Hi guys!

I've joined Wordpress.

If anyone out here still reads my blog, please join me on https://jimmylou.wordpress.com/ :)

I may still post here, but not too sure at this point. I will see.

At the moment, I'm just enjoying Wordpress.

x

twenty fifteen.

it's 2015! happy new year to everyone out there in cyberspace. you are all amazing and beautiful.

2014 felt like a big year. a lot happened, emotionally. i feel like 2013 was a lot more action-packed; full of travelling, social activities and this aching crush on a boy.

2014, i went through a lot. i made terrible, terrible decisions that hurt me and hurt someone i cared about. i found out it was due to my character, and had to search deep inside myself. it was hard, being confronted with your darkness - but i can say i know myself a lot better now. as for knowing myself entirely, i will quote a girl i met the other night, "will we ever truly know ourselves?", i'm not there, but i'm steps closer.

i lived with two of my best friends in 2014, which turned out to be so incredibly fun. but, incredibly difficult when the two of them didn't like each other. it was awkward at times. but i really enjoyed living with them both. i lived with two cats, and realised just how much i love animals, and i need them in my life.

me and a boy i had a crush on for two years finally started something in 2014. it was hard. we started something so casual, that turned into something incredibly passionate. it was ridden with troubles & anguish, but with a friendship and passion so strong we just could not part from it. when we came across obstacles in our way, we dealt with them the best way we could, which was not always easy. we came so close to giving up so many times. each time nearly broke my heart.

we are still on this journey, him & i. i don't know what the future holds, all i know is that i care about him with every fibre of my being and he me. he is an incredibly special person. people like that you don't come across often. i am looking forward to 2015 with him, in whatever style or whatever form we will be in.

i'm three days into 2015, and i'm already sensing a change. i have spent years doing most things for other people, and not always for me. okay, i am the kind of person who gets a lot of enjoyment out of helping others and making other people happy. and i will continue to do that, no matter what. it is who i am. but what i'm going to focus on, is only doing it when i want to. when i feel strongly about it - the person i'm doing it for.

i don't want to simply say yes to everyone; it ran me into the ground at times last year. i was running around, busy, trying to please everyone by doing anything and everything. there were blurred lines when it came to what i really wanted to do, and what i was doing because i felt like i was obliged to.

i'm already feeling a change. i want to spend more time with myself. yes, i do want to continue to be social and spend time with the people i care about, but i want to also give myself time to just be. i can't thrive without that. i am always reminded of that whenever i walk into a bookshop alone, feeling myself suddenly calm as i browse the books. it's a good way to just breathe.

so, bring on 2015. it'll be a year of no money, as i try as hard as i can to save for my move over to the UK (eeeep!), a year of job instability (my fixed term contact ends in June, but here's to new opportunities and to push myself!), a year of figuring out more about myself, and putting what i've learned to the test.

love you all. stay cool.

x

all the words//no words

We hadn't talked for a while. Our minds, probably working overtime, me watching the cars go by, and he watching the traffic. Everything went dark as we sped through the Terrace tunnel.
I poked him on the leg; refraining from touching him physically hurt me. I was over it. "Hey, you. I like you."
He smiled at me, and said "I like you too. In fact I -"
The loudest and most annoying motorbike echoed through the tunnel, our attentions changing from each other to that, scrunching our faces up. We talked about the motorbike. He turned up Tenerife Sea on the radio.
"Did you hear what I said before?" he asked.
"That this was a song for me?"
"Before that."
I thought. "No."
He smiled, and shook his head. He probably wouldn't repeat it.

A minute later, he turned to me. "I said, in fact, I think I love you." 

And for some reason, I was speechless.

pole//things

Lately, I have been loving vanilla shake M&M's, re-reading the Harry Potter series, writing my dreams down in my dream journal, beginning to write my novel again, eating out at new restaurants (Burger Liquor, here I come), coffee every morning before work with le boy, pole dancing classes... *record skips* um, whaa??

Last night I did my first ever pole dancing class - and my whole entire body aches. It was fantastic. I learned how to do twirls, pole climbs and ways to get from the floor and standing in a sexy way (!!). It's not easy, but it was incredibly uplifting and a self-esteem booster. I looked at myself in the mirror and watched my body move in ways that I never thought it could. I could see everything. I could see how round my butt is, how small my waist is, how large my hips are. But it wasn't a bad thing. I told le boy, "I noticed how wide my hips are" and he said "you can't change that, it's who you are. embrace it," and that is so true. 

Tara & I are pole dancing again next week, and rocking our femininity! It really was a way for me to feel amazing in the skin I'm in, and realise that yes I am a woman and I can be powerful, and ultimately sexy. 

x

you're the only home i'll ever know.

"and in a parallel universe

it's me you can't resist."

t swizzle speaks the truth.

"In the world we live in, much is said about when we are born and when we die. Our birthday is celebrated every year to commemorate the very instant we came into a world, and a funeral is held to mark the day we leave it. But lately I’ve been wondering… what can be said of all the moments in between our birth and death? The moments when we are reborn…

The debate over whether people can change is an interesting one for me to observe because it seems like all I ever do is change. All I ever do is learn from my mistakes so I don’t make the same ones again. Then I make new ones. I know people can change because it happens to me little by little every day. Every day I wake up as someone slightly new. Isn’t it wild and intriguing and beautiful to think that every day we are new?"

- Taylor Swift, 1989.

memories//moments

"There are places I'll remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends, I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life, I've loved them all."

There's a song I've recently discovered again that my mother adores, and it is "In My Life" by The Beatles. It's a beautiful song, about remembering the people that have been in your life, throughout the years, and how much they have impacted your life.
This song takes me back to the nights where my parents and I listened to records, dancing, chatting.

My mother has wanted this as her funeral song since before I can remember. Yesterday as I was pouring through Lauren Conrad's amazingly beautiful wedding photos (I have mega wedding envy, like you wouldn't believe...see the pictures here!) I found out that "In My Life" was the song that she walked down the aisle to.

And now listening to this song, I can see how magical that would have been.

It made me think, though. All my life I have held onto memories and made myself sad, nostalgic and stressed when these moments were over, and that was that. They were over. And I tried so hard to recreate them. Growing up, I was extremely close my nephews. We all kind of grew up together. I was older than them, but we were still children. We had a Christmas tradition of staying at my mum's house, make gingerbread men and take a photo of us three atop a hill overlooking the river. We would take a photo at the same time every year.

People grow. Lives change.

We are not thirteen, eight and five anymore. My oldest nephew has joined the army and moved in with his girlfriend. The younger, has turned 15, is starting to grow facial hair and I haven't seen him since Christmas. We haven't done our tradition since I was twenty. It's been five years. But that's what it was.

We were young. We were free. We were able do to these things. We can't always come together and be exactly as we were when we were children.

Moments are moments. Memories can help you retain them. They don't ever really leave. You can pull them out of your memory bank whenever you need them. I now grasp that idea, after 25 years of trying so hard to recreate these moments, or hold onto the past.

My parents & I haven't listened to records for a while now. But we always talk about it.

thou art enough.

YOU ARE ENOUGH.
PAINT IT ON YOUR MIRRORS,
ON THE BACK OF YOUR EYELIDS,
DROWN IT IN YOUR STOMACH,
SING IT IN EVERY WORD YOU SAY.
YOU ARE NEVER TOO MUCH.
EAT YOUR FOOD,
SLEEP EIGHT HOURS,
WALK LIKE YOU LOVE YOURSELF.
YOU ARE ENOUGH.
SAY IT IN YOUR SLEEP,
MANTRAS TO CARRY YOU THROUGH YOUR DAY.
THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH OF YOU.
YOU ARE A THIRST THAT IS NEVER QUENCHED.
I CRAVE YOU WHEN YOU’RE AWAY.
I LOVE EVERY PIECE OF YOU.
BUT I CANNOT MAKE YOU LOVE YOURSELF

— michelle k (via see-what-eye-see)

i don't wanna wake up lonely//i don't wanna just be fine

"I remember a time when a kiss on the hand was enough,

'cause we knew we were free, & we knew what it was to be loved."

“Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.”

—	Anna Quindlen, Every Last One