Calm Down

I have been meaning to write again.

Textbook excuse- but things have been hectic.

September. The final year of A-levels is upon us and yes, it is extremely daunting. It is times like these though that I feel like writing is important. I need to keep an outlet for my own expression because over the next upcoming months it will no longer matter how I think about things- but instead how an examiner will.

Goodbye to my independent mind. I mean already as I am writing this my brain feels frazzled. Is it the lack of sleep? The full on days? The school workload? Most probably.

Anyway. I tend to do this.

I for one struggle with writing about my own self personally. Tell me to write about an event or somewhere I visited- yes can do. But as soon as it becomes more personal I seem to struggle. I want to overcome this as I find reading writings from others who have been raw is the sort that inspires me. It is art the way some people can put words together.

So my feeling for today. Lost.
In my world right now things are speeding up, I am growing up, the pressure is up, everything is up this can be a bit much. Just like that list was to read.

It is a time where I feel like all of these major decisions are weighing on me as to what career path I choose, what degree I pick, whether I get the grades to get in or not. I am so sorry for the amount of long lists that is just a summary of how my brain feels right now. Lists and lists of things I feel like I need to be achieving.

Quite frankly I have been feeling quite lost.
Maybe it is the sheer amount of pressure to know what I want to do and to strive towards it that has left me feeling lost for direction. What do I want to do?

I am still learning. As cringe as it sounds I am still coming in to my own and learning who I am- how am I supposed to commit to planning my whole life now? I know what I want and then I don't.

I need to get grounded.

I started reading 'The Power of Now'- by Eckhart Tolle- a few months ago when the uncertainty all began, but I have never been a reader so shortly the book was closed. But, I want to try again. I have heard people rave, and I mean rave about how incredible the book is for grounding you and getting past your self-critical mind.

I need to live in the now. I am literally here writing about my crisis, if that isn't a hint I don't know what is.

I need to find my passion again- a drive and excitement for life.
I need to stop asking where I am going.
I need to decide where I am going.

London. Not dramatically- but literally.

I am attending an open day next week in the city that excites my soul. I have always been drawn to London.

When I was younger and I would visit with my family, my little eleven-year-old self would strut about envisioning that I was some independent, boujee, business women living her best life in the city. Laughable now, yet inspiring.

Eleven-year-old me had more of an idea of where she wanted to go than I do now. Wow Hannah.

I need to find that spark again. Not in some cringey country song kind of way, but spark in the essence that I can find direction and have high ambitions again.

I used to change my job ideas every day when I was younger.
A fashion designer the one, lawyer the next, journalist, hairdresser, midwife, and there on...

Yes that list may make me seem fickle but it was the opposite. I was determined to find my path and to be successful at it. I was changing what I wanted to be because I was listening to myself. I was being truthful with myself when my mind changed and I was not afraid of having goals.

Where has she gone?

It seems in the years when I should have been growing into myself more and coming to my own, this is the time that I have lost myself. I do not listen to myself anymore.

I cannot continue to make decisions based on what others may think of me, or whether it is feasible based on the certain path and structure society has put in front of me.

I am not just living anymore. I am planning.
I can't continue to force things, to force myself to know things. I need to stop trying to be this person, to mould my life in to this certain set way down one path. I need to just be and figure it out along the way.

I should not be the obstacle in my own life.

Yes planning is good you are right- I am not saying I want to become this hippie, but I have even found myself reconsidering travelling. Visiting new countries and meeting free, new, spontaneous people is something that I have wanted to do since I pretty much exited the womb.

My whole soul has been yearning for travel since I was too young to do so. I even found clarification of that when I visited home back in South Africa at the beginning of this year.
I feel grounded when I am abroad. A strange concept considering that then I am far from my home in England, but it is how I am.

So grounded that I struggled when I got back to the UK. I was considering giving this up just because it wouldn't 'fit in' with my plan for the next few years. This is if I am having to follow the set structure that everything is set up to work and uni and life and future plans and...
UGH like be quiet Hannah.

See what I mean? My mind is such a boggle- if that is even a word.

How am I hurting myself like this?

It is a conflict I just expressed on here and to be completely honest I have not even begun to solve it. Me stopping here is rant over because I have had enough of writing about myself for today.
That is more than enough personal stuff for one day.

But I will read.