the latter months

We’re currently in my favourite time of year. Approaching winter, approaching my birthday, approaching christmas.

The cold, harsh winds that kiss your face as you step out every morning - still trying to dress for summer, hiding the jumper until you can acceptably bring out your favourite christmas jumper. The nights become dark, for a while it messes with your mind it’s 3pm but the sun is setting so maybe i’ve wasted the day and it’s actually 7pm, but when you adjust it just creates a better feeling, a sort of cosiness ignored by summer.

There’s less light in the day but doesn’t that just make it. . .cosier? It’s so much more appropriate to sit in bed and watch netflix whilst drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate.

The looming thoughts of christmas and celebrating the new year, what will it bring? where will it take me?

Maybe it’s only the beginning of November but I’m already planning the beginning of 2016.

The rain turns cold, or more than cold, and you know you’re hitting the final weeks of the year - the most exciting ones.

Perhaps your favourite time of the year says a lot about you, maybe it’s more than just preference.

As christmas lights appear in every city and town centre, the hopes for a white christmas come to mind but knowing it’s never going to happen.

November babies can probably relate to the struggle that is a birthday not quite close enough to christmas but not quite far enough away. Being born just a month before christmas eve I always feel slightly too close to christmas, I kind of wish there was longer because birthdays and christmas are my two favourite things and I wish I got more time to enjoy both. Regardless - I love both.

We all know that Buble and Mariah come out to play now and, as much as we laugh and make fun of it, we all secretly love dancing around the house to those cheesy christmas songs as soon as we can. People keep saying christmas comes earlier each year but is anyone complaining?! 

For me, christmas is such a family-orientated time and I couldn’t be without the routine my family have for presents, christmas breakfast, christmas dinner and family-game-night in the evening. I love how, even though I have an insanely close family, we feel so connected over the holiday period.

I love the bare trees, maybe autumn is prettier but winter feels more real.

The weather is colder and so often, the people are too but throughout winter we are blessed with small joys and little things to keep the happiness up.

The wins we have created through the year cannot be over shadowed as we look towards the future, towards the joys of next year.

Maybe it’s slightly too early to be writing about the new year but trust me there are plenty more to come because I can never quite express my love for the November-February period.

- and some motivation should you need it - “November. Another chance to start on something new.” - 

old flames

I don’t think I ever understood how people saw galaxies in other people until I looked into his eyes, I saw the moon and stars swirling in a sea of blue. I saw the universe appear and disappear as his eyes opened and closed; the way the night sky disappears as you slowly fall asleep.

I never imagined a feeling so deep but when he laughed so hard that his face crinkled in on itself I’ve never wanted to hold on to someone so much.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get how you can fall so hard without the feeling being mutual. When I looked at him I saw the world, I saw everything I ever wanted to see; when he looked back he saw nothing but a friend, someone who’d be there to talk about other girls too. 

When he giggles, ruffles his hair and it pains me to think about how happy it made me, how happy he made me with all his little quirks. People say the point of loving someone isn’t thinking they are perfect but noticing their flaws and loving them anyway; maybe that’s what I did, though love is the wrong word. A strong feeling because I saw his flaws, I could recognise them but I liked him anyway.

I knew the words he spoke at 3am when he was over tired but didn’t want to sleep, I knew the feelings he hid to create his persona; because your naked soul is a sacred thing - it shouldn’t be thrown around. . .so why did he let me see his when he just wanted to throw me away.

It’s the memory from another time, another place but it consistently blows up in my mind when yet again I cannot stop missing him. Because, many months ago he broke you but today you remembered something he said, ‘but, it makes you happy when I call you baby?’; suddenly an explosion of memories, everything he said that made you happy and you want that back, you miss the late night conversations - you miss the small things.

You see, I’m scared of the dark but walking along the beach at night with him has never been more calming, I’ve never felt safer than wrapped in his arms.

I’ve never felt more alone than when he threw me away like I was nothing. 

I’ve never felt more pain than when I told him my deepest secrets and he told me it was my fault, that it was just a phase.

I’ve never felt more upset than when he told me all his feelings were just pretend and he just wanted me to be happy.

Everyone around me is falling, everyone around me is smitten so why am I constantly falling for a boy who is merely an echo from my past, someone I haven’t meant something too for so long? Sat wondering where it all went wrong - why can it never be right place, right time?

They say it takes twenty-one days to make or break a habit but it’s been a year and I still call your name even though I know you’re not here. It’s not easy getting over someone you almost had, maybe it’s harder than letting go of someone you did have. Almost. Almost. Almost.

Perhaps it’s pathetic but, wow, my heart still drops at the sound of your name, my throat still tightens when they talk about you and my eyes still flood when I think too deeply.

I’m sure this feeling went away, the moment you said you didn’t want ‘us’ anymore and I felt everything drop to my stomach. I never thought I’d see you again but, oh god, I did and it hurt but it made everything seem okay again. 

Only you did it again - you said it again and I broke again.

I’m scared of heartbreak and I fear rejection but with you, it seemed impossible so I gave you the opportunity: you took my heart and crushed it in your hands, more than once.

I’m sorry I still cannot get you off my mind. I’m sorry your name runs through my head like it has twice before but right now I’d rather hear your voice than my favourite song.

All I want to do is see you, feel you, be with you but I know if I do my heart will break again, I can’t let you break me thrice when I never had you once.

How To Escape

es·cap·ism

əˈskāpˌizəm/

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.

I feel like a truly important part of life is to have escapisms.

I think that by staying in reality your whole life can be somewhat uncomfortable and overbearing, ignoring the world and blanking out, for me, is a necessity; a vital part of my daily life, if you will.

The great thing about escapisms is that it can come from anything and it doesn’t even have to be something ordinary. They can be individual and as long as it gets you away from the ‘unpleasant realities’ in a safe way, you should never be ashamed or afraid of them.

From writing to exercise, any way you can escape from life and focus on you and one thing is better than focusing on what is happening around you - even if it’s not been a bad day. Sometimes having a good day can still call for a little escape.

Escapisms allow us to move past the reality we are living, they allow us to forget about our stresses and what we’re meant to have done or be doing and that’s great because when life becomes too stressful, there is an easy answer.

I like books that I can so easily get into, movies, or music where I can just sit, close my eyes and really listen to the lyrics and just, not live for a while. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, either, quite the opposite. I think we should be able to escape, not even from ‘unpleasant realities’ just from reality, even if your life is all but perfect, why shouldn’t you be able to forget about everything?

Whether it be a book or music, we each have our own means of escaping from our own realities for a period of time. I’m just wondering how reading a book can transport you from the world we’re all in, to a place where it’s just you and the book - it can, I’m not disputing that, we’ve all experienced it, but how? I think it’s extraordinary.

How is it so easy to forget about the world but still be there, in your room or wherever you may be, to still be alive and breathing in your home town but to feel like you are alive and breathing in Hogwarts or watching the Hunger Games from the Capitol. Or, maybe you’re sat with your eyes closed, favourite song on repeat, and you’re there, in your perfect World, relaxed.

I love it and I truly, truly hope that everyone has their own personal escapism, maybe it’s something I haven’t even mentioned, maybe it’s your own way of surviving the tough times, or the easy times. I think everyone needs an escapism, because how can one live in reality for too long?

For me, my favourite ways to escape reality are either writing or going for a run, both with my headphones in and music going, any playlist where I can listen to every song and enjoy it really helps me to get away from all that’s going on. I think writing sounds obvious and general, maybe it is for people who enjoy it because it honestly is an incredible way to forget your life - creating a life for a fictional person, being able to control their every move, every aspect of their looks and personality. Just to put my headphones in and be alone with my keyboard or a pen and paper. Is running a ‘usual’ escapism? Or do you all think I’m crazy now? I just think that to be outside, running across the beach or around the downs with a beautiful view of my town is a great thinking space, or a space to get everything off your mind - whichever alternative is best for your ‘escapist’ needs.

If you don’t have a perfected escapism, please find one, there is nothing harder than having to go through life without a way of forgetting it all for at least five minutes a day. Whatever it may be; fall in love with a film, create art, workout or put on your favourite playlist and lay on your bed with your eyes closed for a while.

Escape from the world and clear your mind for a while and always have fun doing it.

Feel free to share your escapisms with me and us all.

Love,

Samiie xo

Five Years Time

A question everyone will get asked at multiple points in their life is ‘where do you see yourself in 5/10/20 years time?’, especially in your teen years as you’re approaching ‘adult life’. To be completely honest, it’s something I’ve been asking myself for the past year or two.

Where will I be in five years?
What will I be doing in ten years?
But, thinking about it, it’s such a crazy question. Who could possibly say where they’d be in five or ten years, let alone looking forward twenty years.

In five years time, I’ll be 23, mid twenties (ish), I can tell you where I’d like to be, but not where I see myself being. In five years, I’d like to be studying in America, I want to be content with life and I want to have travelled, not a crazy amount, but just a few more places. I want to have been to New York and explored art museums. I hope to have been to London some more, I live so close to London but the opportunity to go rarely arises. I also want to be a lot further through any writing projects I have at the moment.

In ten years time, I’ll be twenty eight, hitting my late twenties. I hope to be living in, or around, New York (the state, not the city, though the city would be incredible). I hope to be an author, but maybe with a more convincing, safe job on the side. I can definitely say I won’t be a published author by twenty eight, so maybe writing will be more of an aside. I hope to have my own apartment, flat or something to call my own. Whether I’m living there alone, with a friend or a partner, I just want somewhere to call my own. I hope to have travelled more, just around America, maybe I’ll have been to California or Nevada. I hope to have completed more of my bucket list, maybe it’ll be nearly done by now.

In twenty years time, I’ll be thirty-eight and that’s nearly forty and that’s quite scary. Maybe I’ll have a family, I would like to by that age. Maybe I’ll have moved out of New York into another state and own my own house, or maybe I’ll still be in New York. Perhaps, I’ll have moved back to England (though, I don’t really want to). I think by that age, the only thing I can really ask for is a happy, healthy family.

I can say all this, I can have all these ambitions but something could happen tomorrow that could change one or all of these things. Anything could happen along the way that would make me have to adjust or completely change these plans. That’s what scares me. Nothing in life is certain and it makes it hard to have ‘plans for the future’. 

Saying that, I believe that everyone should have plans; if you don’t have plans you have nothing to aim for. Stumbling aimlessly through life seems scarier than aiming to be somewhere. Even if your situation changes along the way, even if your dreams change along the way, always have them. Always aspire to be somewhere, be something, be someone.

This leads me to the question, where would you like to be in five years time?

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” - Walt Disney.

Contentment

Do you ever feel completely content with life? Do you ever just have one day where everything seems okay, everything seems to have fallen into place. Even if it’s just for one day.

Even if it’s 1a.m. and you’re lying in bed and looking around your room and just for the moment, everything seems right.

The problem with feeling content is that it never lasts too long. I see a lot of people saying they feel content and the next day it’ll be the opposite. It’s funny that you can feel so content one day and the next you may feel like you’re falling apart; I feel like we should live for that content feeling, we should remember how it felt and that it’s possible for everything to be okay.

I know that it would be hard (but not impossible) to constantly feel okay, to constantly feel at peace with your life - this is why contentment is such a great feeling. You know that you’re okay.

Perhaps you’ve started something new and you’re succeeding at it and it’s making you feel good; maybe you stuck to your schedule; maybe something generally amazing happened that put all your worries aside and you just feel happy. Anything can make you feel content, it’s just what breaks that feeling that I find to be the problem, so I prefer not to focus on it.

When you feel content, it’s almost like life has come to give you a hug and pat you on the back, as though you’ve achieved something; even if you haven’t. It’s that moment where you just wish everything could stay as it is because you wouldn’t mind feeling that for the rest of your life. 

Contentment is defined as ‘a state of happiness and satisfaction’ which, in truth, can be found in mostly anything, so why do we feel it so little? In my opinion, it’s because the more we get, the more we want. It is said that the richer you are, the less giving you are with money because you have more so you want more; of course I am not saying this is true for everyone. I feel like we should all realise that we could have nothing, or a lot less than we have now and just appreciate what we have. It would be hard for me to say ‘look, your life is good, appreciate that’ because I know I’d be a hypocrite to say such thing because, my life is good but sometimes I don’t appreciate that.

It’s only moments like this that make me realise I’m fine and I’m okay and one day I’ll be sat in my own kitchen eating breakfast at 11am on a Sunday morning and regardless of whether I’m alone, with a partner or a family, I’ll have made it. This is how I get through the hard times - I think of contentment and how one day I will be content with life and what I have and I will have made it. All the hard times, all the worries of ‘will I go to uni?’ or ‘will I make it through college?’ will one day be over. And, in all honesty, I think it’s what everyone should live for. Don’t live for your best friends or your pet dog, live for the day where you look back and feel happy that you stayed. Live for the feeling of contentment every day.

Dreaming

I love dream theories and when people look up the meaning behind their dreams and take things from it. I love the idea of writing your dream down as soon as you wake up and then being confused three days later. It’s something I aim to do next year.

But, the best thing about dreams? In my opinion, it’s that, even now, scientist don’t know why we dream. As I said, I love dream theories, I love reading about why people think we dream, however out of blue or well thought out they are. I thought I’d share some with you. (If you’re not into science I really hope these make sense and you enjoy these because it may get very science-y).

1) Wish Fulfilment.

This is a theory that claims that whatever we dream, happy, sad, scary or dull, is us granting ourselves wishes we have now or had in the past. I like this idea, the idea that we once wanted (or currently want) something that maybe we cannot get in reality so instead our brain functions whilst we sleep in a way that allows us to create a scenario in which we achieve that wish. We get what we wanted.

2) Dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep.

In which dreaming serves no actual purpose. REM stands for rapid eye movement, it is characterised by quick, random movements of the eyes and paralysis of the muscles, therefore dreaming occurs as a by-product of this. It is not necessary, it serves no purpose and has no meaning in the long run.

3) The"reverse learning" theory.

This theory suggests that we dream to be rid of undesirable connections (or associations) that build up in our brain. As if our dreams are a garbage collection mechanism. It says we dream to forget, to eliminate information overload. If there is something we do not wish to remember, it goes in the ‘garbage collection’ into a dream and is forgotten. (Which seems odd to me, seeing as we remember our dreams a lot of the time).

4) Consolidating what we’ve learnt.

Contradicting the previous theory, this one says we dream to remember. It is based on many studies and explains that we retain information better when we dream about what we’ve learnt. If there is something about our day, or week, that we ‘need’ (or want, I assume) to remember, it becomes a dream and we remember it.

5) Painful emotions = symbolic associations.

To me, this suggests that our dreams help us to link certain emotions with a thing. So, your dreams deal with certain emotions, but emotions do not specifically cause dreams. It means that when we go through a certain emotion we are more likely to have a dream related to that emotion, or an opposite emotion.

I feel like that was as least science-y as I could make it.

Whilst personally, I cannot identify with many of these theories, I am not dismissing them. They all intrigue me and make sense in their own right and maybe they all have impacts on us. As someone who enjoys the science behind everyday things and also researching things, I find it fascinating that such an obvious thing as dreaming does not yet have a definitive reason or explanation.

If you research a little deeper, you can find so many websites with their own explanation, or a list of explanations as to why we dream, but why do we not have one that everyone knows? Mainly, of course, because science has not yet developed the technology to discover such thing but as science improves and new things appear every week, what happens when we do know? Won’t it be scary to know what is causing these dreams that are so abstract and often weird? Will it be exciting, perhaps we could create our own dreams, further than lucid dreaming¹, beyond anything before? I feel it could be somewhere between the two but I feel like it won’t be too long before we truly know the science between dreaming.

¹A dream in which you are aware you are dreaming, you can learn to lucid dream and therefore chose your dreams, I believe.

You Are Art

Have you ever looked deep into someones eyes?
Have you ever looked at your veins close up?
Have you ever looked at human tissue or a cell under a microscope?
Have you ever just taken a second to look at how beautiful humans are?
You probably hear this a lot, especially if you’re on tumblr; but honestly, I find every part of a human so beautiful and artistic. I’ve noticed the connection between the human body (inside and out) and the sky or the galaxy. Honestly, they’re not different at all and once you notice this I feel like you can take a different view of the world.

Some people draw art, some people are art.

Everyone is beautiful and every part of a human is art, is poetry.

I cannot describe how it feels to look at someone after you realise that you’re just made up of so many atoms just like the night sky. There is all these tiny atoms, whirling around to make up a human and you are stardust. You have stars in your eyes and galaxies running through your veins. You are beautiful and nothing can take that away from you. You represent the galaxy because you are your own galaxy, your own infinity and this is all you should ever view yourself as.

I take biology at college and you wouldn’t believe how many cells there are just looking out for you, each doing their own thing to make sure you survive and to make sure you’re doing okay. Fighting infection, killing bad bacteria. They all just want you to be okay, they’re all there just to protect you and I like that.

These cells inside you (which, themselves, look beautiful under microscopes) work so hard to keep you looking healthy, to keep you feeling okay.

I think my favourite post on tumblr is one that compares human features, which are usually ‘looked down upon’ compared to flowers to show that you are beautiful. Have you ever looked at a flower and found it unattractive or displeasing? I haven’t. Similarly, humans are all beautiful, every single one of them. Maybe you find someone unattractive but that doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful, does it? 

The great thing about the human brain is that everyone’s is wired differently, just because one person doesn’t find you good looking doesn’t mean no one else will and you’ll never spend your life being unattractive.

Please do not let anyone tell you that you’re not good enough because you have galaxies inside of you, growing and increasing, you are a human with a life and you will always be good enough; no matter what anyone says. All the time you’re making an effort to be a good human, you are a good human. No one and nothing will ever take the stars from inside you so never let anyone take the glimmer from your eyes as you speak about something you love. Don’t let anyone tell you that sparkle isn’t enough; everything about you is good enough.

Never forget that.

Spring

As February draws to a close and March is just around the corner, spring appears to be breaking through. I like these last weeks of February, you still have a  slight windchill factor but the sun is out and the clouds are minimal. Whilst the weather is mostly unpredictable and you can never tell one day from the next, I feel like the end of winter is the best part, the calm of knowing that soon you will be surrounded by the perfect blossoms and warmer weather.

March 20th shows the start of spring and whilst that is still just under a month away, preparation is key. Spring is beautiful, everything is alive and well. Flowers bloom and the trees grow again, it’s as if everything has come to life.

Spring is the best time for walks along the beach, it’s not overwhelming heat but it’s nice enough and the sea still looks beautiful. Waking up in the morning isn’t dull and dark, there’s a light that awakens you and brings you out of bed without the thought of wanting to go straight back to your slumber.

I sometimes struggle when the ‘what’s your favourite season’ question comes up, usually I say autumn but when spring comes around I question myself and wonder what is so beautiful in the death of the trees when you can see the rebirth with the warm weather; the happiness that comes around with no fear of an early darkness surrounding you.

Spring is the time to put all your words into action; plan in winter and move forward in spring. Use the better conditions to make progress in your projects; take motivation from the way everything is growing and use it to grow for yourself. The air is fresh and clean, with plants working for us so work with them.

With an extra spring in your step, anticipate summer and be prepared for the break it brings. Remember how you felt in winter and improve on it. Spring and autumn become the ‘in between’ seasons, waiting for summer or winter, but I feel that they are the nicer seasons, somewhat calmer.

It’s strange how the seasons change slowly but they’re so different and each so beautiful in themselves. But spring, spring the start of new life, it brings around new beginnings and you should embrace them in every way you can. Embrace spring and be at one with spring.

A great excerpt I’ve found from an Ernest Hemingway book is:

“With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life.”

I find it so accurate, sometimes it feels like spring is never coming but if you wait, it will come, it always comes and yet every year we await it.