Find a life of your own.

2016 is slowly coming to an end and many, many are really delighted about this fact. And I have to say, globally this year was really shit. But I like to review what this year was like for my personal life because to be quite honest, I was terrified of what 2016 might hold for me (but I'll come back to that later).

I'll try to structure this post in four categories: Family, friends, love, general state of mind.

1. Family
As for my family, things weren't always good. My grandpa was in a bad state of health at the beginning of the year and we were all scared that he wouldn't make it. Mind you, he made it and he is fine again and to see him finally being able to smile again and be happy was one of my favorite moments of this whole entire year.

My brother started seeing a therapist but a) I don't really want to talk too much about that and b) I barely know anything about it anyways because he and my mum kind of keep it a secret. However, I hope that next year will be a good one for him and that he makes some really great friends here.

2. Friends
I had a few times when I was really pissed off at my friends, actually only the ones I go to school with. I feel like I still haven't found the right group of friends here because some of them are just so unlike me. For example, some are far too concerned about being popular and others gossip about others all the time and I just can't stand it. Yes, I was like that just a year ago, too, but now it really bugs me out.

But then again, while I started growing apart from most of them when the semester started 'cause we barely had any classes together anymore, the last few months I started growing even closer to people I never thought I would. And so far, I have to say I'm really glad to have those people in my life because they fill up my life with so much love and kindness and that just makes me really happy every day. Also, they make me laugh a lot and some days I really need it.

I met my internet best friend this year which was one of the best days of my life and I wouldn't want to miss it. By the way, I'm seeing her again in just a few days!! I feel like I found some sort of soul mate in her.

I'm also so thankful of my best friend, especially for those nights when we would stay up until 2 am just to talk about the series we watched in our childhood and about the way television has changed so much. Or obsessing over Pokemon, Animes, series, movies, ...

3. Love
Love-wise it wasn't a good year. I started it off with realizing I was in love with a friend of my brother and it wasn't really destined to work out right from the start. It all broke down when I met his beautiful girlfriend and after a phase of really being down and sad, I realized that they really match each other and that I kind of started to enjoy my time alone.

But then I met this boy while being at my friend's and it felt incredible because for the first time I thought there was a realistic chance for us two to end up together. Mind you, it turned out he was a liar and probably more fascinated by what's on the outside than what's on the inside and after realizing that, I felt so much better again. I realized that I deserve more and I shouldn't settle for someone who doesn't care about hurting my feelings just like that.

However, I started to look for someone to fall in love with afterwards and tried forcing things that weren't meant to be in the first place. It only started dawning on me that I really don't need a boyfriend when I started really talking with the guy from the beginning of the year. This made me realized that maybe it will someday be possible for me to talk to a guy and just become friends with him without falling in love with him, something that hasn't worked for me for years and years.

4. General state of mind
As I said in the beginning, I was terrified of 2016. Mainly because 2015 was the year I became clean and I was scared I would forget all that I had learnt so far.

But it turns out, once you realized your worth and started getting more and more confident, you can't go that easily back there again, no matter what life throws at you.

I started doing so many things I would have never done just a year ago and I am really proud of myself. I was able to text in group chats, talk to classmates just like that again and I even started participating in class again, something I did all the time before 2014. I began not caring about what my body looked like and being way too concerned about having a certain weight.

And as many people in my surroundings noticed, I'm still not at the top of the mountain but maybe it's about the way. And maybe it's not important that they noticed my improvements, maybe it's enough that I myself acknowledge how far I've come.

Of course it still hurts when people call me shy but that's just their perception and I and you guys on tumblr know what I struggled with and that I'm certainly moving. Not fast, but I do.

So what are my New Year's resolutions?
The years before, especially in 2014, my only wish was to be happy at the end of the year. In 2015 I made it, this year I'm close to.

But maybe I should start setting new goals. I think my specified goal for 2017 is that I indeed end up happy, but also in a way that does not require being in a relationship. I was too busy trying to find a significant other that I started to lose track of the things that matter for me. In addition to that, I hope next year will be another year of me overcoming my fears and growing stronger because of it.

One of the only things that was consistent this year was your support of me. Whether it was about me being sad or angry or even opening up this blog. You have supported me and for that I will be forever thankful. I don't care if I have never met you, that doesn't make it less real. Thank you.

I hope you all have a good start into the new year and that your 2017 is full of blessings.

Currently being closer to finding a life of my own and forever grateful,

xxx Sarah

Usually I just post my poems on here as a plain text but this time I felt the urgent need to speak the words myself. Sorry in advance for my accent, I'm, as I already said, not a native English speaker. Thanks for listening anyways.

FOMO, the fear of missing out, seems to be a common thing among us teenagers. For example fearing that if you won't go to that party, you'll miss something really cool and funny or if you're not invited to that sleepover, you'll be unpopular and on the outside.

With me, I wouldn't say FOMO is a thing that really affects me. However, I have a ton of fears like I'm pretty sure the list of my anxieties would be as long as Santa's wish list (well not actually, but you know what I mean). And I never really tried to get behind it like why I'm afraid of literally everything, I just took it as a character trait, like that's just the way I am. I'm sure that's not 100% wrong but watching Savannah Brown's video "bad at being bad" (you see, I adore her) it occurred to me that the bottom of most of my fears is the fear of not being perfect so people will think I'm dumb.

Yes, that sounds insane and I know not being perfect makes us human but it's just something that's grounded within me.

Just like Savannah, I'd for example love to dance, maybe even in a dance group but I'm insecure that others will think that I'm awful at it and then I'll just feel bad.

Or the fact that I love to sing. As a kid, I always said this is one of my hobbies but now I just kinda hide it and never talk about it cause I'm like "What if they'd expect me to sing well? And what if my voice is actually terrible and I'll just embarrass myself?"

And it's not like I haven't experienced situations like this. For example, we had a playback show at a school trip and I performed my favorite song at that time (a song from a Barbie movie) and the boys started laughing at me and I immediately felt like "Ok, it's clear, I'm just not able to dance in a good way" as an ex-best friend in first grade already pointed out to me that me loving to do pirouettes is not a right way of dancing.

Another situation that kind of assured me in thinking that I can't sing was when I decided to sing in front of my class in 5th grade. Before that, a lot of people have actually told me that I'm good at singing but when some guys started laughing at me I just filed that under "reasons why I apparently can't sing" and that just kinda stayed with me, even years later, when people said my voice was great and just cause that one moment I doubted they were telling the truth.

Maybe it's also just about that we put too much importance on negative rather than positive experiences but that is another topic.

I'm also insecure of my writing, like I could never show this blog to all the people I know in real life, even if this wasn't such a personal blog. Like what if they say my writing is bad? I just couldn't deal with it and I think this is why criticism bothers me so much although it should actually just help me to grow. However, I seem to take everything personally, like it's a flaw of me as a person. For example when my French teacher told me that my dialogue wasn't good, I nearly started crying 'cause I thought I myself was a failure.

It's just a pattern that I noticed. I have no idea if I'll ever get over this issue of mine but maybe I don't need to. Maybe I just have to accept my fears as a flaw that makes me human and helps me find a life of my own someday.

xxx Sarah

After I wrote down this post called "Hugging" I posted a few weeks ago, I realized how therapeutic it is for me to just have this place to write my thoughts down. And right now my thoughts are running, running wild and I just feel like I need to find some sort of order again so here I am.

I wonder if anyone of you feels/felt like this too.

As I once already said, I am a big planner when it comes to love. And having realized that, I started wondering if I really had a crush on certain people if not all I once called my "crush".

Or, at the same time, I wonder if certain people were the only ones I really ever loved and to cite Cailee Rae they're "something like an anchor that won't let go of me" and I would never be able to love someone like they loved me.

For instance, I can't even picture that feeling anymore I had with my first "crush". Every time I see him at school (which already rarely happens) I start thinking "what did I ever like about this person?" even if we were at that time some sort of friends before it all broke apart.

But then there's this amazing boy I met during one of my darkest times. And in hindsight, I know it would not have been the right time for an "us" but that still does not stop me from aching at the thought of what we could have been. He was one of very few that didn't care about rumors and every time he was close to me I felt like he got me. He got that I just needed to be silent sometimes cause I had a bad day. He got my distance while at the same time working towards making it smaller.

The next-to-last time I saw him (which is in my head practically like the really last time) was Christmas two years ago. He walked past me and we shared a look. And sometimes in my sleep, this moment happens all over again and we actually speak the words out loud that we tried to tell the others through our eyes that day. His eyes were some sort of magical portal for me, leading to a  whole new world and I feel like every time they found mine the word stopped for a second and there was some sort of electricity flowing around the both of us.

But maybe I just imagined all of this and I only liked him because he seemed to be into me. Or maybe he was my one shot because I can't help to compare everyone to him although he now has a girlfriend.

Then after that came a boy who made me feel like home and he was the first one who made me forget about the boy I was all over before that. Every time he smiled, my cheeks started blushing and I just felt at ease with the world which was still a rare feeling for me at that time. It started breaking down when I met his truly amazing girlfriend and I started tucking my feelings away and barely ever saw him ever again.

Nevertheless I was completely star-struck all over again when he smiled at me yesterday. His smile caught my eye and the happiness instantly came fleeting back without me even wanting it.

So am I still in love with him? Or was I ever really in love with him (because at some point I also thought I wasn't in hindsight)? And how am I supposed to handle it and to untangle this knot of feelings inside my stomach?

But maybe it's not about finding someone I could love like I loved certain people in my life. Maybe every person contains a different feeling and maybe it's good that it's like this.

The question that's still lingering is how do you know if you really had a crush on someone (if someone of you knows the answer to this or has an opinion on this, please, please tell me. Comment on here or send me a message on tumblr. I'm really struggling at the moment.)? And will I ever be sure I like someone for the sake of the person and not because I feel lonely? Will I ever feel content being single?

Maybe I'll never know. For now, I'm just trying to look ahead and see what the future will hold for me. Maybe it'll make sense then. And maybe I would have found a life of my own by then.

xxx Sarah