begin again: launching this summer

Now Playing: Begin Again by Taylor Swift (and I've been spending the last eight months thinking that all love ever does is break and burn and end, but on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again)

This year (at some point...cannot for the life of me find/remember the date) I renamed my blog fearless..., after my then-favourite Taylor Swift song, Fearless.

Fearless is about a perfect first date - but more importantly, it's about finding that person who lets you be yourself (you take my hand and drag me head first, fearless/and I don't know why, but with you I'd dance in a storm in my best dress, fearless). It's about having the strength to be yourself. Fearless is not being completely unafraid; it's about living in spite of the things that scare you to death.

I've spent so much of my life afraid of who I am and what I can do. I've spent so much of my life trying to suppress so much of myself - my beliefs, my intelligence, my sexuality, my desires and dreams and ambitions. I've tried so hard to fit in, to be normal, to try and get what I want. And...it didn't really work.

This year I have been fearless - or as fearless as I can be, anyway. I've been myself, and gotten a lot of flack for it. But I've also made a great friend who has helped me be myself, to be fearless. I needed something, someone, to help me see that I'm fine the way that I am and that people can love me for me. I never had that kind of faith before.

I've never been afraid of being dependent on people. I'm an independent person and I like working alone, but sometimes you need a leg-up. I love you to the moon and back,오빠 - but the past is the past. Next year I'm not going to be sixteen and little and frustrated and confused anymore. I'm a big girl now.

But fearless is something I am leaving behind me, soon. I want to begin again. I fell in love again this year, but it's the same people and the same stories and I'm tired of having to waste so much time in old haunts with old loves. I want to meet new people. Next year I begin again.

I am the eternal optimist, you know. But all love has taught me is that you have to endure being put down and hurt and degraded. All love has told me is that you have to give up the one you love for people you don't know. I'm waiting for my Wednesday in a cafe to teach me something different. I never really stopped believing - I'm a self-confessed idealist and romantic. I'm just getting a little impatient.

I don't know why I haven't learned anything from the past - but I'm glad. I want to fall in love again. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to doing new things and seeing new places and meeting new people. I'm looking forward to new friends, new relationships. It really is a new beginning.

Sometime this summer I will be renaming my blog: the new title will be 'begin again...'. I will miss 'fearless...', but that's a lesson I've already learned and there are a thousand more I need to move on to.

As a chapter of my life comes to a close I've learned a lot of things. I've grown up, learned about love, made a lot of mistakes, discovered myself, made friends, lost friends, learned the hard way the consequences of playing with fire. And you have been with me every step of the way as I have written my heart on my sleeve - laughing and crying my way through life. Next year I begin again, and I hope you'll join me.