A Flower For This, A Flower For That

A FLOWER FOR THIS, A FLOWER FOR THAT

This morning I was scrolling through my Instagram feed (I have become addicted once more), and happened to come across these rather gorgeous photos created by the Dutch design duo Daniera Ter Haar and Christopher Brach, from Raw Color design studio. Entitled 'Blossom', the series sees branches of beautiful flourishing blossom suspended in mid air by dainty white thread, and framed against an assortment of bold, vivid , different coloured backgrounds. It's a real treat for the eye, a wonderful idea, and I adore the contrast between the assertiveness of the colours and the fragility of the flowers, as well as the stunning aesthetic colour combinations. As soon as I saw the photographs I just knew that I had to feature them in a blog post somewhere. They were too lovely not to show you dear readers. Hence why I sat there for a while, wondering just what I could do with these photographs, whilst at the same time I began thinking about all these things that are going on in my life right now. As you can probably guess, somewhere along the way, inspiration struck and the two separate thought pathways integrated into one. Voilà. I decided that for each photograph I'd include a little paragraph about something that's happening in my life right now, or has happened, as well as some of the things I've been feeling. It's one flower assigned to one aspect of my life, and I'm not sure if this idea will work at all but I'd love to give it a go and see what you think!

-All photographs belong to Raw Color and have been linked to their original source!-

001. I now feel like I've fully adjusted to living here in Manchester again, as well as my new home. I said it before on my last post, but I'm so, so happy to be back. Just walking down the streets today it felt like coming back to where I belong. Where I'm meant to be right now in my life. It's easy to worry. It's easy to wish I was back home, living that comfortable life and never seeing what could lie beyond it. It's easy to be afraid. But today has made me realise that coming here was the best thing I ever could've done. Forcing myself out of my comfort zone has done me wonders. Being brave and conquering my fears has made me stronger, wiser, more at ease. Giving myself this amazing chance and opportunity to change my life has so far been 100% completely worth it. So in the words of Clean Bandit, there really is no place I'd rather be. Manchester, I adore you.

002. Yesterday one of the strangest things ever happened to me. In the whirlwind space of ten minutes, and in an unforeseen twist of events, I found out firstly that my friend has had to pull out of the house, and secondly that I now have a new housemate from Hong Kong instead. Never in a million years did I imagine that this would happen. By second year you think you've met all the new people you're going to meet. You think you've got everything sorted. No more surprises. But lo and behold, as I found out yesterday, uni is one big unpredictable ride, though I'm certainly not complaining. I've learnt it's so much better to just go with that flow. Don't resist the changing tides, ride along with them. And anyhow, my new housemate seems really lovely, and I actually feel really lucky that I get to experience a completely new culture and language first hand, as well as have the chance to help my housemate with her English, show her all our customs and traditions and also this wonderful city of Manchester too. It's sure going to be one heck of an interesting year!

003. This year I'm the social secretary of the University of Manchester's Blogging Society, which is another thing I never ever expected to happen to me in a million years. Blogging is something that I've been involved with for five years now (how times flies!), as I started off by helping one of my best friends, who is always one step in front of the crowd, with her blog. Gradually I became confident and passionate enough to dabble with it on my own, creating numerous blogs that explored a lot of the things I loved. However it was only with this blog, my beloved Moustashie, that I really began to take blogging seriously. I started using social media exposure, stopped being afraid about people actually reading what I wrote, I committed myself to writing at least three weeks a week, and I made a conscious effort to always be on the hunt for subject matter. As a result, my blog became something that I'm so incredibly proud of, as has it lead me down other avenues too, such as with BlogSoc. My passion for blogging has swelled massively over the last few years, and I really believe in its merits so strongly now, that I knew I simply had to take the chance to become even more involved in the blogging community. And so far, it's going really well. I've been meeting lots of lovely new people, discussing some exciting ideas and changes, making things happen, and just getting really involved with the whole experience of helping to run a society. The future is our oyster. The potential is limitless. Manchester blogging scene we're coming for ya, so watch this space!

004. Sometimes I feel kind of overwhelmed when I look at things for my degree course. Yesterday evening lots of documents went up online, and I was pouring over them thinking how the hell am I going to do this. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME. I don't know what I'm doing. Why on earth have I chosen to do this as a career?! I guess it just freaked me out rather a lot, because I still feel like a child and yet I know that I'm an adult now, and I have to take on those more grown up responsibilities. You can't just sit colouring in pie charts or writing creative stories about a trip to the seaside forever. Shite hits the fan. The going gets tough. The work gets harder. But on the converse, I am lucky in that I am doing something that I love. The job I'm training for, my dream job, doesn't just comprise of mounds of that awful, dull paperwork. There's so much more to it. So many more amazing, wonderful, soul fuelling things that I get to do alongside that. Things that make it all worthwhile. And anyhow, as I always conveniently forget, the whole point of me even being here in the first place is to learn all these things that I don't know yet. I'm here to lean, they're here to teach me. And once this part of my life is over, I'll know exactly what I'm doing, as will I be freed up and equipped with the skills, knowledge and passion to pursue all the things that interest me, and that I adore most. 

005. Now that I've settled back into the swing of things, and the upheaval has died down to reveal my new life, shiny and exciting and waiting just for me, I feel like I'm retuning back to the way I was feeling these last few weeks. And what I mean by that, is just before I moved back to Manchester, I realised I was becoming rather restless. This summer has taught me a lot of really important things that have very much changed who I am as a person, and it's changed in a way I feel I can't go back from anymore. These changes are permanent, and in order to accommodate them, I need to switch things up a bit in my life. What used to do before, what was enough for me then, just isn't enough now. It isn't okay any more. It doesn't do the job. Things need to change. And literally just before I moved back, I felt like I was right on the cusp of those changes. So poised was I to set that ball into motion. I was so ready. But then I had to leave home, leave familiarity behind, and deal with the whole moving into a new house fandango first. Hence it felt like all that energy, desire, drive, that increasing restlessness just vanished. Evaporated into thin air. I had other things to think about, and no time for those big, life changing feelings. Right then I didn't want to make big changes, I just wanted to take it one step at a time and do things slowly, safely, comfortably, till I adjusted all over again. And I worried that I wouldn't feel that awesome life changing fire all over again. Would it ever come back to me. But now, like I said, I feel that time has come around once more. I've got this down. I'm raring to go. The fire is back. It's time for change. 

006. The last thing I want to talk about is the contrast between expectation versus reality. Maybe it's because I've been on my own for a few days, I don't know, but I've found that I've been going on social media a lot recently. Over summer I managed to abstain from it pretty nicely, but once again I've somehow found myself emerged within it again once more. And surprise surprise, the results haven't been too great. Don't get me wrong, I love being from this generation, but one of the worst things is easily that overbearing need a lot of us have to share our lives with everyone who wants to peek in. We all want to have that perfect life, and we try our best to make it appear so. Out of nowhere spring these overwhelming expectations and pressures to live the good life all the god damn time. You constantly find yourself comparing and contrasting your life to that of other people, and set all these impossibly high expectations for yourself. You somehow convince yourself that everyone has a better life than you, and so the downward spiral starts. It's horrible. I don't know why we do this to ourselves. And because I feel I'm someone who likes to stick out from the crowd, be stubborn, do things my own way, embrace who I am, someone who wants this life to be enough, someone who prides herself on being independent, strong enough to walk alone, it frustrates me that I get like this. I don't know where these insecurities stem from, and how they develop so effortlessly, but I just wish that I could turn it off. I love my life. I love all that I do. Everything in my life makes me happy. I like who I am. I know that what I have is enough. I'm proud that I have the courage to stay true to who I am and how I want to do things. I just want to kerb this microanalysis once and for all and just go fook it. I'm happy. I hope you're happy too, I really do. And hey you know what, let's all just be happy in ourselves, and happy for one another, and have all that be enough. It would be rather nice.