Showing posts with label 19. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 19. Show all posts

Saturday, 2 April 2016

A Voice Is To Be Used, Not Stifled.

Hesitant hands hover over the keyboard, heart thumps as the blank screen awaits, fresh for new ideas to be displayed in the form of 26 letters in new unique compositions. A frantic intake of oxygen, followed by a brief exhalation. Eyes swiftly close, to be reopened in a wave of fear.

The constraint of the inability to post freely. The hand over my mouth has become more prominent and uncomfortable.

My words are censored, carefully selected.

What was once such an easy task is debilitating. The tedious process of filtering information regarding my life into suitable sentences and sets of photographs. What was once a fun, light hearted activity has become a stress inducing exercise.

The fear consumes my soul. It has for many months. The frequent inactivity gnaws my bones. I know I must post regularly, simply due to my own desire to do so. Yet this desire is rarely translated onto the screen or the page. Fear appears regularly, eating up the keyboard and ripping up the pages in a terror induced rampage.

Slumped against the chair, hands pressed against the face. A sigh of dejection and a quick shake of hair are the only physical signs of the turmoil.

A stretch of the limbs and a deep exhale from lungs attempting to avoid the fear lingering in the room. I must remember the reason for starting this blog. I must recall the happiness instilled in my being by this blog. Remembering I have a voice. A voice is to used, not stifled. 

I avoided posting about my emotions on my blog since September 2015. I wanted to be a different person but we can't simply deny vital components to our identity. Instead of joy, I felt anxious when even writing a post, breaking into a fear-induced sweat - thinking about what others thought.

The title of this blog is The Random Life of Aveen. It is my life, my thoughts, my events, my musings, my emotions. My own personal platform which I have not utilised as much as I should have as of late.

I turned my back on my identity. Trying to 'fit in' and 'blend in' is something you should never do. A lack of time caused some posts to be written but a lack of accepting my own emotions caused 90% of the posts not being posted.

We all need a support network, a place to voice our opinions and to be ourselves. I've had to accept that I am in fact a blogger - something I like a lot. I can't change that. It is a part element of the composition of my identity.

I questioned my identity for many months after starting college. I struggled with being a student, student-teacher, blogger, friend and many more persona's, yet as I type these words, I feel a weight lift. To deny oneself of their identity is a shame.

 I am a writer and a blogger. I feel through words, my comfort comes from the 26 letters comprising of our alphabet. It's my method of making sense of the world, and a blog is another addition of that.

A blog is for voicing our true, genuine thoughts, feelings and emotions. A blog is not for pretending every element of our lives is perfect. A blog is a platform where we should feel enabled to speak with confidence, our words booming and ricocheting across the Internet, not whispering meekly because we're afraid of insulting a person in real life.

It happened to me personally that I was given grief due to the content of my posts in 'real life.' It's an experience that taught me that we must be truthful to ourselves. If we post something that aggravates another, we generally are being truthful.

I have decided to take the plunge once more and post more personal content on The Random Life of Aveen. Several posts I posted as of late have felt so lack lustre, empty and devoid of content and emotion.

It's time to change that. 

Wave goodbye to the posts of poor content and airbrushed emotions.
 Say welcome back to the truthful, gritty posts where I actually discuss my emotions and actions. 



Tuesday, 15 March 2016

The Third Birthday of The Random Life of Aveen!

Well, well, well. How time flies! 
I'm sitting in my room in Limerick typing this blog post. I'm going to the First Year Ball tonight, listening to The 1975's new album and looking out upon a sun drenched quad on campus.  

Three years ago, I started The Random Life of Aveen. I was nearly 16-and-a-half, (you can't forget that half, differentiation is vital!) I was in the middle of Transition Year, ironically struggling to transition to becoming a different person. I genuinely believe TRLOA helped influence this change in a positive manner. 

I sat down to type this post and thought of how my life is practically parallel to how it was when I was sixteen. I now understand that no person can ever be happy for every minute of their lives, but that we should give it our best effort to remain positive with regards to every aspect of our lives. When I was sixteen, I thought everyone was happy, except me. A couple of years in the real life has told me that we hide a lot of things, and more importantly, it's okay not to be 'happy' for every second of our lives. This is reality, reality is not perfect. 

I was unsure of who I was when I was sixteen. I had a rough idea of who I wanted to be. I wanted to try change the world - to make it a better place. I'm taking initial and tentative steps towards that goal. I'm studying to become a primary school teacher, something I could only dream about three years ago. 

I started this blog while on a 'low' which I tried to disguise by focusing on the positives in my life. The meaning behind my blog has changed more now to posting my thoughts, musings and updates of my life but we must always remember where we came from. I'm still eternally grateful that people read my blog. Last weekend I hit 70,000 page views, something I could only ever dream of three years ago. 

I realised I don't post as often as I used to - or as much as I would prefer. I check my stats when I can. I realised that my page views have stayed at quite a high level despite my inactivity. It's heart warming to see that you lovely readers haven't left and there's new readers reading my older posts, in particular posts regarding the Leaving Cert or the Gaeltacht. I may have moved on from the LC to third level, yet I find it lovely that there's still people reading those posts, hopefully gaining some support or guidance. 

Aveen x