This time last year, the idea of doing things alone was completely alien to me. I've always been at my most confident with my friends around me - I suppose most people are. As a child I was painfully shy, and hated going to after school clubs that my friends didn't go to, it was extremely tough for my ever encouraging parents to get me to agree to go to these things.
When I decided to go to Australia, I realised that none of my friends were going to be coming with me - many of them are in serious relationships and wouldn't leave their partner, some were still studying and a couple of others had been in the lucky little percentage of graduates who actually had managed to get a job in their chosen field. So if I was going to do it, I would have to do it solo.
Now obviously I didn't go completely on my own. I flew out on a group flight with BUNAC, and instantly bonded with my new companions. Once we got to Sydney I formed an incredibly close friendship with a couple of the girls, and spent weeks seeing the sights of Sydney with them. There came a point, however, once I had decided not to get a job and spend the remaining weeks of my trip travelling, that I had to decide what I was going to do with my time. Gemma and Emily couldn't come to Melbourne with me, but I desperately wanted to go there before I went home. So I had a choice to make. Do I miss out on seeing a city I've always wanted to visit because no-one can come with me, or do I bite the bullet and go? At the time, I was in Port Douglas with my friend Lynsey, and I had a good long think about it.
I had flown to Hong Kong and Sydney with the BUNAC group, but my trip to Port Douglas was organised by me and me alone. I booked a flight on my own, took the bus from Cairns airport to Port Douglas on my own and stayed in accommodation on my own, without giving it a second thought. So what was stopping me spending a couple of days exploring Melbourne by myself? With that in mind, I took the plunge and spent an amazing weekend in Melbourne. Granted I had dinner with my university friend Stacy both nights, but I had so much fun exploring the city by myself. The other girls in my dorm room in the hostel were lovely, and when I decided I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't go on the Neighbours tour, even though I was on my own, I met lots of other crazy Neighbours fans like myself! Were there moments when I thought ''aww I wish someone was with me to point that out to''? Sure, of course there were! But that's where vlogging came in handy!
Over the past year, I've also attended a lot of blogger events on my own, and that's led to me making some lovely friends in the Scottish blogging world, who I always look forward to seeing at meet-ups. Now I don't even think about it when I arrive at an event, because I know that even if my other blogging friends haven't arrived yet, it's only minutes before you're discussing the latest blog post trends, that argument between so-and-so and so-and-so on twitter, and having a laugh about how insane it sounds when you tell your non-blogger friends you're off to drink cocktails with a bunch of people you met on twitter!
Later this week I'm off to a gig in Glasgow by myself, something that pre-2013 Lynsey would never have done. I would have thought ''aww, I wish I had someone to go with'', and missed out on seeing an artist I absolutely adore because I'd think it seemed sad to go by myself! Now I feel like I look at things in a totally different way. Doing things by yourself is healthy, and shows that you don't need the validation of other people to make you happy. Do I constantly complain about never meeting the right guy? Absolutely. Would I choose to celebrate a birthday or some other special occasion on my own? Definitely not. But when push comes to shove, if there's something I want to do, or somewhere I want to go and none of my friends or family are able to come with me, I won't hesitate to do it now. Being alone isn't the same as being lonely! It just means you're brave enough to do what you want to do, and it's so rewarding to prove to yourself that you can do it on your own!
This post sort of came out of nowhere, but I hope it strikes a chord with some of you! Let me know if this is something you've experienced, and let's all make a pact to be brave and step outside our comfort zones more often from now on! :)
Thanks for reading!
