2021: My most self-discovering year
As my second year of college is coming to a close and my blog is starting to grow, I thought this was a perfect time to sit down and write about my year so far: the good, the bad, and all the parts that have impacted my life in big ways.
The first four months of this year have changed my life in so many ways. If someone in December told me that I would be a completely different person by May, I would have laughed at that thought and shrugged it off. Little did I know that they would be right. I’m a whole new person, and honestly, I have become the best version of myself and continue to grow into a greater person every day.
To start off, I got my very first apartment to finish off my second year of college, living by myself. I got the independence that I’ve been craving since last year after living at home for so long due to the pandemic.
Now, I’m not going to lie, those first few weeks by myself were extremely hard. I felt so alone. I had grew apart from some really good friends. And overall, I stopped taking care of myself. I was losing myself and just didn’t know how to pick myself back up. I’ve never felt so down and nothing seemed to cheer me up anymore. This month was so tough on me, but without this hard time in life, I wouldn’t have grown so much to who I am today.
So I started figuring out what I want to do in life and where I hope to be one day. Now, this sparked so many life decisions. I love my college I attend right now, but I had decided that I really want to become a video editor for country music videos in Nashville, TN. So there I was thinking to myself how do I get there, and then bam it hit me… what if I went in August versus moving there in two years? I sat by myself for countless hours just trying to piece together my future, and what will be best for me in the long run. This is when I decided to apply to a university in Nashville and consider transferring next year.
This was it. The first time I really started to prioritize my life and put myself first. I was always the person who did everything for everyone else but forgot that I have needs too. My friend group started to file down to a few people, but my relationships were so strong that it was all I needed.
In light of putting myself first, I started finding my inner peace everyone talks about. I stopped worrying if others were going to like me and I stopped not speaking up for fear that I would lose people. I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason, so I knew everything I was doing was exactly what I needed to be doing. This had sparked another change, my daily routine.
So for being 20 years old and in college, I truly became the definition of lame. But in the best way. I started going to bed by 9:30 pm so I could wake up before 6:00 am. College has definitely made me a morning person and I love it so much. Now when I wake up at 6:00, I get ready to go workout and go on morning runs, then I will come back take a shower, make breakfast, get ready for the day, start working on school all before classes even begin for me. By the time classes start now, I have usually completed everything that I needed to do that day. Feeling accomplished is the best feeling to have every day.
By really pushing myself to the best version of myself, meant I needed to fuel my body better. I am a vegetarian, but I didn’t always get the nutrients that I needed, so I started a new meal plan. I started eating fruit, yogurt, and granola for breakfast, having a salad for lunch and making variations of black bean dishes for dinner. My snacks throughout the day changed to cheese and nuts, peanut butter, trail mix, protein bars, and fruit snacks. I also stopped drinking caffeine unless I absolutely needed it and primarily started to drink water only.
From feeling so good about myself and gaining more confidence than I know what to do with, I decided getting “clout” on social media would be a fun thing to do. So I decided to start posting videos on TikTok daily in hopes of getting “TikTok famous” and making my Instagram more active by posting stories more often. Some of my favorite things to post are my daily outfits, post-workout feelings, and updates, promoting my TikTok account, and then just fun little things that show how great life truly is.
My favorite thing about social media is connecting with those you never would have met before. People who I call my best friends live across the nation and we met because we interacted with each other’s content.
Now with being so active on social media, hate is something that I’ve started to receive. Social media is a blessing but can be a curse because there is always someone out there who wants to drag you down. I have become insanely optimistic and when comments appear that I simply don’t like, I just delete the comment and block the account. I’m not here to “show off” or “say my life is better,” I’m simply showing what I do in life and how I’ve grown into who I am.
Wild is the only word I have to say, by just putting myself first a few months ago, I have found who I truly want to be, where I want to be, and found so many new outlets in life to express myself.
