Time to be selfish.

For what feels like the first time in my life I am going to put myself first.

I am ill. I won't get better unless I give myself a break, cut myself some slack and let myself off the hook for once.

This isn't me using my illness as an excuse, or opting out of things because I can't be bothered. This is me making a serious decision about my future. The way I look at it I have two options:

1) Keep going as I am, keep myself sick and end up making myself worse in the long run.

2) Take some time out, do things for myself and prevent things getting worse in the future.

I'm not superman. I can't do everything.

This is my body telling me that I can't cope. I've been ignoring it for far too long and it's time I listened.

So for once in my life, I am going to be an entirely selfish being. If I don't feel I can do something, I will tell someone I'm not up to it.

I am going to stop comparing myself to other people. Maybe I'm not as strong as everyone else, maybe I am wired differently. That's neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It just is. It's not my fault, it's out of my control. I must stop blaming myself.

I won't let this beat me.

(Who am I trying to convince? You or me?)

"I'm vulnerable, I'm vulnerable
I am not a robot
You're loveable, so loveable
but you're just troubled"

I am not a robot.

"You've been acting awful tough lately,
Smoking a lot of cigarettes lately,
but inside you're just a little baby."

Breakthrough.

I can't work out of this is a good thing or not. I don't want to use it as an excuse and I'm determined to everything I did before. I just can't shake the feeling that this is a sign to slow the fuck down.

Something has got to give.

But what?

also

I take it back. I feel completely defined by the last three weeks. I think that's who I am.

I'm scared.

Hello square one.

I'm not sure about today. It was good in terms of people, no awkwardness, no issues. Now I'm home I feel horrible and I don't know why. I have (almost) everything I thought I was lacking, and yet I still feel terrible.

When I said "I'm getting there", I lied. I'm nowhere near "there" - wherever the bloody hell that is. I wish someone knew.

Maybe nothing will shift this.

That scares me.

There are no beautiful suicides...

just cold corpses with shit in their pants
and the end of the gifts.

Today was a good day.

Today the sun was shining. I wish more days were like today.

A comforting find.

"Everybody here is living life in fear of falling out of line
Tearing lives apart and breaking lots of hearts just to pass the time
And the eyes get red in the back of your head, this place will make you blind
Put it all behind me and I'll be just fine"

I stumbled upon these lyrics from a song called Back Home by Yellowcard. The entire song is pretty apt, but this particular section really grabbed me. The song itself was written about an East Coast boy living living in California, but it seems to perfectly sum up how I feel about London. This got me thinking that maybe it's not just London. There are people in almost every city in the world who feel this way. It's a comforting thought.

Overhaul.

Time for change, I think. I refuse to let the last few weeks define me. The fact that I felt nothing short of sheer terror on my return to London makes me think that there's a distinct possibility that things are not entirely well with on planet me. Therefore, I have decided to change. Things I will no longer do:

> Wear all black. This is never a good look. Colour is my friend and it's time I embraced it.

> Spend all day in bed. This never fails to make me feel like a complete waste of human life. Therefore, I will find something to do with every day from now on. There's a whole city outside my front door and instead of hating it, it's time I embraced it.

>Drink to excess. This is a big one. Lately, I have gotten to a point where I cannot go out of a night without having drunk at least a bottle of wine before, and then continuing to drink at wherever I am. This leads to embarrassing levels of drunkenness, followed by public displays of stupidity and terrible decisions that lead to spending the next day in a relatively depressed and all round sorry state while I attempt to piece together exactly where the night went wrong. It's like that film The Hangover, only not funny. Not even one bit. And, to my knowledge, I've never married a stripper.

> Panic about the fact that I'm single. I say this now, but give it a few hours and I'll, once again, be convinced that I am horrible and will die alone. Still, I like to think intention goes some way to achieving the desired result.

Things I will do:

> New look. Sort of. I will endeavour to at least make a small effort to make myself look nice every day. I find that, and this is probably universal, if I look good then I feel good and my day tends to go a little better - or at least starts well.

> I will go to museums, read books and generally become less ignorant of the world I live in.

> I will concentrate on the things and people that are important to me and worth my time. Priorities include: University, Family, Friends (with certain exceptions).

> I will become better and sorting those worth my time from those who are not. It's terrible cliche, but I shall no longer waste time on people who would not waste time on me. It sounds harsh, but necessary.

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." - Maya Angelou

Back to London

I'm terrified.

Experience?

"If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." - Mary Pickford

In recent times I have found myself making more than my fair share of mistakes. It would be easy to blame these mistakes on however much alcohol was in my blood stream at the time, but, in reality, I always believe that alcohol only allows you to do things you'd never have the balls to do sober. To save this from being a long, self-deprecating ramble, suffice to say that I hurt some people that mean a lot to me, people I would have normally gone out of my way to make happy. I can't shake the feeling that the person in the mirror is a girl I don't know and I find myself longing for the days when I was a simple, small town girl with small town aspirations, ignorant of the world outside and how ugly a place it can be. Ignorance, so it would seem, is complete and utter bliss.

I've tried to rationalise these mistakes, or at least give them some level of justification by telling myself that I've learnt from them and that they are all invaluable life experiences, after all a life in which you make mistakes is vastly more interesting that a life spent at home too scared to go out your own front door and make some bad decisions. Even so, it's very difficult to not be a little disappointed in myself.

I'd like to blame these mistakes on anything but myself - alcohol, coercion, loneliness - or that I'm just a single girl in a big city trying to enjoy my life, but the unfortunate truth is that my attempts at making myself happy have left me more miserable that ever and at a complete loss as to where to turn next. Naturally, I did the logical thing and went back to my mums, immersing myself in who I was when I was a care free sixteen year old listening to Taking Back Sunday like they were the only thing that mattered.

Turns out you can't run from your problems. The place you call home, the bed you sleep in at night, the people you call your friends - all these things can change but unless you do too, your problems will stay the same. You can't run from yourself.