that a lot of people were in my life because of habit. This doesn’t mean I dislike them any less, it just means that when we were taken out of normal situation, it turned out we weren’t that good friends after all. It wasn’t fake, it was life.

Some people you will realise you actually have nothing in common with, and in reality they are actually a pretty shitty person. They lied to you, they were sly or they were just plain rude – either way, you’ve decided you actually don’t want them around anymore. That’s fine. Sometimes it takes a step back to realise what you were putting up with for the sake of a ‘friend’.

My advice is to evaluate what you want from your friends. If that friend makes you laugh til you’re belly hurts, but she has a tendency to gossip… then don’t tell her those really private things that you don’t want to be shared. Nobody's perfect, it's unlikely that you will find somebody with no faults or annoying habits. 

Oh, the most important thing - remember that you should be valued too, if somebody wants you in their life, they will show it and they will act on it. Don’t do all of the chasing, you’ll regret it one day.

Kirsti x

It's OK To Drift Apart From Friends

Before coming to uni I was completely convinced that your best friends were the ones that you had been friends with the longest. I was under the illusion that they had known you the longest, and therefore knew you the best. 

Then I met Kirst, and within a week of knowing her I realised that she already knew me better than people I had known my whole life (probably because we are basically the same person, but still), and I started to understand that the strength of a friendship is reliant on the quality of the time you have spent together. 

When we are at school we form cliques, and from a young age get stuck with a group that we convince ourselves, are the perfect people for us. We get comfortable, and the thought of ever not being friends with these people is impossible. We just assume that the only way the friendship will end is if we have a huge fall out, otherwise we will remain friends forever. 

Unfortunately as you grow up, and your circles widen, you realise that this assumption couldn't be more wrong. You soon start to realise that when you don't have school, or living in the same area forcing you to see each other all the time, the friendships do not remain the same. 

When these friendships are tested, true colours start to show and instead of the big fall out you imagined, the friendship just simply fades, and that's ok. 

You'll find that people become less interested in your life, and that when communication is no longer easy, people put less effort into doing so. You'll realise that there were so many things that you would just put up with  (when you shouldn't have), and it will cause you to view your 'friends' in a whole new light. You'll meet people that you are far more compatible with, and come to the realisation that you and your old friends don't really have that much in common. 

The point is that when we are younger we are far more programmed than we will ever realise. We stick to what's familiar, and often find ourselves in circles that are safe, but not necessarily where we fit in best. As your life starts to change, so will your interests and expectations, and it's completely ok if your old friendships begin to drift as a result. 

Change is good, and as you grow as a person it's natural for you to grow apart from people that were very much a part of the old you. 

This doesn't mean to say that you never talk to them again, but instead you accept that your friendship is no longer the same. Spending days together turns into the odd cuppa and catch up, telling them your life story turns into 'i'm good thanks, how are you?' and thinking you will be best friends forever turns into being thankful for the friendship that you once had... and that's OK. 

Emma x

Being Friends and Being House Mates

        

Being friends with someone and being house mates are two very different things. I adore my friends, would I choose to live with them? Nuh uh.

Em & I are quite lucky that we were house mates before we were friends. Well, we’d spoken on Facebook prior to meeting (that makes us sound creepy, doesn't it?) but we weren't really friends. Our friendship was based on learning. 1) We were learning about each other as a person, determining if we were going to be friends, how well we got on, how similar we are etc. and 2) we were learning to live with each other.

This sounds silly and quite obvious. But it’s something we both hadn't been through before, and many others haven’t before university. You've always lived with your family, people who take you for what you are because they've always had to. 

My brother was a nightmare when I was in my teens, he's so lazy and untidy and it was unbearable. But what could I do? I can scream and shout but its' just the way he is.

Now, we were quite lucky in our first year. We were surrounded by friends in other flats/houses who were going through hell. Flatmates who stole their food, smashed up the kitchen, broke doors, tables… whatever. Our flatmates were not perfect by a long-shot, they were unwilling to clean without being nudged, but they weren't the worst, so we were thankful. 

Anyway.... back to the subject. Em & I were getting to know each other, as a friend, as well as getting to know our daily habits. Em has a habit of cooking dinner, but using up all the worktop space. She has packets, chopping boards and random bits of food spread around our kitchen. I spent most of first year piling it up for her so I could make some room to cook my own dinner. 

Me? I talk to my food. That sounds odd. Let me give an example. I tell it to "hurry up" or "wait there". Ok that's odd. But anyway, living with strangers whilst growing a friendship means you learn absolutely everything about them, all at once.

Traditionally, people meet. They spend time together, they decide they like each other. They think they like each other enough to move in together - this means learning a whole new side to them. That boyfriend you've had for 7 years and you're sure is 'your perfect match'? Yeah... has a habit of leaving dirty tissues everywhere and he wears the same jeans 8 times before washing them. You now have to adapt to this.

Isn't it weird to think that you've known some of your friends for years, yet you're basing a friendship on only really knowing them for snippets of their life? You don't see them 24/7, you don't see them go through every emotion, every mood swing or every illness... You can pick and choose what you show. 

University is such a test. Em & I have a stronger friendship than I do with the majority of my friends from home. Why? Because we have to spend so much time together. We've learnt every aspect of each others character, there is nothing we can possibly hide. We know each other inside out. 

It works both ways. People I would usually have a great friendship with because we share the same sense of humour or the same interests, I can't stand because I know how lazy and unclean they are. 

Isn't it strange how you judge a friendship or relationship on how well you 'get on'? Yet you could be basing that whilst only knowing half of their character. I wonder how many of my existing friends I would still like if I'd had to learn all of their personality.