20 years of my life.

Leaning out the window of my room, smelling the rain as it dribbles from the sky, in a rather lazy manner if I'm honest, waiting for "one of the biggest storms for years" to hit, I think back.

How I have changed, what I have achieved. I never really look at my own life and what I have done.

I went to school in England and Spain. I learnt how to ride horses and a bike. I learnt how to make pancakes.

I have been working from the age of 12, pretty much every weekend. I brought my first computer. I brought my first camera. 

I worked a lot and I am hard working still. I went to school as well. Yes, I messed around a lot and could have achieved much better results, but I passed and learnt a lot of life lessons, like how to escape school, how to get a teacher to pass you and how to make friends with anybody. 

I got in with the wrong crowd(ish) towards the end of school, started smoking and a little bit of pot thrown in. I've drunk a fair amount of red wine on the beach at 9am, whilst smoking a shisha and watching my friends play guitar. Though they may not be good things I have done, they have had a good impact on me. I could have carried on smoking and given up on everything else. I haven't. I got out of that rut and moved to England to study my passion, photography. It wasn't right for me. It wasn't the right time. I was running away from what was becoming of my life. I ended up changing that course to fine art as the photography was far to much about the editing. I gave up after 3 months. I hated myself, felt worthless, didn't know why I was even in the world any more. I came home and still felt like nothing, a failure. I could hardly go out, from whatever was happening to me, I would get so scared of leaving the house. I was meant to be taking antidepressants and tranquillizers to stabilize me, not exactly what I needed. I needed to find myself was all. 

I found that if I got drunk I could go out. So I started drinking, partying all the time. I started smoking weed again. Then moved out of my mommas over a silly spat, moving in with an absolute psycho woman. She controlled every aspect of me for a month or two, until finally I rang my momma at midnight on a Monday crying for her to come and get me, which she did, with in twenty minutes they were there for me and got me out of that nutters house.

After a week of being back home, I found a flat to share with a waiter I knew from town, he was cool, was hardly home so me and my kitten Snookie moved in there and I went over the top partying and drinking. Getting in to fights again, drinking every night. I was earning around 200-250euros a week. I saved 50 back for rent every week the rest was on alcohol and partying. I blew all my savings as well. I don't remember much of those days. I then woke up one morning after having drunk a bottle of Jaegermeister the night before and I felt completely fine. This scared the shit out of me. I should feel like crap, so I stopped drinking and it was almost like going "cold turkey" I was cold in the middle of June, shaking, my memory was gone.

Then I met a man, who, in my eyes, looked after me, he wouldn't like me drinking as I would get aggressive, which was true. So I settled for a while, got a great job, moved into a new, bigger flat with my best friend and Snookie. I didn't go out, ever. I had the occasional beer. Work-Home-Work-Home. It was safer. It seemed healthier and better for me. Even though every body was worried about me I couldn't understand how this was wrong. Until I met a friend who worked when and where ever. They made me realize that I also could be doing whatever I wanted. That I was a clever girl, that I could change the world. 

So I finished my relationship, started going out and found myself again, just a more chilled out version of myself. I saw all my friends I had neglected for the past year. I met loads of amazing new people and I decided to go back to school in England. To start a fresh. To become somebody I can be.

So I went for a couple of days to England for an interview and to check out the area, I got an unconditional offer on the course I wanted and found an amazing place to live. 

I didn't know anybody or anywhere. It has been the best thing I have ever done. 

I'm now finding myself. I've come to realise I don't need to be with anybody, that I don't need anybody, but having the people I have, I am incredibly lucky. The amount of support they all give me, new people and people back home. 

My life is going forward, every minute, I go forward, sometimes glancing back realising how much of an achievement my life has already been and what an achievement it will be.

Waiting for the storm, so I can watch the rain pour and smash into the ground. The storm is my life, a beautiful, powerful, incredible thing I am glad to be a part of.