Twas The Night Before I Turned 25.

Last year's birthday-eve post was a bit crap - sorry about that. So, as my tradition goes, it's my birthday tomorrow therefore it's time for me to take stock of my previous year/my life, most people do this around the new year, but let's be honest, I'm not most people. Never have been, never will.

That seems like a good place to start: I'm not sure you could ever have called me normal, maybe as a kid but only because most/all kids are 'weird' so I seemed just like the rest of them. But as I grew up, my peers seemed to learn to become 'normal' but I think really everyone else just learned how to hide their weird and I never did. As a teen, some times that was a hard thing to live with, never really feeling like I fit anywhere, so much so that going from year 10 to 11 I completely changed friendship groups, I was still friends with my old friends, I just didn't hang around with them in school as much... I guess that's why I'm not really in contact with anyone I went to secondary school with. I sort ditched my years 7 - 10 friends and my year 11 friends were only my good friends for one year. Never really thought about it like this before.
But now I feel like I do fit, I have a great bunch of friends at Kings, some of whom are as equally happy to show their weirdness as I am, Naomi and I seem to have a bond strongly based on our love of our mutual weirdness. I still have Christina, Liam, Abbie and Lottey as my Favourites - along with their Littles: Ava and Jackson who belong to Abbie and Isla who belongs to Liam and Christina. But since August I have come to realise that I have found my Person, after waiting a long time for them, it turned out they had been in my life for over 3 years - Helen is my Person! I knew we were close and that she was one of my Favourites but it wasn't until we spent the 30th August together at charity thing her boyfriend was putting on that I realised she was my best friend. We drunkenly declared our BF status to each other as Helen and her friend, Anton, dropped me home whilst we hugged goodbye. and then at the beginning of last month, I believe it was, I was on Pinterest looking at Grey's Anatomy stuff and something about knowing who your Person was popped up that I knew I had found my person at last! If you're not sure what I mean by Person, google about Grey's, Person, Meredith and Cristina and then all will become abundantly clear. So yeah, I finally feel like I belong. And it is amazing.

I mentioned Jackson earlier, he is Abbie and Paul's son, and I love him a lot. A lot, a lot. His full name is Jackson Christopher Bromely, so his initials are JCB, therefore I call him Digger, which may turn into Diggle but we'll see how Digger goes first. He was born on the 9th of June at 4:09pm, I found out he had arrived by texting Abbie to see if there had been any movement as she was overdue - I literally squealed during the adverts at the Cinema, my friends told me to shoosh until I showed her the picture of little Digger Abbie had sent me. Loved him from that moment on. Meaning I now have 3 tiny humans who have stolen pieces of my heart. Ava - who just turned 4 (whaaaat?! Where did that time go!), Isla  - 1, and now the tiniest of them all, Digger - 5 months tomorrow.

I still struggle with my weight and appearance - I had 2 rather large meltdowns last month. One when I was walking up a hill with Naomi, Serena and her friends for her birthday. and the second last Thursday evening after going shopping for a dress to wear out for Helen's Halloween birthday night at Mungos - I got home after finding nothing in Crawley that would even remotely fit and wanted to make myself sick. I didn't. But I really wanted to. In the end I wore my black lacy cocktail dress and went as a mouse, duh! It was so much fun and I looked gooood! Plus Helen and I declared our love for each other and best friend status all over again - it seems to be becoming a habit for when we get drunk together, I wonder if it will happen at our work Christmas Do? If we get drunk, mostly likely yes! okay, not it sounds like we get drunk a lot, we don't. It's only happened the 2 times I've mentioned, and the reason I think it could happen at the Christmas Do is because they can be kind of boring as we are some of the youngest girls at nursery so... yeah, its definitely a possibility.
Anyways, back to the subject at hand; it isn't as bad as it used to be, now I just get attacks/meltdowns every once in a while. They aren't normally that close to each other either. It used to be that most mornings I would look at myself in the mirror and feel disgust. Or anytime I looked in the mirror actually. But over the years I have come to decide that even though I am an unhealthy weight, I can and do look good. Not all the time, I mean, have you seen how I look at/after work?! No, but honestly, I have come to a place now where I know what works on my body and what doesn't. I make more of an effort with my hair and make-up too outside or work: not for anyone but me. Mostly. I do believe I will arrive at a day when I am fully happy with how I look, maybe not happy, content. I will be content with what I see in my reflection and not just because I will have shifted the weight I've been trying to loose for years but because I will truly love who I am, Who the Father made me to be.

(Wow this post is longer than last year's tiddler!)

I try to make more opportunities myself as a posed to waiting for someone else to bring them to me. What I mean is that I am trying to take life by the horns instead of just going with the flow. I want to look back on my life in years to come and see the amazing experiences I had and not wonder at the things I could have done. I will always long for adventure and excitement and it seems I am learning to say yes to things and I go searching for adventure too now.

Right, it is 23:15 meaning I need to get ready for bed so I can be ready to go out for breakfast with Mumma, Lottey and maybe Farj at 9am. Then spending most of the day with the favourites (minus Helen as she'll be at work - BOO!) watching The Hunger Games and then takeaway kebab with Farj and Lottey then some of s2 are coming round for fireworks in the secret field! A busy, busy birthday. Nun-night!