The chapters are concluding, but I’m still writing my story.

Throughout the past fourth months my blog has allowed me to share the inner thoughts of my mind, address my demons and overall it has allowed me to become a stronger individual. I use the term individual because I now know that is what I am. For such a long time I didn’t think I would be able to cope on my own without certain support networks around me – I’ve proved myself wrong though.

I can’t say that the past four months have been all plain sailing, but life has its ups and also it has its downs, and that’s the same for everybody. It’s not how hard you fall, it’s about how quickly you are able to get back up, dust yourself off and keep ploughing through life.

These four months have taught me much more about myself than I could or would have ever imagined. I now know that I can do whatever I put my mind to, I can make the choice to be happy, I can accept bad days but I can also move on from them, learn from them and mature from them.

The most important thing that writing about the past has taught me, is that it is in the past. You have two choices: 1) You can hold it, and keep the memories weighing you down, not move on entirely, and keep reliving the pain you felt OR 2) you can release the past memories – they don’t define you, you can unpack the luggage that was weighing you down. You can move on.

Past experiences may have been traumatic and they do affect everyone differently, there are people there for you to help you move on, but you are ultimately the only one who can decide when it’s time for you to do so. I should know, I held on to memories for far too long and it doesn’t help, it destroys everything around you, and it’s only when you stop and look at it from a different perspective that you are able to see just how bad things have gotten.

I now feel no hatred, no bitterness for anything that happened all those years ago. If it hadn’t of happened then I would not be the kind of person I am right now, and I am wholly proud of who looks back at me in the mirror. This journey has been long, and I know it’s not over. But these chapters are closed and finished with. I have written them and checked over them a hundred times – I don’t need to read them once more. I now only turn pages forward, and as my story grows so do I.