We remember moments. We call them memories.

Before I even begin writing this post, I just want to apologise for any overuse of the words 'somebody' or 'someone', not only in this post, but throughout the blog. The reason for it is because this blog is about my life, and although there are many people I share my life with, I do not wish to publicly name most of them in case they may have a problem with it.

Particular happy memories have been floating around my head over the past few days, and as I began to question myself over the reason for it today, I noticed that the answer was staring me in the face. Somebody recently came into my life whom reminds me endlessly of an 'ideal image' of somebody that I used to know, of memories that I once made. I haven't quite managed to put my finger on what's causing the likeliness yet, but it feels extremely odd, in a good way. This person came into my life by chance, but they're making their mark on it simply by being themselves, and  I admire that.

I could not be more grateful for the people I have in my life these days, and about the people I don't have. I have been shown the people who truly care for me and it was an eye-opener, but I can finally say and believe that it is their loss, and I am strong enough to not be held back by people I don't need anymore. Something I often find myself saying to people is 'letting go doesn't mean you're weak, or that you're giving up, it means that you're strong enough to realise that life changes, often in ways we don't expect'. I definitely said it to myself, when I didn't want to let people no longer be in my life. Then I fought through the fear. I realised that I was scared of letting people go, because I was scared of losing the memories.

I am always scared of forgetting; people, places, feelings, faces, voices, personalities, sights, sounds, etc. Even the thought fills my eyes with teardrops. But that is where I need trust myself more. Trust is a big part of life, and it doesn't just stand between 2 people.

Sometimes, the unexpected things we receive are the greatest of them all.

Sometimes, the changes that are thrown at us bring the greatest results of them all.

Often we have to let go of things to be able to get better ones.

Make wonderful memories, learn amazing things, love with gracious hearts. Do all of that and more.

But the most important one, get out there and live your life!

Courtney's Imagination★

Keep calm and carry on.

Sometimes when life's challenges are thrown at us all at once, we find ourselves preferring not to deal with them so we throw ourselves into the task of avoidance, finding any means possible to keep ourselves busy and try to move on without dealing with the problems. I discovered the hard way, that this is extremely unhealthy and does us more damage, than good.

How many of you are guilty of the above crime? Probably most of you to be honest, even if you haven't realised.

I've been in situations that are hard to deal with, and I've been in situations that come back to haunt you, and I can tell you now, the latter is most definitely the hardest.

Nothing in life is easy let alone the things that hurt us, but if it was all a piece of cake, it wouldn't be worth it. No matter what hits us, in time we learn how to move on from the bad. I may not always see it this way when I'm hurting, but I'm a strong believer that being hurt in life is good because if we were never shown how bad it's possible for us to feel, we'd never appreciate the things that make us smile, and how amazing they are.

If you're feeling hurt, or angry, or upset, or betrayed, or any negative feeling, have a think about your entire life so far. Have you been happy before? More often than not, the answer will be yes. Therefore, you know that it is possible for you to feel happiness. There's nothing wrong with you for feeling rubbish; you're not a freak, or messed up, or a robot, you're just bogged down with life, and all of the hurdles that you haven't learnt to jump over yet. Don't panic; take it step by step, and gradually you can teach yourself how to work through everything and smile again.

I did. Many times.

I've grown to be a strong believer in the phrase 'life is what you make it' because that's truly what it is. So much negativity can be brought into our lives so often that it's so easy to get bogged down and let it affect us. It's the natural option that our instincts choose because fighting it and believing that we can make the bad situations into something good seems so, SO much harder. At the end of the day though, if we just sit and let it all pile up on our shoulders, we will honestly never be happy. Also if we try to brush past the problems without working through our feelings towards them, I can promise you, they WILL come back to haunt you and then it's ten times harder.

We can't predict what life's gonna throw at us, nor can we prevent it, but we can learn how to challenge ourselves in the best possible ways, and we can learn how to smile in spite of our problems.

More often than not, people stare so long at the door that's closed behind them, at the thing they've lost, that they miss all the doors that are opening in front of them, because they're looking behind them.

Look forwards.

Jump forwards, walk forwards, dance forwards, climb forwards, crawl forwards, skip forwards, sprint forwards.
However you move, make it forwards, and only hold what's behind you as a memory.

Holding on to the past will never do you good.

Let yourself live, love, and laugh.
Courtney's Imagination★