I turned twenty on 30th May 2015. Since then, I've realised a few things, most of them were sprung upon me unexpectedly and some gradually took over parts of my life.

I'm here to tell you that it'll be okay. Everything will be juuuust peachy if you keep positive and keep motivated. Anyway, here's the slightly amusing list that I've compiled of stuff that's happened to me over the past year.

*The photography of this post contains sponsored products. Please see below for further details.

1. You'll probably get lonely

I've always been the kind of person to keep my feelings and my business to myself anyway, but, when I moved to university (at the age of nineteen), I felt extremely lonely. My boyfriend was in a different city, my family were also in a different city and I had a handful of friends that weren't really friends. I went out a lot. I drank a lot. I ate a lot. I kept myself occupied with two part-time retail jobs, attending uni full time and blogging full time. I was forever travelling back home to waste time or see people that I missed. I knew that if I sat down for just an hour, I'd instantly feel crap. Loneliness lurks. It waits patiently and gets you when you're down. The thing is, I was keeping myself busy with work, which stressed me out more. If I have any advice to give from this experience it would be to try new things. Try things that'll be fun. Don't distract yourself with work, otherwise, you could end up spiralling. 

2. Expect poor-ness 

No matter how much you love your M&S dine-in-for-£10 daily meals, you'll have to shop at Aldi at some point. Especially if you're a student. Luckily, my mother taught me well: I'm highly employable and I'm fortunate enough to earn enough money to sustain a living purely from blogging alone. However, I love, love, lovvvvve working in fashion and beauty retail, so I do that too! I did, however, go through a short period of "student skint-ness". What did I do? I got my sh*t together and worked forty-plus hours a week. I now pay my bills in advance, but, I'm yet to successfully budget for food. Maybe I'll make that a resolution. 

3. Emotions flying

Now. You can either put this down to my irrational, psychotic-girlfriend like nature that's quite obviously influenced by my young hormones, contraception, stress or whatever, OR, you can be sensible and accept that these are okay. Weird emotions are okay. You'll be okay. Yes, the contraception and hormones may be contributing factors, but, you have to account for other stressors in your life: workload, finances, health, ass-holey people, etc. What I want to emphasise is: it's definitely, 100%, for sure acceptable to be emotional. You don' have to have your entire life together yet. Also, do not be afraid to act on these emotions. If you feel as though you need professional help, seek professional help. For years, I've been in denial of my mental state and once I reached out to a doctor, I felt so accomplished. I feel like I'm actually getting somewhere. I know how to keep my mind on track and this helps me keep my life (for the most part) on track. I'd just like to take this opportunity to inform you that it's also okay to be an irrational, cray girlfriend. If he can't handle your mood swings and your 'quite-obviously-jumping-to-conclusions-but-wont-back-down' phase, then he don't deserve yo' fine ass. 

4. Social media issues

You learn to actually despise even the thought of Facebook, yet you cannot delete it. Seeing people you used to know getting engaged, having babies, buying a new house with their partner, working full time gets BORING. And, quite frankly, I used to let it get to me. I used to compare my life and lifestyle with others and bring myself down for it. How do those perfectly tanned and toned girls get paid for travelling the world? How is my ex already engaged and I can't even get my fella to share Haribo rings? Now. I've said this a million times: people's lives aren't all that they post on the internet. I get comments daily about how "lucky" I am (P.S. it's not "luck", I actually work my ass off) and I just think "...what on Earth are they even on about? I'm fat, I'm constantly stressed, I'm constantly hangry (hungry/angry)". Seriously, when you stop comparing yourself to others, you'll feel more confident in dealing with your own everyday life. Everyone goes through life differently.

5. Losing old friends

Since moving to uni, I've realised how much I stayed friends with people just for convenience. I think everyone has experienced that text or social media post that goes a little something like "I miss you! Drinks soon???". It's okay to have a small amount of friends. If people actually want to be a part of your life, they'll actively make an effort to be there. Don't hold on to relationships for the sake of saying you have 20 friends instead of 19. Nothing bad had to necessarily happen, it's natual for people to be concerned with their own life and friends drift apart.

The fairy lights in the photo above are £1.50 from Primark and the rose gold binder clips are £2.50 from Paperchase. The polaroids* were gifted to me from LALALAB (formerly Polagram).

That's all for now, speak soon! xo

On a serious note, here are some useful links:

SANE Mental Health Helpline

Mind Mental Health

Brightside Student Finance Help