A lot has happened. Let me catch you up.
1. November In General
This past month, I’ve noticed a lot of stuff. And I mean A LOT. I set this month with the intention of it being a reset and reflection month, yet despite this intention, I noticed a lot of my goals and habits fall through. For the past two-ish months, I’ve struggled a lot with my mental and physical health, and my social battery has dropped incredibly. I haven’t been writing in my journal, setting goals, writing reflections, or writing any interesting blog posts. I feel like my life has been quite repetitive, and my mental health hasn’t been doing so good because of assessments and overall stress because of life.
Despite wanting to change and get out of this fixed mindset and routine, a part of me feels like it’s a waste to write goals now when the month is almost over. I’m one of those people who, if their journal is not aesthetic and neat, will not write in it. It’s a terrible habit I know, but a strange unsettling feeling comes over me every time I think about journalling and writing my goals down now, mid way through the month.
2. Physical Health
The first four weeks of term four included me running around, staying up late and barely sleeping in order to complete my assessments to a high standard. What hell those four weeks were. The amount of nights I stayed up to try and complete stuff for the next day, or just to complete stuff in general was too many to count. Combine that with 30 hours of school, and roughly 4 hours of music per week, my habit of exercising daily went into the bin. I stopped eating properly. I developed a terrible caffeine addiction. I didn’t sleep properly.
Everything added up.
And now I have to deal with the consequences.
3. Mental Health
This one’s always the hardest to talk about.
My mental health has been the usual – shit. There have been moments where it has been good, and I will talk about those in just a minute. But for the most part, I’ve been missing my best friend Amelia, who is currently in Spain. I’ve been struggling with ✨thoughts✨ for several weeks, and my family situation hasn’t been great either. The pressures of school have always been tough, but I tried even more to live up to them this term because I wanted to try my hardest to give it my all and change the way I have been performing this year.
It’s been really really hard.
But, I have opened up a lot this month. I’ve done a lot that has scared me, including talking to my Dad about everything that has been going on in my life. From Habel, to my mental health, to even just coming out as bisexual, I told him everything. It definitely wasn’t an easy thing to do. I cried more than I can remember. And after that two and a half hour conversation, I felt somewhat okay. I can’t say my mental health improved drastically or that I felt any happier. But I felt okay. I felt somewhat proud of myself for opening up to him. For the next two days, I felt lighter and almost better about everything.
Talking to my parents, or at least one of my parents, was something that I had put off for two and a half years. I hate opening up to people, and I especially hate talking about my mental health and struggles. But it was something I knew I had to do in order to take that step forward to something better, even if it scared the living hell out of me.
4. Opportunities
This month, I’ve been brave enough to take advantage of the opportunities that have come my way. From applying for Max Potential (a personal growth/leadership opportunity), to the biannual Jujitsu training weekend, to even applying for the Illuminate Business Competition, I’ve done a lot that has challenged me but has also helped me learn a lot more about myself and helped me grow. And even though these opportunities have scared me, I’ve seen incredible results from them.
Tomorrow, I have my official Max Potential interview which I am quite nervous for but also excited at the same time. I hope that the organisers can see how much I’m passionate about doing this, and how eager and worthwhile this will be for me. I loved the training weekend, and despite being quite sore and tired afterwards, I realised how much had changed since the last training weekend, just 6 months ago. I lost so much, with my boyfriend breaking up with me to my best friend leaving for her exchange program to Spain. But at the same time, I also gained things I never thought I would have, like a strong group of friends, friendships I know treasure wholeheartedly, and a sense of resilience that I never thought I could have. Even just this past week, I attended a business challenge at Newcastle University at the Ourimbah campus – something I never thought I would do. We had to create a business that would help promote ecotourism on the Central Coast, and not only did we complete the challenge, we tied first for the Business Case and Financial Tables, as well as coming 2nd out of 38 teams there!
5. Reminders of What I’ve Lost
I’ve touch on this a couple of times now in this blog post, but this month has been about me reflecting on things that have happened throughout the course of this past year. I’ve been dealing with feelings of loneliness and longing for someone to call my own. I’ve been re-confessed to, played with, and shouted at. I go to school every day, surrounded with reminders of things I used to have and be (aka happy and confident, with a boyfriend and a best friend), and then I go back to a place I call home but don’t really feel like I feel accepted, loved, or “at home” there either. I miss everything I used to have and be. I miss my best friend. I miss my ex-boyfriend. I miss being the smart one. I miss being looked up to. I miss being happy. I miss being the girl I once was. I’m not happy with the person I am right now. And I cry just thinking about what past Lian would say if she saw know, because I don’t think she would be proud of me either.
I feel so lost and lonely. I don’t have anyone to talk to about my feelings. I don’t have anyone to call my own.
I miss everyone and everything I used to have.
I miss the person I used to be.