Friends are the family you choose...

I love this quote simply because I believe it's so true. You don't have to be friends with anyone. No one is going to make you be friends with them. You aren't forced to spend hours and hours with the same people if you don't want to. You simply choose to. 

You know you're friends with someone when you send them a Snapchat of yourself with no makeup and 3 extra chins, or when you know exactly what they're thinking with just one look or (as I've found out more recently) when you say or need the exact same thing as them at the same time (ehem Emma). There is nothing quite like having a private joke where you can just look at your friend(s) and say one thing and you all burst into fits of laughter with that one memory. 

Friends are there for everything, the good times and the bad, with advice, help and a big hug to make you feel better. Recently I've been so grateful for my friends. I realise that I'm not the easiest person to be friends with, especially when I'm anxious or in a really bad mood (or if I'm extremely tired and hungry!). But despite this my friends stick by me and I'm so grateful for that (thanks gals). 

I think when you are growing up who you are friends with, and who you aren't, helps to shape who you are and make you the person you become. You realise your likes and dislikes, your pet hates and your favourite things, what makes you laugh, what makes you cry. Friends are there when you aren't sure if an outfit suits you or to help you do your hair or make up. To let you copy their homework if you've forgotten to do it and to back you up in an argument.  To go to One Direction concerts with you and dance until your feet hurt, to go to festivals and listen to music until your ears hurt and to go shopping with until your purse is empty. Ultimately they are there to make the memories that shape your life. 

One Direction!!

One of my oldest friends and I 

I personally think that friends are essential in helping you grow and develop, supporting you through challenges you may not have believed possible to succeed in. I have doubted myself so many times, and I still do, but I've always had someone pushing me to do it and believing in me. This is probably most prominent within the rowing club where everyone helps and supports each other. I've had so many deep conversations with some of the rowers and always walked away feeling supported, it's just so nice knowing people care.

The rowers aka best people ever 

I recently had a self-esteem talk in school and we ended up writing our name on a blank piece of paper which we then passed around the room and people wrote anonymous messages about what they thought of you (all positive of course). I'd done this before but it was within my form group which meant we were all quite close. Doing it in a larger group with people you don't know a lot about seemed to have more of an impact on me. I received lovely messages, most of which I didn't know who they were from which made it special. There were people in the room I'd literally only exchanged a few sentences with in the past year yet they still had lovely things to say about me, and me about them. We all left the class with huge Cheshire cat smiles spreading across our face.

I think what I'm trying to say is don't take your friends for granted because they don't have to be your friend, they want to. Don't be someones friend to use them, be their friend because you want to, because it'll make you happier. I think friends are one of the world's greatest things. 

Much Love

Charlotte

XO

One of my favourite photos ever

Keeping it Brief / 2

• Making: tea because it tastes good and is so calming
• Cooking: pasta (well what else do rowers eat?!)
• Drinking: tea and water 
• Reading: Gone Girl (OMG I LOVE IT)
• Wanting: money (still) and an autumn skirt 
• Looking: for a job (again STILL) and cuddles please
• Playing: Steal My Girl- One Direction 
• Deciding: Uni (STILL) 
• Wishing: I didn't have to make such big decisions
• Enjoying: rowing, rowing and sleeping
• Waiting: For an epiphany to give me an idea of what to do 
• Liking: having time to read
• Wondering: When I will be more confident
• Loving: Harry Styles (come on, that hair and that face!) 
• Pondering: why people fight so much
• Considering: doing a coaching qualification 
• Watching: Steal My Girl (Because it's so freaking good)
• Hoping: to get my life sorted asap
• Marvelling: over how you can get attached to someone you barely know
• Needing: more clothes and make up (yep this is still the case!)
• Smelling: Daisy by Marc Jacobs
• Wearing: kit and pyjamas 
• Following: no one because I'm not a sheep 
• Noticing: I'm actually quite lonely 
• Knowing: what I need but worried I won't get it
• Thinking: about too much 
• Feeling: Not a lot, no love but no hate
• Admiring: how people can be so confident and do so many things
• Sorting: my wardrobe
• Buying: food 
• Getting: bored and restless
• Bookmarking: Christmas presents 
• Disliking: my lack of self-confidence
• Opening:  more and more emails
• Giggling: over Russell Howard's Good News
• Feeling:  nervous and a little anxious

Well aren't you all lucky! Two blog posts in one day! This one isn't very cheery but I find these little posts quite fun and they're so quick and easy! 

The Future

The Future. It's unknown. It's scary. It's what you make it. It's a word I've heard a lot of recently. Perhaps too much. I'm at that stage of my education where UCAS applications and university choices fill your head and too much information is pumped into you by school. Already people I know have received one, if not more, offers from universities while I have't even decided my choices yet! I honestly struggle to decide to what to do day-to-day, how on earth can I make a decision on where I want to study, live and row for at least three years, that will then set me up for my future career. 

Yet while all this is going on I also have three A-levels and an AS to study for, plus rowing and trying to get in some sleep (if possible). Society always tells us to 'live in the moment' and not to wish away your life but I swear we're forever planning what to do in the future? The thing is, only a minority of people my age know exactly what they want to do! Yes, I know I want to help people. I want to live in London. I want to enjoy life. And overall I want to be happy. But I'm still unsure as to what it is I can do and what I will end up doing. No-one can predict the future but it would definitely be useful if they could. But then would that spoil the surprise and mystery of life? What if you didn't like how life turned out for you? 

I recently spent three days coaching at a J14 rowing training camp and I don't think I've ever enjoyed something so much. I had responsibility and became really good friends with all the girls. I even learnt things about myself and I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I also saw a different side to my coaches which was really nice and they treated me just as another coach and not just 'one of the rowers'. I could definitely see myself doing something like this in the future but then I don't believe that I have the right to coach people. Perhaps if (and I this is a major IF) I am to ever reach GB level and gain a GB vest then I might reconsider that statement. But at the moment I feel like I have so much to work on myself with my own rowing that I perhaps don't have the authority to tell others what to do. I also worry that I'm too bossy! 

Then the other side of me thinks back to my undying love for psychology and my interest in the brain, mental illness and how we behave as humans. But then I feel so uneducated on the subject I don't feel I can say yet what it is I want to do with psychology and where it will take me? 

I often think about how I could combine rowing and psychology... a sports psychologist perhaps? But then I think of my mentality when it comes to rowing and often I lack the self-belief that is essential at high-level competition. I always need people (specifically my coaches) to tell me I can do it and that I am good enough. The lack of self-belief then makes me wonder why I am Captain if I have such negative thoughts about myself and rowing? I should be setting an example and spreading positivity. Thinking about it I often give people advice that I really should take myself but somehow I never do. 

But my lack of self-belief and confidence is present in my non-rowing life too. I need constant reassurance that an outfit looks okay, or that my hair or makeup isn't a mess. I frequently avoid social situations for the fear of embarrassing myself  and when people first meet me I clam up and struggle to formulate words purely because I despise my voice.

Things like this shouldn't matter and I hate that I let them affect my life sometimes. 

I realise I have written a lot of questions that I don't think anyone really has an answer to, or at least the answers I want. I also realise that I have completely veered off the subject of 'the future' (sorry!) I guess this post was more of a ramble of what is currently festering in my brain. There is a lot more I have to say but I can't and won't due to the fact that some are secrets I will (probably) never tell and some that I won't simply because it's boring and won't interest anyone! 

I really do hope to blog more, I just need to better manage my time. Do you have any idea where life is taking you? Or are you just as lost as I am? Or more? 

Much Love

Charlotte

XO