The Self-Care Secret Every 20-Something Needs To Know

It seems that penning a 'self confidence' or 'self love' article has become a right of passage for any millennial writer, blogger, and/or selfie taker. Or perhaps, this sense of self acceptance is merely what everyone goes through in their early 20's. Those years of limbo - fresh faced and bleary eyed as we emerge from the last remnants of childhood comfort still afforded to us during the college years. Suddenly forced to figure out what we are doing, where we are going, who we are going with, how we want to get there - all whilst also juggling the insanity of 'everyday' things such as paying rent and making sure to not eat pasta 5 days in a row.

It honestly only seems natural that in a time of such disruption, uncertainty, and newness we would retreat within, to reflect upon the only constant in our lives - ourselves.

Diary 002

MAY

The beginning of May brought with it a welcome stillness
Tasks that a month before had been daunting
Now contained a comforting sense of repetition.
Not mundane but a new normal had been established.
As ever, the peace didn't last long,
The last weeks of May spun by in a whirlwind of graduations, birthday parties, apartment hunting, and see you soon's.
A bustling home that was temporarily filled with five, quickly became two,
A transition I admittedly had dreaded, but adapted to with surprising ease.
Chaos left my life again, just as quickly as it had entered
And May ended as it began, rhythmically quiet.

Millennial Homemaking

Moving - I've done a lot of it lately.
I always joke that I'm not built to stay in one place too long, and recently I have taken that approach to life to a whole new level.
I left my family home in Ireland to live with some of my closest friends in the Bronx, and now live on the Upper West Side with people I had barely met before. All within the space of two months.

Calling for Repeal: An Ocean Away

The week before I left Ireland, I took to the streets of Dublin with my friends
To walk side by side with women, men, and children who were no longer asking for a change in our society
But demanding it.

I left our little island in April, swapping rolling fields for the towering skyscrapers of New York
Filled with a genuine sense of hope for Ireland's future
The ferocious roar of solidarity that I have witnessed countless times in the lead up to this referendum gave me the will to believe that the people I left would make the right choice
Still, there was an undeniable feeling of dread deep in my core, as I no longer had a say in this choice.

Diary 001

MARCH

There is a voice inside telling me to leave
It started as a whisper
Bubbling beneath the surface
Hushed, at first, by the sweet comfort of home, of welcoming faces and the safety of familiarity
But now that voice is screaming
It is fuelled by wanderlust, I admit
This voice is not new
The voice has always been inside
It can be appeased by trips away
But it will always return
Louder and fiercer than ever

1. Words of the Week

Reading and writing have been two of the greatest joys and passions in my life for as long as I can remember. To be quite honest, they are the reason that this blog was created. 
But recently, finding the time to curl up with a book, or scribble the words flying around my head onto a piece of paper has felt next to impossible. So, last week I set myself the challenge of writing something, anything, each day of the week. These are words have been brimming in my mind for some time now, and so their themes vary. Regardless, my New Years resolution for 2018 seems to have fallen into my lap, or rather into my pen. I plan to carry this on, at least once a month, for the rest of the year and will document it here, to keep myself accountable. 
Future theme or topic suggestions are both encouraged and welcome! 

Words for Berlin

This day last year, New Year's Day, was not my favourite, for multiple reasons. Although I knew the hazy dullness I felt surrounding me was just temporary, I still felt undeniably stagnant in my life. Rather than wallow in pity and feed whatever was already desperately trying to pull me down, I decided to make the most of the opportunities afforded to us on the first day of the year and make a New Year's resolution that I would happily stick to. I promised myself I would go on a trip away from home at least once a month in 2017, satisfying my wanderlust and giving my mind and body the chance to breath and rejuvenate more frequently.

Dear Ireland

Dear Ireland,
You are a green island of small minds and big opinions.
You cannot decide if you want to lead our global march towards a more accepting and loving future,
Or if you want to bury your head in an archaic system of oppression.
You showed the world your pride when you were the first country to vote in the name of love for all,
But you dishonour yourself as you still refuse to support my sisters, your mná, as we fight to reclaim our bodies.

Words for London

Walking around London last weekend, I realised the specific peace that comes over my being while in the city. 

The pages that warm me

Some of the best things in life are seasonal. Everyone will have a different set of comforts that change with each term of the year. I find satisfaction in perfumes curated to induce certain feelings, the foods that come naturally, the clothes that either hug or flow from body, and the books that I read. Today the focus is on the books I crave in the cooler months, these are books that I have reread a few times, but always when it was cold outside. These, are the pages that warm me.

To Everything There Is A Season

Spring is the first new season of each year. 
She arrives to the party with hands covered in gardening soil and hair dripping from April showers.
Her appearance, though, is easily forgiven because she brings with her boundless buds and flowers.
She freshens up the room and greets each guest with the promise of growth and renewal.
She is hope.

Soulmates

I have a friend who has stars in her eyes and galaxies in her mind. 
I have a friend who is a golden hurricane wrapped in a brightly coloured pint-sized package.

She laughs without fear of the future

*Really, she laughs despite fear of the future.

A love letter to Germany

Dear Deutschland, 

Do you mind if I call you Germany? 
I think it would save us both the embarrassment of my butchering your name 
Even if your people don't seem to mind my feeble attempts at pronunciation 
I am rather lacking in the language department 
(Irish doesn't get you very far outside our island.) 
But speaking of your people, 
Not only does your blood run through the veins of some of my own most loved 
The inhabitants of your lands have shown nothing but 
friendship, understanding, and welcome
Giving any 'Irish charm' a run for it's money. 

Beauty doesn't have to be pain

Last year I became a vegetarian. At first it was simply an experiment, a test of my will power. I told myself I would only do it for a month. But as the end of the prescribed four weeks came and went, I remained off meat. 

I realised two key things after only a few days as a vegetarian.

1. I wasn't really a big meat eater anyway. The only difference that the deliberate lack of meat in my diet made was that I paid more attention to where I was getting my iron and protein from. Rather than eating a small piece of chicken or fish and thinking that would suffice my daily needs for iron I now eat plenty of dark green vegetables, so much so that my anaemia has actually improved. 

2. I couldn't justify another creature having to die when I could get all of my necessary nutrients and live a much healthier lifestyle on a largely plant based diet. When it came down to it, I could not see how me having a piece of steak for dinner was more important than the life of a cow. 

The second realisation is the one that has filtered into various other aspects of my life. I soon began to question how my life choices, beyond my eating habits, might be damaging to animals. If I didn't want to put products of animal cruelty and death inside my body, how could I continue using products of animal cruelty on my body. 

Cruelty-free beauty is something that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love it for the obvious reasons, but having consciously been purchasing only cruelty free beauty products for a while now I am all too aware of various draw backs. 
- Firstly, reliable cruelty free products can be difficult to find. 
- Secondly, a lot of cruelty free products, for reasons I cannot understand, are just subpar to the more popular brands on the market that we may be used to. 
- Thirdly, cruelty free beauty seems to come with a much larger price tag than those that test on animals - again I don't understand this.

However, I have managed to comprise a little bundle of gems that I wholeheartedly adore and recommend to anyone who will listen. 

Today we wear green. Two weeks ago we wore black.

Today, the nation sets out for its annual celebration of every single Irish stereotype imaginable. Irish and non-Irish alike don every item of green clothing they own and embark upon a day of festivities. There will be Irish flags, shamrocks, and Guinness galore as our little island puts on a show of unity and happiness for the world. We do it for ourselves too though.

She roams

I have a gypsy soul and a travellers spirit 
I have wandered this planet of ours for as long as I can remember

Words

Recently, in reaction to the election result in America
I wrote that words are my weapon. 
But they are more than just that. 

I went away.

I went away.

I spent a year in New York.

I met people and saw places that have changed me forever.

I was there to study, which I did.

But I learnt far more than any book or professor could ever teach me.

New York

Adventure comes in two ways.