I've been thinking about what I've learnt this year. Though I remember the first of January as though it were yesterday, it is actually almost midyear and so, so much as happened.

The first thing that I think has been growing, not just the last six months but particularly now, is that I'm learning to be comfortable with being who I am, liking what I like, being annoyed by what I don't, without being ashamed of it. I mean, little things. I spent most of high school apologising for who I was, for what I liked, for as much as I tried to be myself, to stand up and say 'this is what I like' I don't think I ever managed to do with without apologising for it. I have always liked things intensely, and unfortunately for my thirteen year old self, or my nine year old self, I very rarely seemed to like the things other people thought were cool. I was obsessed with pink, pink anything. I loved fairies and when boys teased me about it, I'd be so defiant that I'd say they really existed and were 1000% real. I don't think I believed it but I've always had a problem backing down sometimes, when I feel ashamed. It's not the worst thing in the world to be I suppose, defiant. But defiance is only really positive if you believe it yourself-- that you really believe that what you like and enjoy and want isn't shameful and that no one has the right to tease you about it.

I wasn't popular ever because I liked the wrong things and was either too dumb or too smart to be able to pretend otherwise. Dumb because it really just never occurred to me to try, at any level beyond the superficial. When all the other girls had Bratz Dolls and I wished that I fitted in and could play too, I didn't ask my Mum for one. It really didn't occur to me. In a way that was because school and home always felt so separate that I'd forget, but also because I really thought Bratz were silly and I never really put effort into looking or dressing like someone who was popular in primary school, I just did me and never thought about it, not because I was particularly confident in that person, I just didn't know any other way.

It sounds like of contradictory but I don't mean it to be. I cared what people thought but I was so young, I hadn't really put together that you put effort into being someone else until they like you so I cared, and when I got teased, I got ashamed, but in my twelve year old way, I told them to go fuck themselves aka 'you're mean and stupid'.

In high school I had more confidence, because I had much better friends and I was very happy, but high school really isn't the place to foster self confidence because there is so much about fitting in, about being liked, about having friends and being thought of as pretty and funny and interesting because you're developing into the person that you feel like in your final form and if you do it wrong, you're terrified you're going to be a person that is wrong forever, that people won't like. Puberty is like waiting and seeing if you're going to be a butterfly and have all your dreams in life come true, or if all the flaws you suspected in yourself were going to stay long term and mean that you are going to have a shit life. All the single data points start creating a pattern, until you have labels like 'shy' 'introverted' 'not popular' 'not funny' and you think that's all you'll ever be.

But university, at least for me, it's given me time to build only the relationships that I want to build, to choose what interests me, to give myself labels that make me happy to be me and take a lot of the bad labels and shake them off and take away the shame. You can't accept yourself if you are ashamed that you like Taylor Swift, that you like pretty dresses and girls and red lipstick. You can't be ashamed that you are an introvert, but that you also like to drink and go out and party and if you can find the right friends and the right music and atmosphere and the right city, you'll just shine. High school makes you feel like you have to be one thing or another, even when you have to be both. You feel like you have to be innocent, but also sexy. You have to be intelligent, but you also have to be at parties on the weekend, you have to be goofing off in class, you have to be someone the boys like and have crushes on.

I learnt years ago now, but more and more every day that everyone is so much more complex than that. I spent so long trying to look so innocent that boys would find me sexy, to be a virgin but laugh hardest at dirty jokes, to be something more than I was because I couldn't choose which label I wanted and couldn't bear to give up either, lest I be judged or teased.

Now, when it comes to sex, I have no shame. I am who I am, and if that means I'm a virgin, so what? That's something I'm willing to stand by because this is my life, it's how I want to live it and it doesn't say anything else about who I am as a person except for someone who chooses for herself what she wants. When it comes to feminism, I don't hold back what I have to say. I don't keep it non threatening so that boys can joke about me being the resident feminist without being off put. Now, I'm still working on fighting for my opinions without nerves but I do it, and I'm confident that just because the other person isn't me, that they don't necessarily know better. I don't think that anyone else has things any more together than I do, that they have any more wisdom or ability to judge.

I think now, more than ever, I'm willing to fight for the right to say things like 'bae' and have that be respected, as no more right or wrong than anything else someone wants to say. I'm less willing to stand by bullshit social conventions that say be ashamed of liking silly things. The day I realised that no one else's music choices were better than mine were a revelation, it's all just music and the people that like it. No one can tell me that my heart and mind don't react more passionately to T Swift and Fall Out Boy than theirs reacts to Arctic Monkeys. I think some of the stuff I used to hate on principle was so dumb and that people that are still in that cynical judgemental stage of life still have so much to learn, to the point that I find them exhausting and wouldn't be friends with those people.

Not because there is anything wrong with them, I've definitely realised that it is a stage that people pretty much all go through, but once you're out of it, it's so freeing to let all that negativity go. I think this is where I meant to get to when I started typing out this post. I don't have as many friends as I did in high school. Well, fewer that I see often anyway. Even my close friends have drifted, for the most part. I'm almost at a crossroads, in that I've hit the point where I have changed so much without my friends changing with me that we almost don't fit together anymore. I don't know what that's going to mean. I mean, I'm not going to send anyone a 'sorry not sorry, our friendship is over, see you never' letters but some friends I'm worried that we don't have anything much in common anymore except for love for each other, and many happy memories.

Ever since I was five and I have my three best friends (first best friend, second best friend and third best friend, I've never been able to think about my friendships without some level of measurement, without some idea of where they stand around me, how close we are and who I like most. I don't think that's something that is particularly good, but unfortunately that's just who I am and how my brain organises itself. I feel very blessed with the friends I have. I consider a friend to be someone that I could message or text without it being like, a thing. Like, if it's about organising a car pool or something for an event, that doesn't count. But anyone who could send me a 'hey, what's up' text, they're a friend. Or maybe they're good friends and friends are people you would stop and say hi to if you saw them in public. I have actually gained quite a lot of those friends, that I could have a really awesome conversation with when we're together, but converting to the personal conversation and plans level is the hardest leap I think.

Oops, off topic. What I meant to say is that I've started having a lot more opinions about my friends than I did before, or just about people i know, and about which ones I really want to know. When I'm being myself, and that's something I think -- and hope-- is happening more and more, there are some things that make me really happy and things that are really boring or annoying and I think I'm at the point now of not doing things just to make other people happy. I'd rather just find people that enjoy doing the same stuff as me and have fun with them, you know? Because like, the thing is, you can talk to anyone, and have an okay time with anyone, old friends in particular, because you are really comfortable and know each other really well, but at what point is being an old friend not enough?

It still sounds like I'm trying to ditch my current friends.

No, what I mean is I think I'm at the point where I'm willing to be myself all the time, and I really just want to not censor myself for people who wouldn't like who I am now. I don't think that any friendship is worth it if you can't be yourself and be proud to do that.

Motivational speech of the day, you are welcome.

Whenever I see that I haven't updated my blog in nearly 2 months, I feel really guilty because I love my blog and want to keep it a record of my life. I'd feel more guilty if I hadn't written any posts in the last few months but I totally have, most of them were just posted for really short periods of time and then unpublished for whatever reason and now sit in my drafts.

I suppose that's because a lot of my posts have been about Jen lately and the girl checks my blog so its a bit of a weird situation there, in that she finds out things I haven't planned on telling her/ haven't told her yet. Like, when someone tells you something that upsets you, I think it is super normal and the right reaction to hide that, at least partially, so they don't get upset about upsetting you. Like, I'm learning to accept my Hufflepuff ways in that the most important thing to me is that other people are happy. I don't even mean that in a selfless way, I'm really not selfless, I'm hella selfish, but it's just easier to prioritise other people I think. Like, that's something you can control. If you get told something terrible, that will inevitably make you feel bad, that's out of your control, it's just a fact, but you can make it so no one else has to feel bad because of it. So like, of course I support all the decisions my friends make that I think will make them happy.

But I still like to blog about it with my feelings. Blogging is my outlet. Some philosophers theorise that we need language in order to have thought, because we think with words. I'm not saying that is necessarily true but I do think it allows us to think much more complexly. When I blog I take a lot of feelings that don't really lend themselves to intelligent conversation and I explain them with words, which allows me to then define them and understand them. The way I word things now is how I'll look back and remember them, once the feeling is gone.

Anyway, lets get on with the recount of my life for the last month and a half.

It's been... I don't know. I want to say really good, but I can just imagine like a smaller version of me on my shoulder giving me a '... really?Really bitch, you're gonna go with that? Really?' I mean, a lot of shitty stuff has happened, and exams are always hell and its been like a 'when you're going through hell, keep going' mentality tbh, but at the same time, I've seen a lot of good movies lately, like Jurassic World and Mad Max, I've watched a lot of TV series, like Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs (hell yeah british period dramas), I made the Grand Final of a debating competition (what the fuck, I know, I'm still in shock but it went so well omg), I had some hella gay moments with some hella pretty girls, I told Jen I was in love with her (hella brave, I am so proud of myself for expressing feelings), Mia and I are planning to go to Melbourne, exams are half over, my hair is growing long (I dreamed last night that it'd been cut off, I woke up, stared in the mirror, thought 'oh thank god' and fell back asleep), I've had some really nice meals out with friends, and lovely conversations, I've been making friends with people that I never was as close to in High School as I wanted to be, I even went back to Zumba last week and have been writing so much fanfic. Like, things could 1000% be worse.

Obviously the bad stuff has been exams, and Jen going, and feeling sad about Liz, and having a lot of confusing feelings about not wanting things to change, but feeling out of control because everything is changing, but I suppose that stuff isn't so bad. It's just hard to talk about. If any of you guys were quick enough to read my post about Jen going before Jen saw it and I took it down, you'd know my feelings there, even if they were brief and settled into resigned acceptance the next day. I don't miss her or anything. Like she's still around, even if it's online. Lizzy I still think about all the time and that's very confusing. I message her on facebook a lot. Like, I tell her jokes or I tell her that I got my skin checked for melanoma or I tell her about debating, or that I miss her. I don't know, whatever I feel like telling her. I wonder where her phone or laptop is now. I'd love to go online and see everyone that has been messaging her. Maybe just me but maybe not. Jack and I talk about her in a really chill way, like jokes about her being dead or we just are like 'fuck, Lizzy would be so helpful right now' or 'what the fuck liz, why did you keep every set of lecture slides for every subject since first year'. I think I like that we talk like that, because it's not sad. I mean, he is her brother, I can't imagine reacting like that if Tom died but maybe it's the only way we know how to face it.

I'm still not much of a fan of the way life just goes on. I don't feel angry at people for doing so, but I feel such grief sometimes, that Liz won't get to see season 5 of teen wolf, or know that Jon Snow got killed on Game of Thrones. She'll never know if Hilary Clinton becomes President, or  what the next fashion trend will be. She and I never discussed much about Jen as anything more than a friend but I know her reaction would have been amazing if she'd been around for that drama. She'd have loved it. Whenever I hear new music, I think fuck Liz might have loved this. And I hate that I've started to call her Liz, because I never did but now she's dead and I only talk to other people about her, not to her, and they all say Liz, it feels wrong but now i'm going to go the rest of my life calling her liz. I'll tell my children about her and I'll be so used to saying Liz that thats what I'll call her and that'll be her name in history.

I don't want to talk about the other stuff. You know it can just be mentally exhausting to talk about things that get you down. They get you down enough in your head that actually focusing extra time on them seems exhausting. I'll get to it one day I'm sure.