2013

So I think every blogger in the world is doing a post similar to this today! This past year has been absolutely mental, and I have ended it on such a high, meeting Lauri Ylonen, somebody I've been waiting to meet for almost 15 years, seeing my all time favourite band live, going on a holiday with my uni society and some of my best friends, having the entire family round for Christmas, getting amazing grades in my uni assignments and seeing in the new year with a drink in my hand and a gorgeous boy on my arm! Let's be honest, I couldn't really have asked for more, could I?

That's really what this blog is going to be about. Positivity and, more importantly, gratitude. For the past couple of years, I've classed myself as a Christian, but I've also been reading a lot into The Secret, a way of thinking proposed by Rhonda Byrne that advocates counting your blessings and being grateful for what life has given you.

Really, we don't count our blessings nearly enough, and it's quite sickening. We all have that friend that seems to put a negative spin on everything, the person that, no matter how many gifts life throws at them, will always find something negative to complain about. It might be breaking a fingernail at a party being held in their honour, or that the person giving them a free ride is five minutes late. Whatever it is, no matter how good the surrounding circumstances, you can bet your bottom dollar this person will fail to see or appreciate just how blessed they really are. Well really, I'm done with those people. Please, if you are one of them, don't complain to me about how outdated your £600 phone that daddy paid for is, or whatever other "problems" you're dealing with. Instead, look on the bright side for a change. Think about the things that you do have, rather than the things that you don't.

I can't tell you how blessed I feel to have the things I do. To have a huge bedroom with more books than I could ever read, a blog that people actually enjoy, assignments that get consistently high grades, a website that publishes articles I write, and the hundreds of other things that I could list! Honestly, I am grateful for so much in my life and I really think that the world would be a much better place if everyone valued and appreciated things as much as they should do. I'm grateful for the bigger things, such as the close relationship I have with my mum, my best friend Heather who's been there since I was 12, my other close friends, the new people that I've met this year, both in SUST and the ones that live locally to me and the fact that I'm with somebody who doesn't get kicks out of putting me down and inventing stories such as "Doctors have told me I'm going to have a heart attack in my sleep" and "I'll kill myself if you don't text me back" (no exaggeration).

I'm also grateful for the smaller things, and no matter how big your problems, everybody can be thankful for the little things. My hair, for one, I'm so glad to be on my way to being a blonde again! I'm grateful that every year I can get what is essentially a free holiday at a family home in Spain as oppose to having to scour out cheap boozy holidays. I'm grateful that I've finally got curtains in my room, and ones that actually look nice! I'm grateful for the fact that I have a kettle in my room so a cup of black coffee is never far away, that I live with one of my best friends, that I got enough perfume and fancy underwear this Christmas to turn me into a burlesque model, I'm grateful for my pet cat! I'm grateful that I got to go on holiday with my friends just before Christmas, and I'm grateful that I finally managed to get about two hours sleep on the 24 hour coach journey back to Salford!

I'm grateful for the last 12 months of my life. It's been pretty dramatic at times, sitting in police stations, casually skipping seminars to go zooming around in police cars because we thought someone we knew was actually going to throw themselves under a train track (it was a lie so it was fine) and so much more that you would not even believe if I told you, but despite all of that I'd still say it was the best 12 months of my life. I've never had so many friends, in so many different friendship groups, as I do now, never had as many nights out and never enjoyed the stuff I study more than I do now.

Most of all, I'm grateful for that energy, that thing that some people will call God and others will call Fate, others Karma, others will call it The Universe and some won't have a name for it because they believe in it without ever really admitting it to themselves. Whatever you want to name it, I'm grateful for it, and I'm going to continue to be grateful for that, and all the other amazing things that are going to come my way in the year 2013.

Have a fantastic year everyone! xx