Making A Difference

1.30am seems a good a time as any to update this thing, and although it's quite obviously going to be along the same lines as the other posts since my comeback, I think it's important to tell others of my feelings, my story and my goals with healthy regularity.

A couple of days ago, I received a text message. Nothing unusual there, but it was a little out of the blue from a very good friend who complimented me on a successful comeback on here, and told me she would use it to follow my example in thinking more positively and found these very words an inspiration. I was shocked. Humbled, but shocked. I really didn't think that the words in here made a difference to anyone but me, as selfish as it sounds, but to hear from not just her, but a couple of people now, really does make me feel like I'm making a difference to not just me, but others also.

I am not very good at receiving praise. Almost as bad as I am at receiving criticism in fact, because I am outrageously modest. I usually take praise as a sort of fake attempt to make me feel better. Almost as if the person saying the words are just saying them to avoid criticising, and it's yet another thing I am trying to change about how my brain functions. Take criticism constructively, and praise as just that. I do tend to feel quite embarrassed when praise of this nature turns up aswell. I mean, I do enjoy receiving compliments, (who doesn't), but especially when it comes to an art form, I am quite shy in accepting praise. For that is what I think this writing malarky is. An art form.

It used to be the case when it came to brief forays on stage aswell. Audience members would come up to me after the show and congratulate me for a faultless performance, but instead of accepting it and basking in the praise as such, I would tend to think, "Well, surely they must have seen that little slip up just before the interval?" I would presume that people spot the mistakes more than appreciating the good, but it really isn't the case. The human race is really a lovely race to be a part of, don't you think?

The only piece of criticism I've really taken well in recent times was my latest attempt at singing 'I Believe I Can Fly' in an intoxicated state with the help of a karaoke machine, where most people told me I was shit. I'm no singer, I can accept that at least.

I've moved on a lot since the start of this particular episode of my life. At the age of 17, not knowing what on Earth was going on, where most peers were concentrating on getting good A-Levels, I spent most of my time cowered in the corner of my room, crying. Asking myself why I wasn't straight or why I was struggling while others seemed to be coasting through life effortlessly. 3 years on, and I've accepted me for me, even being confident enough to ask a mate on whether he thought a potential guy was good-looking or not, although I suppose he wasn't the right person to ask! Bless him!

Only the past few weeks, I have really appreciated what I've got. A warm bed to sleep in at night, the best friends on the planet, a laptop to type these very words on. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of what's right in front of your very eyes, and without trying to sound too soppy and Hollywood, I've got it all. Apart from the perfect job of course, or a boyfriend forward slash girlfriend to snuggle up to, but it will come! You see, typing the words, "or a boyfriend to snuggle up to" a few years ago would of been a strict no-no for me. Now? I couldn't care less what anyone thinks, because I'm on the road to happiness.

And for the past few years, I have quite literally dreamed of happiness. And it's on the horizon.