Ninyn

The transition to October is a thing that scares me. Every. Single. Year.

Why? I'm still not entirely sure. I always get excited when April is around the corner, and terrified when the lasting days of September get fewer and fewer.

Even now, during this entirely new part of my life, I get scared of October and the months that come after it. The positive thing about it though: April is only 6 months away. I'm pretty sure I can survive those 6 months. After all, I have no idea what's coming for me, but this time, I do have a goal ahead of me.

My intention is not to sound like some crazy hippie (although they are really cool), but I didn't realize how small my world was all these years. Since June, my life has taken such a drastic turn, and it feels like there's experiences worth years in just those few months.

I'm happy with how my life is unfolding, and I want it to keep unfolding like that for the rest of my life.

It's 9pm on a Tuesday, I should be working but my mind kept wandering off!

The past weekend was strange. I'm still adjusting to the crazy changes my life made this year, and sometimes it feels like I need to catch up with myself.

I spent my Saturday just focussing entirely on myself, six months ago I would've felt worthless or even guilty for doing this. This time? I felt good about it. Not just like that though, it took a few hours to convince myself that it was okay; it IS okay to focus on yourself, you don't always have to put everyone else above yourself.

The influence of your mindset on your life, on your actual reality: it's both terrifying and amazing. Every day, I'm fighting to turn negative experiences and negative thoughts into positive ones. It's not always easy, but it is so worth it.

Handling negative experiences, or the aftermath of a negative experience: it is all within your own power how you deal with it or feel about it. It is all your own choice.

I'm ending this blog today with an incredibly cheesy quote, but one I decide to live by starting today. Take risks, succeed or fail, you'll learn from it anyway.

Ten eerste heb ik de naam van de blog veranderd naar gewoon, "Words from the Heart". Dit heb ik besloten gezien ik mezelf niet wil limiteren aan twee dagen in de week, maar gewoon wil bloggen wanneer het goed voelt. Ik ben een gevoelsmens, en van daaruit wil ik deze blog ook schrijven: gevoel.

Vandaag heb ik zo'n dag.

Zo'n dag waarop je alleen wilt zijn, maar ook bij iemand wilt zijn.
Zo'n dag waarop je wilt werken, maar ook in je pyjama series wilt kijken.
Zo'n dag waarop ik maar blijf eten, terwijl ik geeneens trek of honger heb.
Zo'n dag waarop ik aan jou moet denken.

En weet je, zo'n dag is helemaal niet erg. Er is niks mis met zo'n dag. Zolang het maar bij zo'n dag blijft.

Het blijft bij maar zo'n dag. Dat beloof ik mijzelf.

Fourty five minutes until it's Friday. Another day, another end of the week. There's not much to write today. I could go on endlessly about a variety of things, but the fact is that I've only just come home.

Today was good, bad, productive, lazy, stressful, hectic, emotional, numb, loving, and appreciative all at once. It was just another day.

Yesterday was such an insanely busy day, so I'm making up for that by blogging today! Wednesday: Words from the Heart it is.

First: excitement! I did a photoshoot! It was an amazing amount of fun, and of course it started out with me feeling super awkward. But hey, I did it. It was fantastic, and the photos are gorgeous. Still feels weird to say that about photos of yourself, but honestly, I love how I look in these photos!

My friend did an incredible job at guiding me through it and making me feel confident and comfortable, which she instantly denies having any part in since according to her, "it was all me". I know you're reading this, and both you and I know it was not just me, you helped me a great amount!

Here's the results so far. We went through about five different outfits and 500 photos, but as with any creative job, the importance is to kill your darlings. I'm incredibly happy with how these two photos turned out.



Last Sunday, my cat Rosa decided to run away and scare the shit out of me. I felt like such a fuckup, and got stuck in this loop of feeling guilty. In the end I was up until about 1 AM looking for her, set my alarm at 4 and 6 AM to look for her some more. Looked for her some more the following day. Couldn't find her. Turns out the little shit hid in the exact same spot for the entire night. My friends and family were so incredibly helpful, all helping in any possible way they could. People shared the Facebook post I made, friends came over and helped me look for her, some of my friends went out to hang up flyers throughout town for me. In the end it took four of us to catch her. Honestly, I could not have caught her if I was alone. I'm incredibly grateful, and thrilled to have her back with me again.

I'm convincing myself everyday that I'm doing a good job in life, and doing a good job in general. Sometimes I need to convince myself that I'm happy and feeling well, and I know for a fact that really am. Some days are up and some days are down, but the trick is to not let those days where things look down take up the majority of how you're feeling.

Thank you for reading, whoever you are.

Liefs,

Nathalie

Oh my, it's Thursday already! Time is seriously FLYING the past few days. This week has had a couple of ups and downs, more ups than downs, so I'm content.

Since last week Friday, I've been listening to podcasts before I go to sleep. Originally I started listening to these to have something like a distraction, helping me fall asleep faster. What I've found is that the content of these podcasts is actually helping me out a lot! They're incredibly girly, cheesy and self-helpy, and if you would've offered these podcasts to me three years ago I would've instantly denied.
After listening to these podcasts for a week, I've gotten incredibly useful different insights on situations, but also confirmations on things I did and still do, that I thought were weird, but apparently close to everyone does these things as well.

Other than listening to podcasts, I've been working on projects and on my portfolio. Things are going well and I'm finally not so afraid to ask for feedback anymore! I'm aiming to have the first version of my portfolio website ready by next weekend, so I have something to show on a very cool conference where I will be volunteering end of this month.

Concluding for today, I'm feeling good and confident. There's still things that stress me out, scare the fuck out of me or make me feel like a complete idiot, but I'm learning to maintain my focus on the good things in life. It's too easy to slip back into old routines or past experiences. The past is in the past, and that's where it should stay.

Upcoming exciting things that scare the fuck out of me this week: My extremely talented photographer friend is going to take photo's of me. Actual, model-like, fashion-like, beautiful photo's. I don't know if quirky clumsy me is going to be able to handle this, but I am INCREDIBLY hyped!

It's Tuesday! Which means it's time for another blogpost.

I'm quite a bit braindead today, which has to do with the fact that University started again. Even if it's only the second day, I'm super happy and excited to be back. It feels different this year, I feel different. In the second year of Uni there were a lot of times were I held back and was afraid to voice my opinion, but I've noticed over Summer and over just these two days of getting back together with a team, working on projects, that I've become an incredible amount more honest and open, even admitting that sometimes I just don't know the answer or how to feel about something.

Other than being back at Uni, I've adapted to a much more active lifestyle. I could almost say I've developed a weekly routine! This is something I've actually never had, but I'm really enjoying it!

Looking back on 2015, it sometimes feels as if the first half of the year was kind of like a time bubble, where nothing happened and everything stood still. I can even see it when I go through photo's of 2015, or when I open my memory jar and go through all the mementos. There is close to nothing "documented" of the months January through May. It's an odd feeling, as if I've lost or forgotten a part of myself over that period of time.

Slowly but steadily, I'm starting to become me again. And I think I can honestly say, I like me. :)

I'd like to close off for today with a totally unrelated but highly addictive song.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

It's a Thursday night, or a Friday morning depending on your perspective. I can't sleep. There's noise surrounding me, the noise of memories, the noise of people getting ready got their day.

Mostly the noise of memories.

Sometimes I don't know how to stop.