Looking Back

Note to reader: This post is likely to get very cliché/cheesy so if those kinds of things make you cringe too much, I suggest you don't read it. Sometimes you gotta 'av a bit o' cheese!

Goodness me! 2014 has been quite a roller coaster. I (along with the rest of the world) have had some pretty down moments as well as some pretty awesome personal victories. But it's not time to dwell on the bad things so let's begin by reminiscing the best moments of last year!

We Day. We Day was in March where I did loads of charity work in order to earn a ticket to go to a concert that had people such as Prince Harry, Evanna Lynch, Ellie Goulding, Dizzee Rascal, Shay Mitchell, Jennifer Hudson, Diversity as well as motivational speakers like Molly Burke and British Olympian Martine Wright. Despite these amazing people and the incredible concert at Wembley Arena, it truly was not all about the show. I immensely enjoyed working to help others and through that, I gained many new friends who I still talk to now. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that although I am too old to attend the concert in 2015, I am still going to volunteer this year and carry on the fantastic things that we do in We Day without a reward at the end.

Meeting Jim Chapman. During the summer I went to a small meet and greet at Hyde Park to meet one of my favourite youtubers. I was so lucky to get a picture (and a bottle of coke!) and if you didn't already see the picture I posted in one of my blogs a few months ago, here it is again!

I also performed a few times during the year but the biggest one for me was in December, I sang a song from my favourite Musical of all time: Wicked's 'For Good'. I'm usually very critical about my singing but I felt extremely satisfied this time (which is difficult for a perfectionist!) and being a lover of musical theatre, I was so thrilled to be able to represent that unique and sometimes under-rated (I find) aspect of music.

In 2014 I feel that I also overcame a huge fear of mine which was a fear of the London Underground. You're probably thinking: the tube? You Serious Sharleen?! Yes, I've had a fear of trains since I was little and saw a woman getting stuck in the closing doors. You see, it wasn't the actual train I was scared of, it was the electronic doors as I was afraid that they would close on me. It sounds ridiculous but that was the cause of my fear of elevators too. Not the tight space or height, the door! This made me avoid taking the tube at all costs however this year, I have managed to not only overcome that, but take the tube on my own. At the start of 2014 I didn't even know how a tube map worked or how to navigate myself around the station! Now I feel confident that even if I were to get lost I could get myself out of that kind of tricky situation.

There are probably many more achievements and events that have happened but I genuinely cannot currently remember. Nevertheless, 2014 has been pretty awesome, but what about my resolutions you may ask? I gave them a really good shot this year! My first resolution was to be less uptight and I feel that I can say it is something I have managed to achieve - with my friends that is. I think we are so comfortable with our family and we know that they will always be there for us and therefore we permit ourselves to speak and act however we want with them. Although I don't think there were many opportunities for me to be uptight with my family, when that kind of situation did come about, I don't feel that I paid too much attention to my resolution which I feel I should have tried to. On the other hand, with my friends I really made an effort. I tried to take a step back and give everyone a chance and have less control over plans. I followed through with this all year however, it made me discover something: being laid back and easy going with people is very good (to a certain extent) and I will continue with this however, I noticed a negative change in some people once I started doing this. People began to take many liberties with me and as I continued to stick to my resolution, they continued to be slightly domineering. It's a shame really but even so, I would like to continue to try to stick to this goal!

My second resolution was to learn how to ice-skate. I went ice-skating over the summer to try to succeed my resolution. I feel that I had more confidence in letting go of the side and simply relying on my friend to keep me on my feet however, I still had trouble moving my feet and keeping my balance at the same time. I gave it a go but I'll just leave the topic by saying, I'm still basically being dragged around the rink (I can call that ice-skating right?!)...

So there we go! A very small (however long) sum up of my 2014! In my next post I'm going to be talking about what I hope for 2015 and what I'm looking forward to.

Happy New Year!

Sharleen