Be Brave: Hello May - Rant, Reflection and Goal Setting

Hey there May, how's it going? I've been waiting for you anxiously, it's rather nice to see you to be honest! 

April has been one of the hardest months of my entire life. I would honestly like to feel hopeful that May is going to throw some good news and positivity my way, but with all of the heartbreak that I have endured during April I can't really see that happening, I will try to be hopeful. 

So like I just said, April has honestly been one of the hardest months that I have ever lived through, the hardest since the passing of Grandaddy P. Honestly, it breaks my heart knowing how much pain Granny P is in at the moment, it's breaking me down. I know that I have to stay strong for her, I know that every time I see her beautiful face I have to be brave, I have to show her that it's not killing me inside, even though it is. 

I've spent so much of April breaking down emotionally that I'm struggling to find my happy place, I'm struggling to remember a time before this, it feels like we've been living with this for longer than we have. People often tell you to prepare yourself for the worst when a situation like this occurs, but I don't think that's possible at all, you can expect something but the moment that it actually happens it's going to break your heart, possibly and probably more than you thought it was going to, it doesn't matter that you've tried to avoid feeling like that. 

I pray every single day that Granny P will recover, I pray that her pain will vanish and that she will become the Granny P that my family adore and miss so very, very much. I pray that we aren't going to lose her because I don't know what I would do or who I would be without her, I don't know how I would get past that. For as long as I have lived I had always thought of her as invincible, even through the passing of my Granddad. I never once thought I would ever lose her, she was always my invincible Grandmother. 

Family is the most important thing in this world, more important that money, power and pride, it comes hand and hand with happiness. Family is my happy place and right now it's broken and I pray that it's not broken beyond repair. Remember the good times, that's what everyone tells you, but it's not that simple.

I'm going to be honest with you straight away, I didn't check up on my goals at all during April and I doubt that I've completed many of them, hopefully May will be a better month.

APRIL GOALS

• Fix my sleeping pattern.
• Wake up in time for the sunrise as often as I can.
• Read 4 books.
• Decorate Easter Eggs.
• Bake Easter Egg cupcakes.
• Work towards achieving my dreams. 
• Complete 4 chapters of my book.
• End procrastination for good.
• Disconnect from the world when working.
• Fly a kite.
• Complete the 'walk in her shoes' challenge. 
• Blog every week.
• Visit many book stores and read many books
• Visit a farmers market.
• Pick fresh berries.
• Be happy. 

I told you I didn't complete much, I'm honestly surprised that I completed anything!

MAY GOALS

• Wake up in time for the sunrise every morning. I'm actually really excited to fullfill this goal, I often find this a ever growingly hard thing to do, mainly because I'm such a night owl, but I do love mornings, I love the morning feeling (if you ignore the waking up part).
• Read 4+ books. I absolutely adore reading, I have a huge pile of books that I need to make a start on and I hope that during May I have plenty of time to start them.
• Spend loads of time with Granny P. I want to spend as much time with Granny P as possible, I'm so scared of what might happen, I'm so scared of losing her. I have to spend as much time with her as I possibly can because I adore spending time with her. 
• Help Mummy P move home. So my mums finally moving home and town, which is going to suck a little more me, but I'm really excited for her, she deserves and needs this. 
• Work towards achieving my dreams. I'm going to have to see how May pans out before I can fully dedicate myself to working towards this goal this month, fingers crossed that I have the time for this. 
• Make progress of my book. I've started writing a book and I'm quite excited about it, I haven't wrote all too much, but it's going to take some time. 
• End procrastination for good. I'm a master at procrastination, but it's something that irritates me about myself.
• Disconnect from the world when working. This was something that I managed to do last month, I've found it to become quite a positive thing, I get a lot more done without the internet. 
• Blog every week. I love blogging about anything and everything, especially my feelings and what's going on in my life, so expect plenty of posts this month. 
• Visit many book stores and read many books. As I've said, I love reading, adore it actually, I can't wait for this one. 
• Be happy. Happiness is the most important thing in this life. 

I can't help but apologise for my emotional breakdown at the beginning of this post, but if you know me personally or you have experienced something like this then you will know what I am going through and how I am feeling.

I pray that May is a better month than April.

I pray for no more bad news, I can't handle anymore bad news.

I pray Granny P recovers.

I pray life gets better.

Have a lovely month,

Ash. xx

Currently: Life Update

One thing that I haven't done in awhile is tell you what i'm currently loving, hating, reading and doing in life, so here's a little update on my life...

…reading  Girl Online by Zoella. I've began reading a lot more recently and I can honestly say that I've missed it so much, once upon a time I would reading would be all that I would do, then I found myself distracted my life, unable to concentrate, I guess that's when I know that I am sort of content with life, when I'm able to lose myself in a book.

…watching  too much, yet not enough. If there's one thing in this world that I adore it's watching films and television shows, I've literally just finished watching Daredevil and I must say that I was absolutely blown away with how fantastic it was. I'm thinking about starting Once Upon A Time soon, I've heard great things about this show. I'm also currently in the middle of watching various other shows such as; Bates Motel, Under The Dome, Bones and, Supernatural...

…trying to find myself a job. University is over and my life is moving forward, this is something that I've been excited about for the longest time, the time is here where I get to have control over my own life.

…eating Nothing, although it's now past lunch time, I should probably make some food once this post is done with.

…pinning EVERYTHING…I pin so much, fashion, crafts, places to fulfil my wanderlust, just everything.

…tweeting Usually about my blog, hoping to get it out there a little more, hoping that it will interest people.

…going to spend the rest of my day doing something productive. Productivity makes me feel like the day hasn't been wasted, it makes me feel alive.

…loving My family…more than anything. They are my rock, they are the people that keep me strong, even though sometimes it's hard, and when I say family, I do also mean my best friend and boyfriend, without them I wouldn't be who I am, I would be so much weaker right now.

…discovering that happiness is the key to life's success, that no matter how much you think someone is invincible, it doesn't make it true.

…enjoying  life.

...thinking about my Grandmother, which is the same thing that I have been thinking about for the past month, thinking that we still have time to make some beautiful memories.

…feeling content with life, happy that I have so many wonderful people in my life.

…hoping that everything is going to be okay.

...listening to Tich - Obsession.

…thanking  my loved ones for being who they are, for loving me and being there regardless.

…starting to plan my life.

Leave a comment and tell me what's currently been happening in your life

xo

The Fear of death

Ever since I was a little girl, my biggest fear was the idea of death, the night terrors that I used to have and still do have to this day, make these fears so much more intense. I can't even remember the amount of nights that I have woken up crying, or the nights that I was unable to sleep due to thinking and so desperately fearing death and all of the unanswered questions. Nothing in this world could ever comfort these thoughts, these are the thoughts that will stay with us for the entirety of our lives, mainly because the questions can never be answered. 

I'm now 21 and I find myself to be just as scared not as I was when I was a little girl. How can you expect these fears to go away when we can't ever possibly answer the questions? It's hard not to think about something that you fear, especially when trying to sleep, when your brain goes into overdrive.

Last night I found myself lay in bed struggling to sleep, with various thoughts coming into my brain, the subject of death screaming to be listened to. I can't help but fear what the world will become once I am done, I fear the idea of being gone, the ides of never being again, no one remembering that I ever was. I can't help but imaging what will happen after that, imagining the nothingness that I will feel…or won't feel. I can't help but hope that there is more to life than this inevitable, I hope that once we die, something else happens. I despise the idea of dying and never existing again, just disappearing into the dark abyss.

I fear oblivion, I fear it like the proverbial blind man fears the dark.

Death has always been a hard subject for me to process, it's hard to understand that this specific part of your future is inevitable, it's always going to happen and there's nothing that can stop this. There is no comfort in the idea of knowing that this happens to everyone, that there is no escaping it, in fact, this just helps to make these feelings so much worse, if I said that it makes my life feel claustrophobic would that sound stupid? This is because it's always around, it's never, ever going away. Thinking about this too much makes me feel physically sick, it sends my brain into overdrive, causes me to think about all of the unanswered questions that are often related with this subject…What happens when I die? What if I have nothing to leave behind? What happens to my loved ones?

If there is one thing in this world that we cannot avoid, it's fears and phobias, whether you like to admit it or not you are probably feared of something and it just so happens that one of the biggest world wide is the fear of death. Death means the end to everything for one individual, the end of everything that they knew, the end of everything that they used to be and everything that they could have ever been.

I've found that there's nothing that can stop my mind getting side-tracked  nothing that can stop me thinking and worrying about this. It's inevitable that once you leave this world, you will eventually be forgotten  everything that you have ever created will disappear with you, is that something we should fear? One of the worst things is not knowing when your time is going to come, not knowing how long you have to live your life. There are so many things that I want to do before it's my time to go, so many places that I want to visit, so many things that I want to experience. The idea of leaving behind something meaningful is wonderful, something that you can live through, some kind of legacy, to me that will be the family that I hope to one day create, my future children. 

Just as much as I fear leaving this world, I fear losing my loved ones. At 21, I have lost my more people in my life than I care to think about. The hardest thing that I have ever experienced was losing my beloved Granddad, knowing that I was never going to see his face again, I fear losing anyone else, I fear the breakdown that will come with that, I fear it more than anything. I'm just as scared of losing my loved ones as they are of losing me.

Spending time thinking and writing about this subject just makes me realise how precious life is, how much we often take it for granted, even though we shouldn't. We should not spend our time dwelling on the idea of dying, or the idea of losing those around us. We need to make every second of our lives count because we never know which moment is going to be our last. We should do what we enjoy in this life, achieve greatness, bring a family into the world and most importantly be happy. We should never let the idea of death take over our lives because it;s time will come. We should enjoy life as it is for what it is and remember that nothing in this life is worth is if you're not happy.

Until next time xoxo

April Playlist

Music takes me to another world

April has been a pretty hectic month for myself, a lot of changes have been made and I've been extremely stressed. Music is one of my favourite ways of escaping the world, my way of completely throwing myself into a dream world and forgetting reality. Throughout April I've listened to a varied amount of different music, so I thought I'd share the playlist that has helped me get from where I was this time last month, to where I am today…enjoy!

1. Mcbusted - Love Me Like You Do 

2. George Ezra - Listen To The Man

3. Taylor Swift - The Best Day

4. Olly Murs ft. Demi Lovato - Up

5. Mcfly - Love Is Easy 

6. Taylor Swift - Shake It Off 

7. 'N Sync - Bye Bye Bye

8. Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk 

9. Christina Perri ft. Ed Sheeran - Be My Forever 

10. Demi Lovato - BelieveIn Me

These musicians could get me through anything, I could listen to these 10 songs over and over again and never get bored. What's been stuck in your head throughout April?

Until next time xoxo

Invincibility doesn't exist

There's one major thing that you don't notice whilst you're younger, something that you continue not to notice as you grow older. That one thing is that everyone around you is growing older too, those people that you once thought were invincible don't look so invincible anymore.

Sometimes I look back and try to pin point exactly when I first noticed it, but I really can't put my finger on it, I don't know if I ever really began to notice. Your parents and grandparents kind of base their lives around you, you're one of their sole purposes for being who they are and doing what they do, they spend so much time looking after you when you're younger, helping you to decide the person that you're destined to be that we sometimes forget to take a good look at them, we just don't realise that as we are ageing, they are ageing too. 

The older I get, the more I worry. I'm 21 and I've already lost more people in my life than I care to think about, the most agonising being my beloved Granddad. One thing that's interesting about when I lost my Granddad was that I had never really noticed that he wasn't invincible, until he was ill, that was the moment that it hit me, like a bus, the moment that I realised that he isn't going to be here forever, the moment that I wondered how I could go on without him or any of my other loved ones. 

Losing people is by far the hardest thing that I have ever had to deal with in my life, despite all of the bad things that have happened in my life. Nothing can ever soothe this pain, the next time you lose someone, it's just going to be as bad as the first time, it will never get better and that's the disastrous thing about losing people. 

Take a good long look as the people around you, the people who have looked after you since the day that you were born and just remember to love them as much as you humanly can, remember to spend as much time with them as possible and create memories that will be remembered for a lifetime. 

Family is one of the most important things to any one individual, never should it be taken for granted. 

"Family, where life begins and love never ends." 

Give what you can to those you love, especially your time, time is the most precious thing on this planet. Love like you have never loved before and create memories that will be burned into your brain for as long as you live. Show the people around you what they truly mean to you, don't for one second think that it's okay to postpone that, and most importantly, never let them forget what they mean to you.

Until next time xoxo

Moving forward

Each blogger will understand what I go through on a day to day basis when I talk about just staring at the blank blog post before me, struggling and trying to figure out what to blog about. I'm learning that I shouldn't let it be as hard as it sometimes is, I should just blog when it comes naturally to me instead of trying to force out random words onto the blank page before me. 

I've been sitting here for a good half an hour, just staring at this blank, white page, so clean, so empty…that's the problem, it's empty…well, not anymore!

As most of you know, if you occasionally look at my blog at least, I have been a University student for the past 3 years and with this comes a string of regrets, a string of crushed dreams and aspirations. One thing that I do like to think about my time at University it that it's helped me to grow as an individual. I can honestly say that if I had never took the plunge into University, then I wouldn't be who I am today, I might not have the life that I have today.

The past 3 years I have been filled with so much hatred for the world, for my degree, for the people on my degree, but it's not their fault, it's not my fault, it's the education systems fault, and although I dislike to try and lay blame onto other people, that's all I can do here. If I'd have never been told from such an early age that the only way to get a good job and be successful was to go to school and achieve great GCSE'S, then to College and then to University, then I'd have probably never even considered going to Uni. What's done is done, although the last 3 years have been the absolute bane of my existence. I can honestly say that I am now feeling happy, happier than I have in the longest of time. My life is about to start, I'm about to be released into the real world, to get a job, to have money, most importantly, to have control of my own life, which is something that I don't think I have ever had.

Like I have said, University helped me to grow as a person, it encouraged who I have become. 3 years ago I was a completely different person in so many ways. Uni has helped me to grow up mentally, it's helped me to age in a way I needed to, although maybe now my brain is too old for my age, but that's perfectly acceptable. Do you know what the greatest thing is? Soon I will never have to do another Uni assignment, I feel like I'll be set free, like a bird from a cage, it's a wonderful feeling. I've never in my life found anything as hard and as challenging as Uni, and although it's a wonderful thing to challenge yourself in life, it's also good to make sure that the thing that's challenging you is actually something that you want because if not, you're not going to give it your all, you're not going to care if you fail or succeed, but like they say, it's better to try and fail than never to try at all. 

I will forever regret applying for this degree and accepting my place to study a BSc in Broadcast and Media Production at Liverpool John Moores University, but I will not regret who it has made me become, I'm a much better person for going through this, I know more about myself than I ever did, I know more of what I want and more importantly what I don't want, most importantly, I now know that being happy is the one thing that matters above anything else, nothing is at all worth it if happiness isn't in your life. 

My life is truly about to start, I'm about to move forward with life and that's the most exciting thing that I have ever experienced. No longer will I accept the unhappiness that I most certainly do not deserve, no more will I do something that I'm not passionate about, no more will I not be myself. The past few months of my life have already progressively got better, with the introduction of new and wonderful people into my life, a wonderfully incredibly boyfriend, a best friend who I can count on like a sister, a family who I can depend on, people who encourage me and inspire me…how can the people in my life get any better? Here's the time to begin concentrating on other aspects of my life, I now have a house to pay for, food to put onto the table, bills to pay for, bank overdrafts to pay back, student loans to payback and a life of adventure, love and happiness to plan for. I have so many plans, so many dreams to achieve, so many things that make me look forward to the future, so many wonderful people in my life that make me look forward to the future. 

The future is coming, it's coming fast and it's coming soon. Things are changing, my life is about to change for the better, it's time to feel like I belong in this world, like I have a place, a purpose. It's time to kick stress out of my life, after all, stressing solves nothing, it just causes problems. 

So here's to the future, here's to the life that I'm going to have, the people that will hopefully be in my life for the longest of time. Here's to who I have become, who I am yet to become and who I am forever destined to be. Here's to having passion, showing kindness and being happy…here's to the life that I deserve, the life that I am going to throw myself into. 

Have a wondeful day my lovelies xoxo

Have courage and be kind