A is for Anxious

Hello! Least consistent blogger here.

I haven't posted anything since January, but today I'm going to ask you to be patient with me while I try to write about something that's really personal to me. This is the third time I've sat down and turned on my laptop with the idea of writing this blog post in mind. It is also the billionth time I've thought about doing so, always brushing it off. There is so much I want to say, so many words floating around in my head, that I'm definitely struggling to let it all out. I have always said that I never understand what's happening in my head until I put pen to paper because writing about something allows me to see it from a clearer perspective. In other words, writing about it makes it real, and I wasn't sure I was ready to see this come to life.

Am I ready now? To be fair, I don't think you're ever ready to do anything, but sometimes you just have to go ahead and do it anyway. The reason why I decided to sit down again today was because for the past couple of days, after a long while, I've started feeling a little bit more like myself - whatever that means. To be honest with you, I don't remember what I was like before I started worrying like crazy about every single thing that has ever happened to me or will happen to me in the future. I have always been a worrier, and as such, I am very familiar with the ways in which my body responds to stress or rough times. Over the years I've learned to anticipate it and deal with it before it's even happening. My body asks me to slow down and I have no other choice but to obey. The problem is that lately the over-worrying business has been taken to the extreme.

Although it's not exactly true, I feel like almost everything that could possibly go wrong with me has gone wrong over the past few months. After a while refusing to do it (because I'm FINE, mom, I've been sick for two months but IT'LL GO AWAY), I went to see my doctor. She decided to run a complete blood test, which came back clear. I am perfectly healthy. Then what on Earth is happening to me? Why do I feel ill all the time? Why do I keep feeling anxious that something's going to go wrong? Why am I so sleepy all day and then unable sleep at night? Why can't I just focus? Why am I so moody? Why am I so f!$/cking sad? Why does my body keep failing me? "That's just you being anxious. You're just nervous. That's caused by stress and over-worrying. You're okay. You just need to relax." That has been the answer to all of my questions lately. Then the doctor asked me if I was going through a rough time, if there was something going on causing me to be so stressed, and I lied to her and said that I was just worried about uni, which happens to be true right now but wasn't at the time. As far as stressful situations go, I was feeling perfectly fine. The semester had just finished, I'd passed everything with flying colors and I'd spent the previous months taking life easier than I ever thought I could. Or so I thought. 

It is hard enough to deal with stress when you've got reasons to feel uneasy, but irrational worry is a whole different thing. It can't be stopped. It turns your life upside down. For someone who wants to do so much with her life, there have been days where even going to class has been difficult. Some days I literally have to remind myself, out loud, that I'm okay, just to make sure that my body won't freak out on me. I have pieces of paper with quotes on my wallet. I'm using meditation apps. I'm wearing a chakras bracelet when I haven't believed in these things since I was a kid. I am doing everything I can think of to make myself feel safe. It takes a lot of effort on my part, as well as an awful lot of herbal tea, and while I will gladly do whatever it takes as long as it's beneficial for me, it's something incredibly terrifying to think about in the long run. But as I said, things seem to be looking up now. I'm holding on to that instead - at least for now. I'll worry about the future when it becomes the present. One day at a time.

Hope you're all having a great March.

See you soon... maybe.

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2014 Entertainment Favourites

I should've made sure I had the time to post this before 2014 ended, I know. I'm late. What's new?

As the homebody you already know I am, I always have a million things to watch, read and listen to. People always ask me, "Oh, don't you get bored if you stay home?" Please. How could I ever get bored with the amount of good things I have to entertain myself with? There are new albums and books coming out every week and either new or old tv shows I always wanted to give a chance to waiting for me. Now, it is really hard to make a list of the things I enjoyed the most this year (I have good memory, but this post would be endless), so I just put together a few of the things I could find. Notice that not everything I've been into is pictured above because I don't have a material copy of every single book or tv show that I love -and not enough tablets either to show you more logos-.

As far as music is concerned, the first album I got obsessed with last year was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' The Heist, which I do have a copy of (obviously), but I chose not to include it in the picture as I've talked about it a million times already. Just for the record, I still think it's amazing. I saw Fall Out Boy live last year, as well as Macklemore, and they blew my mind, so I just had to include the album I listened to over and over around the date of the show, Save Rock and Roll. Then, a few months later, Ed Sheeran's X came out and I thought I had never listened to something so genius in my life. I usually get tired of the albums I listen a lot to, but this one's still living on my phone. It's so so good. Then last month Santa Claus listened to my prayers and got me Ella Henderson's Chapter One. I am so in love with her voice, you don't even know. It's probably the best album ever by an X Factor artist. Absolutely great. And last but most definitely not least... Taylor Swift's 1989. Hands down, album of the year. 

Choosing the books I wanted to talk about was the hardest task ever as 1) I read quite a few books that got to me last year 2) I don't have a copy of most of them. Pictured above is The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell, which I'm currently writing an academic paper on, and I decided to include it simply because I'm not used to enjoying the books that I have to read for class that much, yet I loved this one. The one next to it is We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, which is the best YA novel I've ever read. Saying too much about it would be giving things away, so let me just tell you that when you find out what happened in the novel you will want to throw it out the window, Bradley Cooper style. My favourite book of the year is probably one of those books you read about and think "Alright, this may just be the biggest cliché ever..." but it turns out to be wonderful. Clichéd? Yes, a little bit. But it's a really cute story without being incredibly cheesy. That is You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane. (I'm still daydreaming about Ben.)

Lastly, TV shows! I find it so hard to follow new shows because at some point I always end up forgetting to watch a certain episode and then I have to catch up and ain't nobody got time for that. That's what happened to me with How To Get Away With Murder. It is absolutely amazing and that's why I'm including it, even if I'm still stuck on episode 4, because it's the only new show I've gotten into this year. As you may know, I have also been obsessing over Criminal Minds with my sister, which I still think is genius and I still watch every weekend. However, the show of the year has to be Breaking Bad. Yes, I do know it ended in 2013, but I only just got around to start watching it back in November and boy, is it great. I'm currently halfway through season five and I'm torn between "I want to know what happens" and "I don't want it to end". Even if you don't think you're into tv or movies about drugs, just give it a go. You will most likely love it.

As a bonus that I hadn't even thought of until I finished writing about tv, the movies I enjoyed the most in 2014 were, no doubt, The Wolf of Wall Street, Gone Girl and an early 2000s flick called Whatever It Takes. I know there must have been some really good ones this year that movie geeks would be outraged that I haven't mentioned, but I have to confess that I don't watch nearly as many films as I'd like to. First of all, because my salary as a nanny does not allow me to go to the cinema that often (yes, mainly because I spend all of it on makeup, clothes and books, so what) and second, because I'm too lazy to watch them at home. I always think, "God, do I really want to spent two hours sitting here watching something? No, I don't." And then I watch eight Breaking Bad episodes in a row. Smh. (Hey, there's a New Year's resolution! Watching more films!)

Looking back at my favourite tv shows and and movies, should I be worried that most of them have something to do with breaking the law? I mean, there's a lot of murder, drugs, money and psychopaths. I see a pattern there...

Ha! What did you read, watch and listen to in 2014? 

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