When surrounded by the same problems, still and repeated, perhaps it’s time to question my own role in it…finally and without self-preservation. Removing any defensiveness.

I’m happy to continue trying to grow but am definitely frustrated that I would be so blind to my own role in situations at times. How and ever. Now I ask myself, if it is not absolutely clear that the other person is completely at fault, if there is even a small doubt, then there must be blame and responsibility on my part. Am I the trigger, or do I wade in half way, say the wrong thing and cause reaction? Does my lack of understanding cause frustration, or my lack of trying to understand from any other point of view than the effect it would have on my own life or feelings? A learned behaviour.

Difficult questions, but necessary. Most definitely necessary.

xBlanaid

In so many ways there are so many levels in living. There is always something else to achieve; create more, talk more, talk less, look better, be motivated, relax more, your side of the court, my side of the court - the space between the two and everyone else’s court along with it all.

It’s why it’s so difficult to appreciate what you have succeeded at, because as soon as you conquer everything that needed to be done in order to reach the plateau of the current level, all you can see is the looming side wall of the next one…

Then again, if it was easy, it would be quite boring.

To the next challenge.

xBlanaid

Things are changing, hence the silence. I saw this quote and thought : I need to read this every day for the next while.

xBlanaid

Via

The only way it can be the end of the world is if it is actually the end of the world. Everything else can be survived and learned from, help you thrive and grow.

Yes, all just words, the cliché of the end of the world, the seemingly hollow promise of growth. Regardless, you can survive. If you ignore the rest, please remember that .

xBlanaid

image via ffffound

As today is my birthday, I thought I would write a FF to myself - ten things to the myself of ten years ago, the 21 year old me. I wrote and deleted quite a few, and ended up with this… Feel free to add something you would advise your own self ten years ago..!

1. Your actions and the things you say and do affect people. You won’t realise this for another while. Prepare to start looking outward.

2. You are in full control of your mind and all the thoughts you have - which also makes you responsible, absolutely and completely, for the things you are doing right now. Regardless of history or circumstance. You are making that choice at this moment, and you have to accept responsibility for that.

3. Accept what you deserve. Don’t accept what is not right for you, or will hold you back, or change the way you behave. This all comes back to point 2.

4. Yes, perhaps you really haven’t a clue who you are as a person, whether you’re likeable or not, talented or not, meant for success or not. You will come to realise that worrying about that is redundant. Just get out there and start living. Sitting in a room in your mind is not living.

5. Not ‘having a clue’ allows you to do some ridiculously irresponsible things. In time, you’ll look back and think - oh wasn’t I wild! Didn’t I live! Then you’ll realise, no, that was just being lost. Living is when you find yourself amongst the thoughts and realise that the reality of ‘living’ is understanding who you are, accepting that, and taking yourself off on an adventure that doesn’t hurt people or yourself….

6. In time, you’ll eventually learn when to leave a relationship that just isn’t that good. This will come when you understand point 3.

7. You will also have to learn when to stay in a relationship that really is that good.

8. Stop being afraid of things. Stop being so sure of other things. Stop thinking so much. Be a little more thoughtful. Try to be a nice person, but don’t change too much. Accept who you are at your core, accept that you will get in trouble sometimes. Know who your friends are - and be okay with being alone. Be independent. Don’t be too independent. Stop taking bad advice. Learn to take your own advice. Know when that advice is bad too. Oh, and stand up for yourself. Placating is not debating. Also know when to back off a bit.

9. Travel. It’ll help you work through all the nonsense of point 8.

10. One day, ten years from now, you will write ten points to the you of right now. Take my advice. Tell the you of ten years time, writing the list, that as much as she would like to think that she’s changed so much from being you - that really she needed to write this for herself. She’ll know what you mean.

xBlanaid

Wallowing - staring at the palms of your hands which rest on your crossed knees, lost in the thoughts about yourself that you’re sure are just extensions of someone else’s thoughts about you. Sitting in a kind of oddly expected shock that you’re not perfect. Of course, you knew that, you know that you’re not perfect, no one is harder on you than you…Yet it’s still a shock when you think that someone else has figured it out and doesn’t like a part of you and the way you are… Peculiar isn’t it. It’s like you can’t win. Well, you can’t if you sit and stare at your hands and think about it so much that all the other people stop mattering, or even existing, in this world of upturned hands and wallow and thoughts. You remove yourself from everyone, even the ones who like all the parts of you.

No one is perfect. You know that. You know that but you need to hear it and apply it and accept it and understand that it is okay to be imperfect.  Just be here and be imperfect and have fun - that’s all anyone who cares about you wants from/for you.

xBlanaid

Images via designquixotic on pinterest

Fear freezes us in the moment, and the moments grow and change our lives into existence. You have heard so much - that we have so much to fear, that you can’t go beyond now, that you’d be mad to try, that we are trapped by everything those outside of our control have created. Of course , some are financially trapped, but how many of us are trapped by the thought that we might join those already there? You get so used to hearing stories of fear, that not even the inspirational feels real any more. Yet it is possible to grow, and achieve, and experiment, and live. You just have to do it, and the doing of it is the living. Just trying is the doing of it.

You have to take the bite, even if you have been filled with the fear that it is more than you are able for…because how else will you know if the warnings are true? How can you know until you just - bite.

xBlanaid

sent by une poupee

Images above by Dave Coffey

Collage above by helen Sleator : “While I wouldn’t pretend to be any great artist, this is a collage I made a while back. I call it ‘play’, all the photos are of my parents and their siblings when they where young, when the most important part of their day was having fun.”

Words above sent in by Elle F of Emma Hearts Shoes

Images above by Dave Coffey

Image by Carolyn Collier

images above from Annette O’Brien, Le Beau Beauty Salon

Image above from Claire Garry

Image above taken by Aisling Keenan of Think What You Like.

Image of Aimee Lyons‘ tattoo.

It seems that the last 49 Fancy Fridays took place in times of devastation and delirium - the darkness and the delight. To look at the starkness and survival makes me both fearful and impatient for the future. I know these days are not just in my past but variations on days to come - and so I know that no area is exempt from the external or internal troubles and opportunities that make up every single day for every single one of us.

I see the starkness, yes, and I felt it. Sometimes I felt it so much that I could not imagine any other feeling but the desolation of a lost self. I made a decision to accept no defeat to this part of me and to reclaim all that I recognised to be good in myself, and surround my mind and myself with the situations and people that would encourage the positive.

And now? Now I am so grateful for the smallest of things, for the feeling of the sun on my face through the window - while the wind howls that it can’t do anything to me now but be heard. Mostly I’m grateful for the fact that my life is once again my own, and more so the knowledge that it was never anything but that -  my life. I can always reclaim and return and choose and change.

As much as all of this, all of these words and thoughts, situations and ramblings, as much as it all defined me and continues to be with me - I know that I have reclaimed myself from myself.

xBlanaid

Images above by Alison Scarpulla, via Jeff Harvey

Images by Neil Krug, recommended by Anastasia Campion

Image sent by Claire Garry

Two images above sent by the wonderful Cathy from The Style Strutter

A mix of the things important to you, and the things important to me.  The words and images that we’ve thought or loved. There was somewhat of a realisation for me, reading everything, that we all share so many experiences, even though we can feel alone at times in everything. We all feel lost, loved, lost again, loved again, so thank you for being there through my last 49 lost and loved and lost and loved posts - while you were also living yours.

Thank you so much for your input, it was so overwhelming that  part two will be here on Saturday.

xBlanaid

Tomorrow is Friday, yes..fair point right? It’s also the day of my 5oth Fancy Friday post. I’m going through all the old ones and collating my favourite images, and adding on the quotes, mottos, thoughts, images and art sent to me by you lovely people over the last few weeks.

If you do have a favourite saying, or something you wrote, an image from the internet you love, or one you took or painted yourself, please do send to me before 6pm Friday, as I’d love to include them. You can leave it in comments below, email me to blanaidhennessy@gmail.com or facebook/tweet me.

Posts can be anonymous or linked to your site/blog! x

Also thank you for all of your support to date, and for reading my fancy Friday ramblings. They are the most personal of scribblings but I write and post them securely in the knowledge that you are such generous people. So thanks for that - it really, genuinely means a lot.

xBlanaid

It’s so easy to get consumed by how much the world is affecting you emotionally, while living in blissful ignorance as to how you affect the emotional state of everyone in your world. Next time a problem arises, decide again who you’re going to be - the one who consumes the energy and time of everyone around them, or the one who can face adversity with a certain elegance, acceptance, and ability to move on. We can be whoever we want to be in our reactions to situations. It’s just a choice. It’s always a choice. I know this is a repeated subject - but I always need to remind myself. I want to keep trying, very hard, to make the right choice.

xBlanaid

Images from behind the scenes of Mad Men via Rolling Stone magazine.

…just to touch the ground that you are on. I never thought of it that way before, but now I realise how lucky we are in the smallest of things. From the ground up, I share the world with you.

xBlanaid

It’s easy to shine by putting other people in the shade. Anyone can do that. Try shining just as you are, with all that you have, without feeling the need to stand on others to reach the top. Just be all you can be. That’s all there is to it. Everything else is just short-term glory felt only by you for a little minute before the anxiety sets in again. You’re the only person in this competition to be the best you. You’ve already won.

xBlanaid

Images by the amazing Irene Suchocki - available to buy on her etsy shop >here<

Imagine if this was the rule of life that, apart from illness and death, you had a choice in every other situation in your life. You got to choose whether you stayed, or reacted, or behaved, or changed, or enjoyed, or learned, or left. Imagine if it was that simple.

What would you blame your unhappiness on then?

xBlanaid

All they can do is tell you they’re not going anywhere. No ring, or marriage certificate, or game playing, or oath, allegiances, declarations… even the telling is redundant, because they can only talk about right now. So stop worrying about the end, how, when, why - whether it will be you, or them. Just wake up, have a good day, have a lovely night, relax and breathe.

xBlanaid

“The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone.”

Currently addicted to Mad Men. This was a quote in an episode from Season 2, and I just don’t think I can say it any better.

xBlanaid

You remember? You remember the craziness. You said you wanted to be locked in a room full of grief, so you could write their name over and over, and cover the walls in thoughts of life without them because if you forgot them you would have failed. How to fail them is so incomprehensible to you.

I wonder what we would write, if all we could do was write. If the only way we could clear our minds of grief of loss was to stay in that room, and write all those words, memories, feelings all over the walls. In all those scrawls and lines and tumbling thoughts, all that truth. Maybe that’s what grief is at it’s core - the inability to avoid the undeniable truths.

xBlanaid

Sometimes you know that it isn’t really over.

Sometimes you’re right.

xBlanaid

The day is controlled and full, with hours at times stretched or stunted. Words are created and lost before they’re said, because of the thought of sleep or the sleep itself. Wake in dark, return in dark and spend the light wrapped up in dark, save for one moment. In that moment, remember how you survived the night and fought the dark so you could feel the light again. The thought that woke you still remains:

“everything will be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

You will survive this. Things may change, yes, but you remain, and that is all we need.

xBlanaid

…but you can’t lose if you retain ownership of the situation. Whether you choose the time it happens or not, the consequences remain fully in your control. How you deal with it is still your choice. Don’t hand all of your power over to the other person. Give them credit for being brave enough to do what is best for them, and then do the very same thing for yourself. 

xBlanaid

You make mistakes and learn and change but wish you never had. You just feel shame because you think of the mistake only, instead of feeling proud of the changes you have made in your life. Whether you changed a bad habit or removed an unworthy person, whether you improved your outlook on life, or decided not to encourage negativity in the people around you - whatever. Whatever it was that you did in a positive way, has more than made up for your mistake, you don’t need to spend the rest of your life letting the shame of the original sin wash over you. 

A bad decision does not make you a bad person. Your mistakes do not define you, unless you allow them to…

xBlanaid

…in those moments, when you never believe you can be so pleasantly surprised by life again, when you are planning an escape because your current moment is crawling over your mind and all is dark - when someone tells you in that moment that you will feel better, believe them. Even though you think you are so at the bottom of the well that any chink of light must be an hallucination - just believe them. You will feel life again, and you will fall in love again and you will know again that it is possible to feel all the shades, of every emotion, and survive. 

xBlanaid

xBlanaid

I can be friends with you because I can forget all the bad things. I can forget all the bad things because remembering the good things is so much nicer, and there is more to remember than forget. For every one thing you said that you felt was hurtful, there were fifteen things so lovely that I couldn’t respond. So now, I remember the fifteen and forget the one. I hope you do too.

Some people call this kind of  memory loss; ‘fooling yourself.’ That you can’t be friends with someone who once made you doubt all of everything. Well, I may be a fool, but if the opposite is the kind of intelligence that wins people shiny awards - then I’m happier with an empty shelf and a life full of you.

xBlanaid

Images via ffffound and Mendel

I read all of the comments and emails and texts that you lovely people sent me while I was off doing that thing that needed to be done. Please believe me, for all of the random rambling tangents I toddle off on during Fancy Friday, this one is so genuinely directed at you, reading this, that I can barely figure out what to write.  So here it is - there have been days where I have given in to the frustration and the futility, forgot all the luck and the gratefulness, all the reasons and results. Days where I’m so disconnected that it seems impossible that I will ever be anything but that slightly bewildered kid in school who never understands the rules of the game. “So, I’m supposed to run over here…and then what do I do?!”  

Then there is you, taking the time to think about some other person and hope that she is doing okay and telling her that you hope that for her….

What a wonderful, lovely person you are… 

Thank you. 

xBlanaid

Images via ffffound

No one has a perfect life. That isn’t an excuse though. You can achieve whatever it is you want, so long as you can lose the fear, or the excuses. 

That is just my opinion anyway, and it is one I’ve only come to hold in the last year and a half. At that start of that period of time, I discovered that I had a somewhat dodgy heart. I go in for my first procedure this Sunday, hence the time out.

Yes, it has been a long road - but  I suppose the reason that I even mention it is that it has made me lose all fear. Before, I was nervous about everything I was half-decent at - and now I say, well, sure, I’ll give it a go. Because what is the alternative? That my heart and I sit at home feeling sorry for ourselves - while the life we wish we had continues on outside our window?

There is nothing that can go so terribly wrong with trying. There is no failure so devastating - or mistake so huge, that can change the fact that you have ability. There is no job, no opportunity, no moment, that is as terrifying as the thought that you may not get the chance to experience every job, every opportunity and every moment in the future.

So now, each morning, I say that today I will prepare to do something that I am afraid of - and, more importantly, today I will try and overcome that same fear. Because today is all we have, and aren’t we so very, very grateful for it.

xBlanaid

P.S On a very, probably far too very much, personal note, I would just like to say thank you to my friends and family for their lovely support  - I’m sure you can imagine that it has been difficult at times, but they have all been calm, collected and too cool for skool. I would also like to say that the people I work with, Laura Cunningham and Eoin Hennessy, have taught me more about patience and consideration in the last 16 months than most could hope to learn in a lifetime. I am, without question, a very, very lucky girl. 

There is a moment when you realise that you’re laughing with 100% conviction again. Usually when you’re lying on the floor, crying a bit from laughter at the most ridiculous things your lovely, demented friends are saying.

I had that moment last night…and it feels good to be back.

xBlanaid