For the past four years I found my safety blanket, I wore my hair long and in my face as a way to protect myself from the world, to hide from everyone that would want to look at me and for so long it worked and I felt amazing but suddenly it wasn't making me happy anymore.
Everyone would tell me how nice my hair looked and how I shouldn't cut it. Every single person I knew would tell me something along those lines and I got tired, my hair started to feel dead and I started to feel like it was swallowing me and making me look older, so I decided to make an appointment with my hairstylist.
Listen, I don't cut my hair often, it's a hassle and I would always go for the same so why bother with going every three months, every seven months was doing just the same. The difference is that this time I didn't know what to ask for, I wanted something slightly different and not so far from my comfort zone.
Truth is, short hair styles don't suit me because of the amount of hair I have and the wave it has. Maybe that's why my hairstylist freaked when I told him to cut 10 inches off... Not my wisest decision but I was doing it for a change and it felt good to free myself for a little bit, to not feel drowned over so much hair.
I regretted it for the first three weeks, it was puffy, unmanageable and I was stuck with it.
As a miracle my hair started to grow quite quickly, so each week I would find myself feeling better and better about the way it looked and how it suited my face. It was a change I wanted to do for so long and now I was starting to feel good about it and myself.
As any change it takes to get used to it but it's amazing how much a hair cut has helped my self esteem levels, now if only that would fix everything else I have a problem with. For now I'm going to let it grow a little bit more and hope for the best, I don't think I'm going to let it get to the same length as before but at least a couple inches more.
Baby steps right?

My sleeping schedule is so messed up that I can conceive to fall asleep before 11:00 and I know that's early but for a person that loves to start her day by 7:00, that's late and it leaves me sleeping less than I would want too. I know that's still a lot but sometimes you need that extra time to unwind after a day of multiple activities and if I can't do that now that I have the time, when?
It all started a month ago, of course, it was like all the tiredness from the month before hit me and the first day after the service I slept for almost 14 hours, something unheard of, I'm usually wide awake by 7. I couldn't bare to wake up, I couldn't even do any basic movements without feeling like I had run a marathon.
That whole week I feel asleep as soon as I got home, I started sleeping 10+ hours a day and still couldn't get back my strength. By the start of week 2 I started to worry, the last time I slept like that was when my friend died and I started to show signs of depression. I freaked a little bit.
I made an appointment with my therapist, first time I'd saw her since the last days I spent with my grandma and as soon as I walked in she knew something was wrong with me and that we needed to talk more than I could've told her on the phone. That was the day I realised that not only was I lying to her, but I was lying to myself and my family.
It's very telling for me to have something impact my sleeping schedule, I love sleeping but that doesn't mean I can do it for that long without getting restless and this time the more I slept, the more tired I felt and it was becoming a vicious cycle I couldn't really get out of.
She recommended many lifestyle changes, many to which I said "I can't do that right now, I don't know how" and once again she called me out on my shit, because making excuses is a talent, one I have and use frequently when something doesn't go my way.
I made little changes here and there, but really it wasn't until I realised that the only person that was hurting because of this excuses was me. If someone was going to hurt, suffer the effects I know insomnia has on myself, it was me and I could either start doing what she told me to or cry later.
No, my sleep isn't back to how it was and I don't think is going to take me 2 weeks to get it back but I've certainly have sleep more and I don't wake up feeling like those 7 hours were for nothing. I'll have to work from here and see where I get. Now if only I could fix my dreams the same way.

A beverage of goods and maybe the most known way to wake up. Coffee became a necessity in the past three months and I'm not proud of that. Although it doesn't cause strong dependence, it does stimulate the nervous system and creates a mild physical dependence that can have an impact on your daily life.
I didn't realise I became addicted to coffee until a week and a half ago, I mean having anxiety meant that I had to cut down my caffeine, not up it but when you start adding little quantities to your daily life, at some point you are going to end up needing it more than enjoying it.
So, like any other person would do, the moment I realised this was going on I decided to cut it cold turkey. It didn't work, my body was s used to my morning dose of caffeine that the one day I decided to not have that huge cup of coffee I crashed by 1 p.m.
I had a headache, I felt like I hadn't slept in days, I even had a feeling my glucose went down and even eating I didn't feel better so I asked myself what had changed since that day and the only logical answer was my lack of caffeine, but instead of going for a cup of coffee I took a pill and focused on what was going to make me feel better.
Now I have to question myself a little bit more, because how did I let this happen. As much as I used to love coffee I was never dependant on it, I drank maybe 3 cups of coffee a week, usually trying to go for the smallest size and trying to avoid consecutive days unless I was really tired.
There are many answers one being that I wasn't sleeping as much as I usually try to sleep while doing everything I was doing a few months back. Sleeping 3 to 5 hours is no way of living and even when I know I was doing it to help someone else and to make it better for her, I should've prioritised maybe an extra hour a night and ask for help.
The other answer would be, because it gave me comfort, the smell of a fresh brew makes me feel like I'm home, it almost helps me be more creative. Going to coffee shops was my thing when I started writing and I made it my thing to get out of the house when I had a blockage.
It's time to eliminate it, not completely, but certainly cut my consume by half at least. Depending on it does nothing to my health and being free makes me feel better. Maybe I'll have a few grumpy days, maybe i'll have no more side effects, who knows, for now I think it's time to go for tea and lots of water to function better and don't feel the need to have coffee to feel sharper or be creative.

People close to me can tell you, I've been repeating the same sentence over and over "I have no idea how I passed this semester" because I certainly have no idea how it happened but now that I'm almost done and I've passed all my exams I feel the need to share a little bit about how it was for me.
From the beginning I knew it was going to be intellectually challenging, I knew going into the masters that maybe I was going to struggle with certain things. Certainly I wasn't expecting what happened in the next 4 months, I was so challenged that going to check my grades was the most dreaded thing and I would be on the verge of tears.
It became one of the most stressful semesters I ever had and I went to college at the lowest point of my depression. I couldn't sleep or eat properly, I would avoid messaging my tutor and I would send half assessed papers that got regular grades and I would be okay with those grades.
Then the final part of the semester came around and I wanted to drop out, I was so stressed, in so much emotional pain that I thought "This is it, I can't do it and even if I could, why would I want to do it? An extra 6 months in school doesn't sound that bad."
I tried everything to get me out of that situation, asked for an extension on some papers using my family situation as a way to justify them not being on time, got rejected immediately. I remember thinking, this is it, I can't do it, I don't want to do it anymore, it isn't worthy.
I knew my parents would get it, at the end of the day they knew that when they requested this papers and work I was feeling horrible, I had no energy and long day naps became my thing that whole week. But a part of me wanted to be done with it and have some sort of free time during the summer before camp begins in July.
I pulled myself together and for the next three weeks I worked, studied and burned my eyelashes off in front of my computer to get everything done. I did it, last week I sent the last paper out and realised that maybe I needed to do it in order to find peace in that aspect of my life.
A weight was lifted off of my shoulders and now seeing my grades and seeing that not only did I prove my teachers I could do it but also myself makes me feel amazing. Now I can finally take some deserving time off or at least that's what I would want to think.

I have no idea how life works, I've come to that conclusion in the past month because just as I think I'm ready to move on, to do my thing something happens and throws me off. It's no secret that I've been struggling with my mental health, dealing with anxiety and eating disorders while trying to fulfil everyone else's expectations.
I reached my breaking point about five weeks ago, I decided that maybe doing what everyone thinks I should be doing was harming me more than it was doing any good, I went through full transitions and then my grandma passed away.
She was my partner, the one person I would see everyday and now that she's gone there's such a big empty space and it's making me feel like I'm lost, like I don't know what else to do with my life, I feel tied to her memory and even when I'm consciously trying to get better, to work on myself, her memory brings me down and it has taken me a month to figure out what I should do with this pain.
May has been about myself and nothing else, there hasn't been any other priority in my life and that has meant pushing people away, spending more time by myself, doing what I know does me best, like working out, cooking (my attempt at it at least) and listening to my mind and body. If it doesn't feel good then I'll avoid it.
It's been a week, a short, semi successful week in which I started to relearn a lot about myself and how I work better. Meaning I learned that managing my time is where I certainly have a lot to learn from, but I also learned that even if it's just 30 min, going to the gym helps me free my mind in a way I didn't remember it could.
I also learned that coffee withdraw is real and feeling like shit for two or three days is worthy in the long run as long as I put the effort into it. I've maintained a healthy-ish diet and been drinking more water than I thought I could drink.
It's been an eye opening process and one I'll be thrilled to share as the month goes by. It's true that it has taken me more time than I expected to start working on this but I won't push it, writing is fun for me and the more I think about it as work, the worse it goes, so I'll follow my inspiration and do what feels best, even if that means missing a few days.
It's time for a new journey to start.