January Blues

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post about my journey into the world of au pairing. I'd applied to university, had five out of five offers, and then following a miniature breakdown which resulted in an epiphany, I pulled out of uni, applied for a job as an au pair in Italy, and told my parents a month before I was scheduled to leave.

And I've found recently, I have to remind myself on a daily basis of my eighteen year old self's decision to follow her instinct. I may not have found myself through eating gelato and dating Italian men, but it ended up being the best decision of my life so far, and the series of very fortunate events which followed, gained me a place at this university, which is where I truly did find myself. It turns out I'm not quite as cool as 18 year old me had thought, but I definitely accepted I'm the type of person who wears Harry Potter socks, drinks merlot on a Sunday morning and owns enough fairy lights to own a shop, without any shame.

In fear of being the most cliché I have ever been in my life, everything has so far, happened for a reason.

This year, I was supposed to be studying in Washington DC, but ended up pulling out, working a summer in France, and will be graduating with my best friends. I've also met people in the time I would've been in the US, who I now can't imagine my life without. 

It's hard to imagine my 18 year old self's strong, independent attitude right now, because my whole household are on a January slump. We're a house of emotional chats, not changing out of our pyjamas all day, and eating a whole pack of Family Circle biscuits in bed, watching Angus Thongs. The general feeling of my house right now, is a 3/10.

All of us are wallowing in self pity, and we've come to the consensus, it's totally okay. So long as it doesn't damage our grades, it doesn't make us awful people just because we may or may not take our bra's off the second the front door is closed. 

The point is, you will end up where you should be. You will meet the people you should meet, you will do the things you were destined to do and you will be a part of the lives you were meant to be a part of. And along the way, you're going to encounter rejection and failure and love and all kinds of weird and wonderful human beings. You will have days where you stay in your pyjamas and days where you will get up at 6am to face the day. Just go with your instinct and make choices for your own happiness. Sometimes you might not be where you might expect, or you might not be where 13 year old you pictured (I'm most definitely not), but it's completely okay. 

Love, Alice x