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A year in the life: the lessons I have learnt and the blog posts they inspired

a-year-in-the-life

 

I cannot believe we are already standing on the brink of a new year.

 

It doesn’t matter how long I have lived,  I am always taken aback by the way the days, weeks and years tumble into one another and how easily I lose track of them.

 

In my room I have a box of journals. Some incomplete. Some impossible to read due to the padlocks I insisted on using. Some filled with nothing but drawings, doodles and childhood dreams.

 

This summer I want to clean out the bedroom I used as a child but I fear it will be something of a challenge.

Mostly because of that pink, sparkly box filled with my journals.

 

I hate getting rid of things. I hate choosing what things are important enough to keep and what things hopefully won’t be missed.

 

I can’t bring myself to get rid of the journals. Etched on those pages, immortalised in those words is me. Me at age 8, 13 and 16. Me growing up, finding myself and becoming who I am.

 

I couldn’t throw away those journals any more than I could wipe this blog off the internet. The memories are too precious. The snapshots of my life too rare.

 

I’m so thankful for that sparkly, pink box. I’m so thankful for this wide, open space. This blog that enables me to pour myself out, fill you up, and keep who I was at that point in time, frozen forever.

 

Please indulge me with this one very long, final post. These are the lessons I have learnt this year. These are the blog posts I have written. This is the person I was in 2018.

 

A year in the life…

 

January:

The month you never got to see. I was in a mad scurry to get this new blog up and running.

I was also hunting for a new flat for us to live in, going to a billion flat viewings and feeling increasingly discouraged as our options grew slim!

 

Thankfully, I managed to find a perfect place that absolutely exceeded all of my expectations. And we made the place our own right before the end of the month.

 

February:

Hello and welcome to the new blog! I launched meganhallier.com and finally had an online space that matched the dream I had inside my head.

 

After moving into the new flat I decided this year I absolutely HAD to get to know my neighbours. So I took them some muffins and forged new friendships.

We got ourselves a dinner invitation with one of our neighbours who unfortunately didn’t speak English. This meal sparked my first post: The gift of our diversity.

 

I also started a new job working at a charity store which I fell in love with immediately. I got to work with clothes every day which was a dream come true!

 

But I also faced a secret battle with anxiety as my fear for the future became overwhelming. This inspired my second post: There is enough.

 

a-year-in-the-life

March:

This month I learned the importance of slowing down for the first time. I realised that for my three years at university I had been rushing, straining and striving which was no good for me.

 

I took comfort in the familiar motions of being in my kitchen which is why I wrote: I’m not in a hurry.

 

I went to a leader’s retreat for church and as I watched the most glorious sunset I began formulating the words for my post: fighting the fear of missing out.

 

But March also saw me truly wrestling with my faith for the first time. I lost sight of who God is and how He fits into my life but just as quickly as I abandoned Him, I found Him again. Which lead me to write: beauty for ashes.

 

April:

In every spare moment I had, I began to write. In the hour before work, in the silences between serving customers, in the evenings after dinner.

 

I discovered that once I released myself from the “lifestyle blogging” box I was free to write with abandon. To dig deeper, to push myself harder, to reveal more than ever before.

 

And after watching and falling in love with the movie ‘La La Land’ I wrote: Here’s to the ones who dream.

 

I also went to talk on the enneagram. Learnt I am a four. And got punched in the gut with the things my type does badly. For instance, constantly longing for the future instead of enjoying the present. Cue blog post: living in the now and the endless longing for the not yet. 

 

year-in-the-life

 

May:

As my friendships changed after college I found myself craving community. So I got more involved at church and more invested in my relationships.

A volunteer at the charity store was telling me about a quilt that her and her friends were making which inspired the metaphor in the post: Craving community and the cost of real connection. 

 

In May I finally graduated from college which was one of the proudest and happiest moments of my life. But around the same time I unfortunately was replaced at my job which broke my heart and so I wrote: That familiar feeling of a changing season.

 

My anxiety continued to simmer beneath the surface so I took the very brave step of going to see a counselor. This turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and it inspired the post: Healing from the past; unraveling our stories and struggles. 

 

June:

In the dead of winter we went ice skating and my wobbly legs on the slippery ice encouraged me to write about: The fear and thrill of the fall. 

 

Around this time I was job hunting and managed to get a few interviews but the number of rejections began to get me down. The searching felt endless and so I tried to encourage anyone else in the same boat with the post: Facing up to the fear of rejection.

 

Then with my self esteem plummeting I did what any sensible person would and picked up a Brene Brown book. Her inspiring message about the power of vulnerability helped my pick myself back up and I wrote: Daring to be vulnerable and my fear of feeling joy. 

 

year-in-the-life

July:

I was so lost. Jobless and sad, I couldn’t manage to write and so the blog got placed on the back burner in favour of my mental health.

 

August:

I finally found a new job! Working as a retail assistant in a cafe. I was delighted to work again and keep myself busy but I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential. So I wrote: Feeling like a failure…when life doesn’t go as planned. 

 

But I also learnt the importance of being myself and I managed to flip that feeling of failure on its head. And I wrote: Authenticity and finding happiness by being myself. 

 

One weekend, I watched the Netflix movie everyone was raving about- ‘To all the boys I’ve loved before’ and I decided to write my own blog post about my past loves: To all the boys I’ve loved before.

And it was this post that prompted me to finally admit (what was probably clear to everyone else) that I was in love again. This time it was mutual!

 

year-in-the-life

 

September:

I’ve struggled with all kinds of insecurities but the very worst one has always been around my weight.

 

This year I finally began to look my myself in the mirror and actually LIKE what I saw. But nevertheless, the bad days still came and the ugly insecurities still arose. So I wrote about my body positivity struggles in my post: My body, my home.

 

October:

I started to really enjoy my job and the people I worked with but I still found myself longing for something more. I figured that I spent far too much of my time wishing for another time and place.

And I wrote the post: When wishing for the weekend becomes a way of life. 

 

November:

After being moved to a new store and having to start all over again, I realised that my job was making me totally miserable and I so I finally plucked up the courage to quit!

 

I worked out my notice and walked out the door without looking back! And I wrote about it: Doing something brave even when it scares you. 

 

year-in-the-life

December:

After tossing and turning for months, feeling really unsettled and unhappy, I decided that perhaps it was my surroundings that were bringing me down. The big city got too much for me and I packed up all my stuff and moved back home.

 

But in doing so I was forced to say goodbye to some very important people in my life which is why I wrote: The painful realisation that growing up means saying goodbye.

 

And lastly as the year came to a close I found that I needed to leave old mindsets in the past and make some space for new things to come. So I wrote about: Minimalism; clearing the clutter and living simply. 


 

Too long didn’t read ( I forgive you!)…

 

Thanks for supporting my blog this year.

Thank you for every kind comment you’ve left, every like you’ve doted upon me and every minute you’ve taken to read the words I write.

I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year will be wonderful.

 

If you have a second it would mean the world to me if you took my reader survey.  Every bit of feedback I get is unbelievably helpful for the future posts I will write. Because ultimately, I write not just for myself, but for you too.

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See you next year!

To all the boys I’ve loved before…

love-lessons

I have spent much of my life trying to figure out what love looks like.

 

For so long I was mesmerized by the Disney princess tales of Prince Charming and knights on white horses. I lived for the glittery romance and thrilling passion of these love stories.

 

Over the years I have discovered that the real life versions of these stories come with so much more trials and heartbreak.

 

The frogs seem to outnumber the princes.

The days spent in high castles waiting to be rescued seem to be endless.

The happily ever after often requires tears and compromise and a whole lot of things which must be written in the fine print in the Disney tales.

 

But as brutal as it is, I love the tragedy of our real life love stories. I love the high stakes, the tangible expressions, the depth that cartoons cannot begin to capture.

 

I just wish I had known love wasn’t meant to be hard.

 

I think love should be soft like freshly washed sheets and warm like the morning sunshine on your back. Love should be gentle like a boat bobbing along a small stream and safe like your bedroom when a storm is battering outside on the windows.

 

You shouldn’t have to make them want to be with you. They should just want to be with you.

 

You shouldn’t have to become someone else for them. They should just love you for the wonderful person that you are.

 

You shouldn’t have to try so hard because love should be easy.

 

And so with this in mind I wanted to reminisce on my past loves…the lessons I’ve learnt from them and the poems they inspired.

love lessons, heartbreak lessons, to all the boys I've loved before, relationship advice, relationships, love, finding love, poetry, love poems,

To the ones that didn’t know I existed…

 

Oh how I obsessed over you. If you only knew all the silly nicknames I gave you. If you could only see all the journals I covered with your name.

 

You gave me a first glimpse of the intensity of love.

 

You showed me just how overwhelming, confusing and all-consuming these feelings can be. You taught me that I can bounce back rather quickly from heartbreak and that crushes aren’t really love at all. 

 

Crushes are superficial and hardly ever based on facts. Whereas, love is substantial, built on truth and knowing more about someone than their favourite ice cream flavour.

 

To the one who didn’t want me…

 

I tried to be the girl for you, oh I tried so hard.

 

I laughed at your jokes before I understood the punchline. I walked at your pace even though my legs were working twice as hard as yours. I listened intently when you talked about politics though I thought it was about as interesting as watching the washing machine swirl my clothes around.

 

I suppose it’s not your fault, I fell for you and you didn’t even know it. But that’s the way you are, stuck inside your head you leave little room for emotions. So of course you had no inkling of mine.

 

But you taught me what a gift it is to feel so strongly. What I take for granted is such a struggle for some. You reminded me how precious it is to know love and how difficult yet thrilling it is to express it.

love-lessons

 

To the one who wanted to be ‘just friends…’

 

I thought you were different. I thought this time it might stick. I thought perhaps if I wished it hard enough, you would want me enough to stay.

 

But I was wrong.

 

We should have only ever been friends. You shouldn’t have toyed with my heart the way you did. You should have been honest from the start instead of allowing me to push you into a relationship you weren’t interested in.

 

But you taught me how much it hurts to love someone that doesn’t feel the same. And you reminded me how good it feels to love so even though losing you almost tore me in two, I knew I would search forever to find someone who would let me love them like you couldn’t.

love-lessons

 

To the one who loved me back…

 

I promised myself I’d never write soppy love poems or I’d certainly never publish them but for you I will make an exception.

 

Because I cannot talk about heartbreak and hopeless love without mentioning how it feels when it goes right.

 

So here it is. You are my sunshine, my safe place and my favourite song I could keep singing all day long.

 

You taught me how to love myself again. You showed me what trust looks like. You made vulnerability seem so effortless. You took the hardest thing in the world- opening up my heart again- and made it feel like the easiest.

love-lessons


 

It has always frustrated me that we have to live life forwards. With the knowledge we gain, in hindsight we would do things so differently.

 

But that’s the way life is. We can’t dwell on the past but rather try our best to make the future better.

 

It gives me great joy to know that the experiences I’ve had and the lessons I’ve learnt because of them have shaped me into the person who I am today. And that through these experiences I can help others learn from my mistakes and hopefully do better than me.

 

And so I hope that this will be true for you.

 

That you will continue to love with your whole heart but to only share it with those truly deserving of it.

 

Remember, love is really quite simple…if they love you, they’ll make sure you know it.