A Clean Slate

It was hesitation, a deep breath that I decided to return to blogging. Perhaps a yearning for the connection of my mind to the keyboard once more. This is the first tentative step I will take to attempt to return to a hobby which I thoroughly enjoyed and savoured for many years.
 It is with a small but genuine smile that I whisper, 'Welcome back to The Random Life of Aveen'.

It has been 'random' to say the least. 2016 was quite a difficult year for me in my private life. I discussed some elements of this last year in some of the blog posts I managed with great difficulty to write.

I've tentatively decided to return to blogging. It's connected to one of my true passions, writing. I wasn't actually able to write for many months, particularly in the summer. I felt that whenever I did write something, it wasn't of a high enough standard for myself, or it was either too personal or informative on things I wanted to initially keep private. When I returned to college for Second Year, I did write some pieces of poetry and a few diary entries for my own thoughts. I might post some of the poems I wrote (mainly on the bus from Wexford to Limerick) in the months to come.

For now however, my main objective is to get back into the swing of writing regular blog posts. This blog was initially written as a way to explore and express my personality, to make sense of my thoughts by writing them down. In essence, it was a safe haven of discovery, creativity and occasional humour.

I'd like this blog to retain it's original purpose. A place for me to document and discover more about my life and the trappings of real life and living. I cannot deny that 2016 was a tough year, but 2017 in my opinion is a new start, a clean slate, of creativity, positivity and developing self-confidence that I lost in 2016.

 I'm determined to slowly deconstruct the walls I built around myself last year when people who I foolishly trusted, betrayed any sense of honour or personal integrity they possessed. I closed myself off from the world for many months due to illness which has thankfully passed. I want to become the more open person I was. Instead of being overly protective and wary of any negativity or comments. I am filled with a fire in my soul that was non-existent for many months until recently.

With the return of this fire in my soul, comes the return of the writing process. The desire, the need to write follows the spiritual fire of development and self confidence.

This will be a slow process but I need and desire writing about my feelings. I've felt that without writing in my life, it has been a dull time indeed.

Here's to a clean slate of writing my feelings, regardless of the dirty looks on sets of stairs or upturned noses in the corridors. The Random Life of Aveen and Awkward Aveen are back and more determined than ever to be a better person, filled with happiness and tranquility in my soul.

Until the next blog post, 

Aveen x

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