Life is too short.

It hasn’t been on purpose that I haven’t posted on here in so long, I’ve just been so caught up in life and my own little world. I thought it was going so well but the past couple of years have been extremely rough, and I guess I have struggled on several occasions. I’m struggling today.

A little while ago I was reflecting on my life, and I realised that my headspace lately hasn’t been a good one. In all honesty I haven’t known how to fix it or make it positive, but tonight I remembered this. Tonight I remembered that this blog used to help me make sense of life, and of myself. I remembered that letting my feelings out here has helped me be positive, and has given me an output, and sometimes even a solution. And often it just seemed to be advice I was imparting on myself, which I could use right now.

So whilst I know that it’s okay not to be okay, it’s also obviously okay to be okay, too. And I want to be, I really do. But I don’t think I can honestly say that I am okay. I thought this year started off so well, yet in my mind today it seems like just another train wreck, waiting to spiral downward and destroy me.

I guess I still haven’t really let everything catch up with me. I mean, there is pain in my heart and in my mind every day, about things I don’t have the power to change. I feel pain because I have never been able to easily accept something. Acceptance has always been a big issue for me, and I think just as I have started getting my head around one thing, something else has happened and sent me back to the start. It’s like a domino effect, when one painful thing reminds me of the previous one, and that one reminds me of the one before, etc. Don’t get me wrong, there in many things in my life that I have accepted, It’s just that the past couple of years have been so eventful and made such a negative impact on me, I don’t think I’ve really had the chance to recover from it all.

It’s times like this that I wonder where my life is going. Three months ago I thought I had my dream job, was about to live abroad and be happier than ever. Three months down the line I am back home in England, wondering where I go from here. I know life isn’t supposed to be easy and that it probably wouldn’t be worth it if it was, but sometimes I wish I could catch a break.

I have to figure out my next steps, whether they are baby steps or giant leaps.

I have to remember how far I have come.

I have to move forward and try to fill my heart with love instead of pain.

This is a song that used to play a big part in my life, and today it’s my inspiration for writing this blog.

Because life is too short. Life is too short to keep everything bottled up inside you. Life is too short to not say your part. Life is too short to simply throw your life away when it gets tough.

Stand up and be proud of who you are.

Never give up on the things you want.

Follow your heart and chase your dreams.
Believe in yourself.

Courtney’s Imagination★

Would you have done the same as Derek Redmond?

A few days ago an inspiring video was brought to my attention, and I want to share it with you guys. It’s about a guy called Derek Redmond. I don’t know much about him except for what this video shows me, but he was favoured to medal in the olympic 400m race in Barcelona, 1992.

When I was shown the video I was told it would me me cry, but I didn’t realise quite how much. As the clip played and I saw how determined, ambitious, and inspirational Derek was, I can honestly say I was crying like a baby. In awe of this man, tears were streaming down me cheeks faster than you can say “wow”.

Derek didn't quit, and he is a true example of ‘It’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part’. As he got back up to finish that race, no matter how badly it hurt him, he saw no option in giving up. He knew what he wanted to do, and that alone is something that so many of us lack.

The video still leaves me a little speechless if I’m honest, but I think what Derek done was truly remarkable. It was a sign of such strength and courage and I think it could teach us all a thing or two about motivation. Plans may change, and not everything in life will work out the way you want or expect, but sometimes it's the unexpected things that teach us the most.

Don't be a quitter.

When you fall in life, get back up.

Never give up.

Courtney’s Imagination★

Courage is a beauty.

I was reading through someone's blog tonight because I can't sleep, and it really just made me wanna write something. I didn't even get through the whole blog before opening another tab and beginning to ramble this, feeling an urgency to write with honesty whilst I can. So from the part that I did read, it was a post about a girl hiding her depression and anxiety from her boyfriend, and how he found her tablets in the glovebox of her car. Then I stopped.

I've said before that in the majority of previous relationships I haven't been at peace with myself or my life, and I've wondered in the past how anybody could love me if I didn't love myself, but tonight I think the extent of those things has really hit me. Because yes, my journey does still overwhelm me, and there will probably never be at least a tiny part of it that will fail to do so.

The beginning of that blog sent a shiver down my spine because it reminded me of a time when I've been in a similar situation. There was a time with an ex where he hadn't known how I'd been feeling, but he discovered, when his hand took a second touch over my arm under the duvet, (like a double glance, with a different sensor), and my heart sunk. I have no idea how I'd kept it from him, but a week or so before, I had got to such a point of emptiness, or hatred, or something, that after so long, I had cut. I hadn't wanted him to know. I hadn't wanted anyone to know. I didn't want them to see myself in the same light as I saw myself. I don't think I answered him when he asked 'What's that?', but he didn't persist. He knew anyway, and I knew he did. It's never happened since that moment because I've never let myself get to that point of hatred and have become a better person, but that night, I realised a lot of things, and felt many different emotions. To this day, he's never mentioned it again.

That's where I've gone wrong in life before, hiding away and not talking about the things I should have. So I guess that's why I'm writing this, so no demons can haunt me over this memory, and so I can practice my true honesty. I never realise things at the time they happen, but that moment I've been reminded of tonight truly shows me how I felt about myself then, and how I feel about myself now. Feel privileged, folks; my state of past is not something I have ever really talked about to such detail, to public.

This is kinda one of those 'heart and soul blogs' because it's a topic that I've hidden for so long, even though it's in the past. It's a topic that links to some of the worst times in my life, and that holds a lot of emotion for me. It's another reason that I overwhelm myself, because of all the changes I have already made, and the ones I am continuing to make.

Embrace your journey. Never give up.

Courtney's Imagination★