to all of you

As a teenage girl in modern society there is so many pressures. To be cool, to be pretty, to be normal, to excel academically, to be on trend, to be rich, to be funny, to thin, to be normal - that i think we often lose touch of what is most important. To be all of these things would be a betrayal to yourself, being all of these thing wont make you popular or a better person and they certainly wont make you happy. Happiness comes from freedom, from excitement, from spontaneity, from being a little bit different, from laughing all day, to going for an ice-cream straight after a huge lunch or running around in some dorky clothes because you really do not care. A happy girl is a beautiful one.

Make-up will not make you happy, being size zero certainly won't. Wearing the same clothes as everyone else, liking the same bands wont. Studying extra math to please your parents and teachers even though you despise it and would rather be doing art wont make you happy. Not having a slice of cake when you so desperately long for the creaminess of the butter cream, simply because the girls at school say its important to watch your weight won't make you happy. Dieting wont make you perfect. Nor will it impress him. A hilarious joke or quirky fashion sense with a sparkle in your eye will. Wearing the wrong shirt, not liking the same shops isn't a reason to drag a blade across your skin as punishment, it is a reason to embrace your differences.

Dancing round the room crazily to a silly song, licking the bowl of cake mixture when baking, rolling around on the grass in an old sweater and silly shorts, having the odd hair out of place, a few freckles, a curve instead of a concave, the odd scar or two of what you've overcome is the strength and happiness that defines beauty. To be able to stand up proudly, dust yourself off, survive a hilarious trip in the corridor at school and still be able to shout i am who i am whilst dancing around the room to 'girls just want to have fun' is real happiness.

The scars you hide beneath are nothing to be ashamed of, they are the struggles you've overcome, or the suffering you may be going through. It makes you no less beautiful, quit conforming. No amount of 'ordinary' will make you happy. Its too boring

Coping with stress and trying to concentrate.

At my almost target weight I am the heaviest ive been in over 18 months, I eat more than I have in over 2 years, I have more energy; so why am i not better yet? I feel like im stuck, in a limbo between the healthiness of my body and the instability of my mind. I'm nearing my college deadline but all i can focus my attention on is calories, food and calories. Did I say calories twice?

Why is it that it is only once your better you really are able to notice how much you've royally fucked up your body (apologies for the language but there is no other term for it), I am grateful for the perks oif recovery and i can honestly reassure you that it is heaps better than being consumed in a warped world of your eating disorder but my god, its tough.

At a critically low BMI i felt strong, like i could take on the world, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my concentration, that i was the best. I obviously am aware that that is not true, but here I am a 'healthy weight' i have no excuse to be 'struggling' yet I'm sitting here correcting the fact I've written 'hear' not 'here'. I know full well i am overly critical, but there is no reason to not be able to concentrate now, i am no longer malnourished ir starved, so why am i so distracted and pre-occupied all the time.

Adoration of Pepsi max

I am completely infatuated with the new Pepsi max advert, though I am by no means surprised that such a delicious, beautiful product could produce such an amazing advert. 

The new advert feature beyonce, an all round fabulous woman and amazing role model with a curvaceous, healthy figure. The slogan used is, 'embrace your past, live for now'. I think it's a brilliant message and it's so enlightening. There are so many negative messages fed from the media and to have something like this fed from something that is, maximum taste; zero calories, makes me realise that it's not all bad.

Embracing my past is difficult, presumably I'm supposed to learn from it, if I'm honest I feel I am being haunted by it if anything. I can remember feeling horrendously unhappy, though the majority of the time I was blissfully happy, yet all I can remember is negativity. I want to be able to embrace where I've come from, but I'd rather be something new. Perhaps the key, learning from the past, 'embracing' it as it were may translate and interpret to realising your past is where you've been and don't want to go again. So you begin shaping now, as you live for now.