Love Is All You Need

Now I'm older, it seems that all the world revolves around is love. Every song ever written seems to be falling in or out of love. Every book we read has, if not as the main plot, a subplot of love. Every film we watch includes a mandatory kiss. Love seems like its everything and, if you're single, this can be a pretty damning way of seeing the world: through the perfect and glossy rose-tinted specs of someone else. 
  Recently, I've come to expand my views on love. Rather than see it as integral for 'people my age' or as 'something that will happen if you wait long enough', I've tried to shift my view from finding love in a person to finding love in life. I'm not, at present, looking for the love of my life, but, rather, the love of life, itself. My desire to travel has recently and unexpectedly heightened and to go with it, I've began writing about my intentions to travel and uncover little rivers of life in different places. Maybe it sounds like I'm running away from my lack of love. But I know that, this time, I'm not. 

  But, of course, there are plenty of people actually looking for relationships and "The Undateables" is, quite possibly, the most humbling show that I have ever watched. 

  Undateable. It sounds incredibly derogatory and completely untrue. No one can be totally undateable. The word itself suggests love to be some kind of initiation. Once you've had a date: 'Congratulations! You're dateable.' It's like a trial: once you've had a date you get some more credits, some gold coins, and a certificate. (You don't.) 

  What would it mean if you were to die without have a date? If you were to die, undateable? Some people have never sucked a chocolate fondue through a straw. Others die without having done a sky dive. The vast majority of people haven't lived with Buddhist monks in Nepal. All of these things are fun. They're exhilarating and, the latter, is life-changing. But it's not 'social code' to do things like this. They're 'add on' experiences. Things that "Yeah, if I could/ had the time/ had the money/ wasn't so scared of ..." would be great things to say you've done. But you don't have to. 
  It seems that everyone has to do love. (Or at least, a date.)

  And so, it was for this very stubborn and constructed reason that I vowed I wouldn't watch "The Undateables". But as the advert popped up time and time again over Christmas, I began to realise how important and crucial love is to people's lives. Apart from being a great way to procrastinate and relax after revision, the series is just really really beautiful. It's one of those things that restores you're faith in humanity. It's something that makes you think differently about others. A show that demonstrates the true nature of love. Not everything is the hunky, fairytale one-click wonder moment. It is, very much, like a trial. Something quite remarkable. Something quite beautiful. Something that everyone, irrespective of whether they want it, needs. 

Overambitious baking

I am fairly ambitious with my baking, trying new things that I expect to turn out brilliantly. Needless to say, I am sometimes disappointed.

Today I made a chili and lemon bread - which should have turned out as a baguette but instead came to be an over-sized roll. I also made, probably more successfully, a blackberry and coconut cake taken from this recipe from the BBC Good Food site. I followed it to the 'T' so I can't claim any credit for this.

Mine didn't look quite as good as there and I feel like 1 hour might be slightly too long baking, so if I tried again I would probably have it going for 40 minutes instead and then giving it a quick check.

However, and I admit that it wasn't a complete disaster, I had a lot of fun baking which is the most important thing.

Unfortunately, I reckon that it's a lot more calorific than it makes out but small slithers will make it last longer anyway!

How I learned to love to be single

For all my life, in terms of relationships, it's just been me, myself and I. I just fancied writing about something that, maybe, everyone feels like they have to do. I know that I've felt slightly abnormal because I haven't followed the 'conventions of teenage-hood', as it were. But I guess I haven't found the right person. In fact, the more and more I think about it, it seems like I might be happier, single. I don't want this post to later be hypocritical. What I write today is jut how I feel now. (Also, this is aimed at no one in particular, but just my general experience :D) 

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Growing up, I think much of my school life revolved around who was going out with who. It was like trivia: Guess who's going out with ___?!" 

It was always quite exciting to find out but more so to see how long people could keep the girlfriend and boyfriend status up. 

As we moved from little year 7s to year 10s and 11s, relationships began to last longer than a matter of weeks that you could count on your right hand. 

Love was now real. 

I wasn't ready for a boyfriend in year 7. In fact, I was still playing with Barbie's when I got home after school. But, low and behold, that was the last time I ever had a 'boyfriend'. I say boyfriend like this because, even thought we said we were on a relationship, we most probably weren't. 

I hated being social outside of school and so cinema dates and going to each others houses was a no-go. We simply saw each other in school. But even then, it wasn't love so much as it was experimental. 

But still, for all my false delusions about love, I still wanted to have someone. 

Every new school year I thought: this will be it. But every year I ended, I was still single.

It was finally at university when I realised how important it was to have your own time. I saw people every day. When I cooked dinner. I heard them as I went to bed. I bumped into everyone, everywhere. 

Though the social side of things has really helped me and is something that I really love about uni, I did still need my free time. 

I found a few spare moments to blog. But I hardly ever had time to read for pleasure nor work on writing stories. There was always something to be done and if I rejected social meetings in order to spend time with me, myself and I on a hobby, I felt anti-social.

I missed the time I had to myself. To do nothing or, conversely, work on something extra-ordinary. 

I also began to work out that being in love with someone was an incredibly emotional and time-consuming thing! (It also ate most of your credit and got you to watch films that you wouldn't normally watch, with food that you wouldn't normally have bought). 

Having a boyfriend was all-encompassing. You had to think for not only 1 person but 2. 

Maybe that's because I'm selfish in that respect, or maybe because I just don't know enough but there are some things I love about being un-romantically-attached. 

- I can eat what I want by the call of my stomach 

- I spend more time with my friends 

- I can get a cheap phone tariff 

- I can choose to see family or go on trips at the drop of a hat 

- I can spend more money on my family's presents at Christmas 

- it's ok to spend all my holiday in Dubai 

Maybe things will change as I get older, but sometimes there are people who ask: 'is there anyone you like?' Or who say: 'He'd be good boyfriend material.' But to both statements I would have to answer 'no' and 'maybe' and as for why: 'because I just like it this way.' 

Obsession Number 6

Obsession Number 6 - we're here already!!! This is probably the most commitment I have ever put into anything!! That's a little bit shocking really!

And, to be truthful, this post should have come right at the start because my parents and my family are not my 6th obsession behind Olly Murs and an unhealthy addiction to pizza; they are my first.

They are behind me to push me forward, in front of me to stop me going to far and always (metaphorically) with me.

Being away from my family and having my wandering mind to contend with has been one of the hardest, if not steepest learning curves ever, but if anything it had made me love my family a whole lot more. You really never know what you've got till you can no longer have it on tap.

So here's to family; the wind in my sails.

Obsession 5

In case you haven't noticed, I love to smile!! :D

One of my favourite photos from my baby albums is this one: 

But, if you poured through my photo album, I didn't always smile nor know how. 

After I got braces it took an incredibly long time to smile, especially through the horribly condescending meetings with the orthodontist and the fact that the wires meant that every time I laughed my lip got caught on the top. I had to pull my lip down over the brace just to close my mouth. 

There was a time in secondary school when I didn't smile much. I felt as though, being moody helped me fit in. Somehow I got to the equation that more people would speak to me if I was 'normal'. 

But after a while, I figured that my version of normal - which was smiling and laughing stupidly - made me happier. I didn't need to worry about infiltrating the 'cool' group or having a boyfriend. I smiled my days through, reminding myself to do it everyday and soon the cheesy show of teeth broke into  routine. 

The only tolerable type of pain is when you've been laughing too much and when you think you're going to be sick from laughing too much!

And with multiple mantras, including the words 'laugh', 'smile' and 'love', I have this very simple one to share: 

Just keep smiling!!!