God? Religion? Life.

I am not a religious person. It is just a fact. I was never baptized and I have never really been to church. All of this is just fact. 

Ok, I know what you are thinking, "What the hell is she going on about? Why do I  do I need to know this?" And the answer is simple, you don't. This is just another one of those rants where I just write what is on my mind and for some reason this is it. 

Today has been a bit of a strange day. I have laughed, I have been angry, I have cried my eyes out and I have been lost. 

I have been lost for a while to be perfectly honest. I don't know where I fit in anymore. I don't know what my future holds for me. I don't know if I want to be studying anymore and I don't know if I like my job. I am a disaster zone but today I had some sort of clarity. Today I realized I was lost.

In the midst of my tears and my rage and my laughter, the sun was shining behind the blind that I didn't want to open. The world was still going on on the other side of the window. Nobody on the other side cared if I was crying or cared if I was ok. They had their own problems to deal with, their own lives to live. So I pulled myself together and opened that blind that cut me off from the world and let the sun into the room. 

Letting the sun in didn't really help the way I had expected it to. I still felt like crying or breaking something but I didn't. Instead I sat on my bed and stopped. I let the world fall away for a while. I let my mind wander and somewhere in all of the mess I was able to write something. Something that got me thinking. 

I wrote this: 

We spend our lives wishing. We wish for more money, more food and more clothes. We wish that we were better people and we wish that we could be meaner sometimes. We wish that we were honest or better liars. We wish that we were prettier or had better skin. We wish our lives away. We do not take the time to appreciate the little things around us, the things that we do have. We forget to appreciate our friends and our families until we can’t anymore. We forget to say ‘I love you’ to those we love the most. We forget that we can live. We are too caught up in what we don’t have or think we need to appreciate that we are alive, that God had granted us one more day on this planet to say what we are thankful for. We talk about those that are dead who cannot rest in peace because they have unfinished business. What if God gives us these days on earth to do those things we keep putting off? What if this is the time that He is giving us to say hello to that person you like? What if giving you an extra day to wake up in the morning is His way of telling you that you will be ok, you will get through that hard time and you will become that person that you want to be? 

Now, like I said I am not a religious person so I don't know where all that stuff about God came from. It just felt right to write it. 

I don't know if God is real. I don't know if the stories in the bible are true. I don't know if there is some higher power that guides us through life or if life is just what you make it (No Hannah Montana reference intended).

If God and religion help you through your tough times and help you get to where you want to be then so be it. If believing is what you need, then believing is what you should do. 

Like I said, I don't know if God is real or if He is something that I believe in but I do believe that we all need something to believe in. We all need that one thing that we know will be our constant, our never-changing entity. 

For me, my never changing entity is my Mum. Yes, she changes as a person and yes, she is different than how she was 10 years ago but she is still my mum. She will always be my mum. She is my never-changing entity, she is what I believe in. She is always there if I need her. She is always there to tell me I can do it or that things will get better. She believes in me like no one else. 

I really don't know how many people actually read this, or how many people actually care what I think. I don't know if this is just rambles that I put on the internet that nobody ever reads. And to be honest I don't mind. It feels good to know that it could be there for someone that may want to read it.

This is not a topic that I ever thought I would right about and it is definitely not something that I ever thought I would put on the internet but here it is. This is what I think, this is what I believe. This is what is going on in my head. 

Brothers

So a few hours ago my mum wrote a post on Facebook about her and my uncles (her brothers) with a picture underneath that said:

Brothers...

They tease you when they have

nothing else to do,

burp their alphabets to gross you out,

tackle you just for fun,

pull on your pony-tail and ask

"does this hurt you?",

hug you when you are sad,

encourage you when you are down, 

love you no matter what,

and are always there to make you laugh...

who could live without them?

I read this and immediately thought of my own two brothers. I am the middle child and have a brother on either side of me so I got to be the annoying younger sister, I still do a lot of the time actually,  but I get to be the role model too.

There is two years difference between me and my older brother. We used to fight like cat and dog and knock lumps out of each other, literally in some cases. We never seemed to get along no matter how hard our parents tried. We would fight over the most pointless of things like who had left a door open or who had left the chocolate bar wrapper or crisp packet on the side. We blamed each other for everything. There was the odd occasion when we would be playing video games on the same team or working together to get something out of our parents but most of the time we were banned from going near one another. That being said, he was always there for me when I needed him. He would stand up for me when I didn't even know he was there and we really did care about each other, we just had a funny way of showing it.

Now that we are older things are a bit different. We get along really well now but are still constantly teasing each other. We act more like children now than we did when we were actually children and I have to say that I love it. We laugh with each other more and seem to be able to talk more with each other. I don't know if us getting along has anything to do with us being older or whether it is because we don't live under the same roof 24/7 now but either way I am glad that I have him. Having him in my life just means that I know there will always be someone there who has my back, he may not always agree with me but he is still there.

When I was younger I loved him because I had to because he is my brother. Now I love him because I want to, not just because he is my brother.

My little brother is eight years younger than me. He recently turned ten and I could not get over how old he was. I couldn't help but think of when I first met him and when we brought him home from the hospital. He was my baby then and he still is. I am that big sister who mothers their younger sibling but can also be a big sister when the time is needed.

I jump on him and drive him crazy. I embarrass him and push all of his buttons. I make him hate me sometimes I push so far. He does it all straight back to me too. He makes me yell and cry and want to pull my hair out. That is only one end of the spectrum.

On the other end we get along like a house on fire. He makes me laugh until my stomach hurt and there are tears streaming down myself. He makes me smile on days that I didn't know it was possible. He makes me care about things that I never knew I would ever care about. I could spend hours hugging him and spending time with him. I spoil him rotten and buy him pretty much anything he asks me. He really does have me wrapped around his little finger.

I love him to much that it is crazy. I never actually knew it was possible to love someone as much as I love him at times. He can go from being my best friend to my worst enemy in the blink of an eye.

The answer to the last question though is not me. I could not live without my brothers and I don't know where I would be if I didn't have them. I definitely would not be who I am today with both of them in my life, one without the other is just not the same. I love my brothers.

"Writing Days"

There are some days where I would love nothing more than to sit on my bed with a pen and paper or my laptop and just write.

Its not like I even write about anything exciting, important or worth while. I just write whatever comes into my head. This varies from people's names scribbled in different ways to a short story length piece of work. I have even found myself copying out notes for school just to have a pen in my hand.

When I have no urge to actually write anything down (or can't find any paper) I find myself just sitting with a pen in my hand. Somehow the feel of the pen in my hand comforts me. Its almost like a safety blanket where I know its there if I need to write something down. This pen never seems to have a lid on it though. This normally results in me or everything around me being covered in pen.

I am one of those people who walks around with a pen and a notebook in their bag at all times just for the possibility of  inspiration striking. It very rarely does and I normally end up just having a pen in my bag for other people to use.

My only problem with days like these are that everything comes to a standstill. I can't seem to concentrate on school work so that goes out of the window. I can't watch anything on the TV because when I am writing I miss everything that happens. I also cannot just sit and do nothing because then I go crazy.

Today is one of what I like to call my "writing days". So I am so sorry if you have just read all of this. I'm sorry because it is all just one big ramble and I have no idea if any of it makes sense but there you go.

These are my late night thoughts for the day.

I suck at writing

Today I discovered something. I cannot write to save myself.

I can write, anyone can write if they want to, but I get to a stage and then don't know where to go. I have a head full of ideas and no words for the page.

Even writing this post I am struggling to find the words to explain what I am thinking. And if I write everything that comes into my head I just end up with a page that goes something along the lines of: AASDFGJVKBH.

I don't know how people do it. How do authors get to the end of a book and still make it good? How can they right a book in the first place??

These are things that I end up thinking about when I have writer's block. I couldn't even call it 'writer's' block, I'm not a writer. I could never claim to be a writer. My writing isn't even that good, or at least that's what I think.

I guess this is just me venting my feelings on writing, well maybe just not being able to write...

I'm so sorry if you wasted your time reading this I just had to write my thoughts down.

Trimester One

So my first trimester at University has just finished and I wanted to write about it.

So it began with moving into Halls of Residence with 4 other strangers. I didn't know who any of these people were or whether I would even get along with them. Things were a bit awkward to begin with but now it feels like I have known them forever. The two girls are probably the most amazing friends I will ever meet at Uni. They really have become my best friends and I really do love them. One of the boys drives the whole flat insane but I don't think I could change him otherwise things wouldn't be the same. And the last boy is just one of the girls really. We all laugh and joke and gossip together and it is so much fun.

I have realised that Netflix and other on demand players along with cards can make life a lot easier. We spent the first three weeks playing cards and making up drinking games. I think this is what helped to bring us all together.

Looking after drunk flatmates also helps you to become close as we discovered multiple times over the first few weeks of university.

I learned that Uni is sort of like high school too. You have just as much work to put in but just less days actually on campus. The work is harder and not so thoroughly explained and you are warned months in advance that the assignment will be due in.

Overall, I kind of like Uni so far. It is hard work and is extremely tiring. My sleep schedule is totally messed up and I have no money but life is good and my friends will most likely last me a lifetime.

NaNoWriMo?

I am currently sat in the lounge area of my student accommodation trying to help my flatmate create a presentation for her Graphic Design class. Going through her presentation stage by stage, helping her to get it just the way she wants it while also sticking to the brief is quite a challenge for this girl so she recruited me and another flatmate to help. Her concentration skills are quite a problem too, hence our current situation.  We are currently sat on the floor surrounded by laptops, paper, pens and textbooks. It is quite a crazy situation.

What does this have to do with NaNoWriMo?

I really don't know to be perfectly honest but it got me thinking about it. It got me thinking about writing and the time it takes to write. It did, however, get me thinking about how great an end project can turn out too. The end project can be especially good when there are people around you to provided you with inspiration. I sounds strange but I love the mess of crumpled up paper, pens all over the place and notes scribbled on things that might not be suitable for scribbling notes on.  

For those who don't know what NaNoWriMo is

NaNoWriMo is a non-profit organisation and stands for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place in the month of November and the aim is to write a draft of a 50,000 words novel by the end of the month. During the month you can gain a variety of badges such as writing badges, participation badges and personal achievement badges. NaNoWriMo however, does not allow you to write your novel on their site but I gives you a variety of different tools to help you to achieve your goal.

Anyway...

While we have been sitting here I have been thinking about writing and how much I miss it. I know that I have to write essays and reports for my course but that is not the same as just writing because it is fun and I enjoy it. I used to write stories all of the time when I was younger and would read them to my family. They all used to say how good they were and I know they were probably just saying that to make me go away and let them carry on with whatever I had just interrupted but I didn't care. I loved what I was doing. I loved being able to control how events were going to go. In a way though, it didn't feel like I was controlling the events that were happening but that these things were happening because of decisions that characters were making. I know it sounds stupid for an 18 year old girl to be talking about people she has made up taking on a life of their own but when I am writing that's what seems to happen.

I think I am too late to join in with NaNoWriMo this year but I think writing is something that I am going to pick up again. It give me a distraction from having to be a grown up for some time and it is something that I really enjoy. I have lots of new things to inspire me now too which could make for an interesting read.

I would love to know right now how many people would read a book that I wrote but I know that that would never happen. I guess I will just see how things go.