Life Update: 05/01/2019

Hello Everyone!

How are you all? I feel like I don’t ask that enough.

This post is going to be a bit different from my usual content because I wanted to just have a chat today about everything that is going on in my life both bookish and non-bookish, so i hope that is okay with you guys. This is the first ‘Life Update’ post that I have made, but I think I may make them a more regular thing if I like how this turns out. Maybe every season? There isn’t going to be much structure to this post because I just want to talk about where I’ve been lately, why I haven’t been as active on social media even though I’ve still been posting here, exams, school, reading and so many more things. I have quite a bit to talk about, so let’s just get into it!

The first thing I wanted to address was the fact that I didn’t upload a reading wrap-up for January. I haven;t missed a blog post since I started this blog, so missing that date was pretty big for me, but it was also the best thing for me. January is always a rough month for me and I will explain more about that in a bit, but with all of the extra stress of my final year of school and planning for the future this year as well as my mental health, it has made finding time to read very difficult. I therefore ended up only reading 1 book in January and I didn’t see the point of making a whole wrap-up for one book. I was originally going to quickly write a wrap-up combined with a life update, but I didn’t want it to be rushed, so I missed the upload day and am writing this for you now. If you read any of my new years posts then you will know that I had high hopes for this year from both a reading and a personal perspective and while the latter has been going very well, the former hasn’t. It isn’t that I’m in a slump or don’t want to read, (because believe me I would love nothing better than to read!) but I genuinely do not have the time to put my all into my school work, look after myself, prepare for the future and spend a good amount of time reading. I am still struggling to fit it into my day to day now into February, but I think I am starting to find a balance. Hopefully I will be able to pick up a lot more books this month, but worse case scenario is that my reading will just be a little slower for a few more months until I have left school.

No onto the other aspects of my life: school, mental health and personal projects.

Let’s start with school as it is a huge part of my life right now and is taking up about 85% of time and about 110% of my energy. I am 16, which means I am doing my GCSE’s (if you are from elsewhere in the world and don’t know what they are, then i suggest you google it because I don’t know how to explain it), but they are a pretty big deal here. I need to get good grades in order to move onto the next stage of my education (A-Levels/Extended College Diploma).I have decreased the amount of subjects I am taking from 8 to 6 since last year, which has made my work load much more manageable and means I can put more into the subjects I care about, but it is still a lot of work. For anyone who is interested, I am taking Maths and English (because the law requires it), History, Music BTEC (recording and editing music as opposed to performing it), Photography and Art. The last three of those subjects are almost entirely coursework based, which means there is a lot I need to do for them which takes up a lot of time. I am enjoying my photography, art and music. I even enjoy some elements of English and History because I find them interesting. I don’t enjoy maths, but does anyone really? I want to do the best I can in my exams in a few months time while also not sacrificing my hobbies (like this blog) and my mental health. I have worked so hard to get to where I am both academically and health wise, so I’m not willing to give up either of them. I don’t talk about school much on here, but let it be said that my school isn’t exactly understanding or a particularly nice place to be, so I want to go out with somewhat of a bang! I want to prove everyone wrong and most importantly prove myself right. I know I am capable of getting top grades, so that is what I am going to get.

Let’s move onto a slightly lighter topic for a minute… my personal projects and the future

If you know me at all then you will know that I am a very passionate person and I am also an incredibly ambitious person. I am a photographer, an artist and a writer among many other things and I want to be able to do all three of those things for a job. I would love to be able to sell my artwork and prints of my photos, do photo shoots for people and maybe for magazines and smaller companies. It is also my dream to be a published author. I have known that that was my dream since I was about 6 years old and I’ve never let go of it. I have found other passions since then like photography, art, music, reading etc, but my love for writing has never dissipated. I want to continue to build my photography and art portfolios this year to put me in a better place to get jobs when I turn 18 and to start building a presence online to promote my work. That will all just take time though and the thing I really want to focus on it writing. The school year ends earlier for me this year because of exams, so I will have almost 4 months to do whatever I want with and I want to dedicate it to writing. There are other things I’d like to do as well like read and get a job to earn some money, but I mostly want to write. I haven’t had time so far this year because of everything else going on, but I won’t have an excuse in a few months, so I need to get writing. There are so many stories inside me waiting to be told, so I just need to decide which one to start with. Would you be interested in seeing some snippets of my writing? I already post some of my poetry from time to time, but I could post more from some of my bigger projects… Let me know?

As you can see, I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but in amongst all of that, I still have to find time to look after myself. I try and keep this blog mostly positive and largely book related because that’s what makes me happy to write about, but I have mentioned my fragile mental health a few times and I want to go more in depth about it. my experiences with my mental health and disability is something I want to dedicate separate blog posts to as well as a book to to hopefully help other people in my situation, but for now I will tell you where I am at the moment. I have been suffering with depression and anxiety for about 4 years now and I was also diagnosed as autistic 1 year ago. I have come to terms with my autism diagnosis now and I am on my way to understanding how to navigate a world that wasn’t made for me, but I am still very much in the thick of my anxiety and depression. I am on anti-depressants and have been for about 9 months now and they have helped significantly. A year ago I could barely even function, but I am now able to do my school work, think about the future and have taken up my hobbies again, but I am still far from better. I expect I’ll have to fight it at least a little for what will probably be the rest of my life, but I am working on getting as ‘better’ as I can be and for now I am just trying to show up for myself whenever I can. As I said, I will do other posts about this and one day I will maybe even write a book, but for now I am doing okay. I am coping and showing up for myself and that is good enough for now.

I know this was quite a different post from usual and also quite a heavy one so congratulations if you got to the end and thank you for taking the time to me talk about everything that is going on for me right now. How is your 2019 going so far? How are you? I’m always happy to talk if you just need someone to vent at, so feel free to leave a comment or you can dm me privately over on my Instagram (@theoriginalbookdragon). Remember to try and show up for yourself and that it is okay to not be okay. Love you all! ❤❤❤💋

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out