As school days turned into college days, and the process of discovering "who they were" started, the dynamics between these friends kept changing. For the longest time it seemed that one of them had to be the center of everyone else's' attention, and there was a constant struggle for becoming the center. It took several years for them to realise that they were all the center of each others universe...and being the center wasn't the important part, being together was! It was a lesson that needed to be learnt not told, and they learnt well over time. 

Each of these 5 human beings, were amazing in their own way, and thats possibly where the problem lay, they never realised it. No matter how much they were told it seemed like idle praise, what you'd expect a good friend to say when you were down. But good friends don't lie...they tell it as it is, avoid giving rude shocks and don't always make you feel great about yourself.

We spend so much of our time waiting to be loved, hoping love will find us, searching, yearning for that special love (from friends, family, boyfriends/girlfriends, even strangers sometimes...and admit all of us want to be loved, we go into shock when we find out we aren't universally popular). Feeling empty and lost without it. Wanting someone to give us love and fill us up. Unfortunately, that's not usually how it works. You will draw to you exactly what you create in life, and what you believe you are worthy of. So loving yourself is what makes others love you...i doubt a bitchy or nasty person really feels that great about themselves , by making others feel less than perfect. 

Think about it...why would i waste time making you miserable, if i wasn't miserable myself...remember that phrase we were taught but i doubt ever really understood "Misery loves company". When was the last time you saw a confident smiley charming person say "Oh dear, you look really awful, have you put on weight.." or some other such ramble!

Those who makes you feel less than perfect only succeed because you willingly allow them to...you were made perfect, then you threw yourself on the floor...damaged your self esteem...forgot to pick yourself up and let everyone else walk all over you! 

And it really is as simple as that

Start loving yourself first, and there won't be a single reason why anyone else won't.

9 years ago, on a warm summer day, 5 people entered a building. This building was to provide a premise for a new friendship between the five. A friendship that was to go on and be a source of great support and hope at different junctions of their lives. It was to become a test of their understanding of each other and their patience...

But at that point, as they entered the building, none of them knew the effect the other was to have on them.

It is often the case, when you get to know people, there is usually no prior agenda and you never know the extent to which they will touch your life, without you really ever giving them the permission to do so!

So we carry on our journey, collecting people and allowing them in, and never look back and see the importance they gain or give a thought to how much they mean to us...Until one day they do something wrong and THAT we will never let go of or forgive!!! How Unfortunate...

and so as they sat uncomfortably amongst 295 others, they looked around tentatively, wondering what the next 2 years had in store for them, and whether they'd make it out alive.

School the formative years of the rest of your life...while in it one can't imagine life any harder, the fitting in, the doing well, the partying, the studying, the gossip, the theories...they all seem intertwined and at the same time it seems impossible to strike a balance between the good times and the geeky times, but oh well we grow up and in hindsight it seemed all too easy and everyone wishes they'd either studied harder or partied harder...why on earth does it have to be so 'hard'!

As the months passed by the 5 came together...as i look back now,  i'm not sure of how the 5 came to form such a close bond, but life happens and so does friendship. As they steered through the trying years of high school, they weeped and laughed and shared romances and gossip, and then as fast as it started, it finished...School was over and "real life" beckoned. The longest day spent there seemed to have been the first one, the rest just flew by.

The first moment of everything seems to be the hardest, full of assessment and uncertainty. We spend the longest time thinking and worrying about it, first impressions, first glances, first kisses, first words, way too many firsts. 

Has it ever struck you that for anything to fully form there has to be a first, and we waste way (3 W's in one line wow!) too much time worrying about the firsts trying to make it perfect, and not enough time planning the follow ups. The first shouldn't be a memory...it should be the build up to something amazing!

and so my first post aspires to become a collection of great memories, one that i would never have revisited if it wasn't for a lack of something to blog about...or a fear of blogging about nothing...