Well im still in Spain (and let me tell you it’s hot) so its time for guest post no.2. Here is the fantabulous Helen… Over to you honey.

When Miss Smidge asked for guest posters for while she’s off sunning herself in Spain (I’m not jealous, much), I thought ‘why not?’. I do love to talk about myself, after all. And when I found out that she wanted people to talk about their “hopes, dreams, fears and issues” I was even more keen. Because all of those are things that I’ve been thinking about in great detail recently.

I’m Helen and I can usually be found posting at Clear Your Heart or tweeting as @ohthedecadence. If any of you read my blog then you’ll know (how could you not, I have rammed it down people’s throats) that I’ve not been having a fantastic year, thus far. I’ve been through a break up, battled with low self esteem and, most recently, my Dad’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer. From mid June onwards I spent most of my evenings in floods of tears, confused, hurt and extremely sad. It wasn’t a great couple of months.

But, just recently, I feel I’ve turned the corner. The last couple of weeks have brought more smiles than tears. More happy days than sad ones. More real, from the heart, laughter than weak, forced, ‘I’m ok’ smiles.

I can’t really put my finger on why. But, if I was to hazard a guess, I think it’s because I’ve stopped waiting. I’ve stopped waiting for my life to happen and begun to live it. I’ve begun to make it happen. For myself. I’ve always been guilty of trying to please people. Always putting others first, sacrificing things that I wanted to do and bending to other people’s whims and dreams. But I have my own dreams now. Dreams of a future that I will make my own. I may not always succced, but I’ll pick myself up from failure, dust myself off and carry on.

Becase all anyone can really do is carry on, regardless.

I’ve been on a journey of self discovery (hi, i sound like a tosser) for a good long while now, almost a year in fact. I still have some way to go but who doesn’t. We’re all works in progress and it’s the little imperfections that make us who we are. It’s learning to love yourself, despite these flaws, that’s important. And that eluded me for a long time. It still does sometimes, when I’m having a fat day, or a rubbish hair day, or a day of feeling small and vulnerable. But I’m doing ok. For the first time in a long while I can say that I’m comfortable in my own skin and that I really don’t need anyone to make me happy. I’m doing it for myself.

I can’t say that I don’t feel a pang of regret when I look back at the photos from the last couple of years. That I don’t wonder about the life we could have had, the dreams we could have shared. But, for the most part, I smile when a song triggers a particular memory, when a ridiculous injoke we shared comes to mind, when I see our smiling faces looking back at me from one of the many moments captured on film (memory card doesn’t sound as poetic). It’s always hard to put a piece of your life into a box and pack it away. But I guess it’s all part of growing up and moving on.

I feel like I’ve finally pressed play and freed myself from a life spent on pause.

Helen x