#FTBTimeOfMyLife 

(36) 2012

What do you do when life loses its color?

The perkiness. The optimism. The smile. These are things that make me who I am, and they have been zapped from my body. Things that I once loved no longer appeal to me. 

Travel: I haven't left the UK at all this year. If I could, i don't even want to leave my own flat.

Food: I eat, but I don't taste.

Friends & Family: I don't want to see them. I have nothing to show for since I last told them about my grand plan to become a travel blogger. Where am I now a year later? Still in news, now as a freelancer , and still achieved nothing.

I've been selected to dance in the London Olympics' opening ceremony, and I feel dreadful. The thought of being around new people and having to introduce myself as... as a what? A failure.

I just want to go home.

The other day I called up mom and dad and asked them to sit down and just listen. I wanted to share all these horrible emotions swirling inside me, and my family were the only people I trusted enough to share them with.

I never knew my parents loved me so much. Leading the way of talking the anxiety out of me, was dad. The quiet and thoughtful father whom I had not properly hugged for like 20 years, for the first time in my life shared his opinions of me, with me.

They were not what I expected. I didn't need to hold onto my chair handles, because they were the most beautiful things I had ever heard.

Like the lullaby grandma used to sing to me, dad's words felt like gentle waves of ocean washing ashore, gradually smoothing away the rocks that roughen the sandy beach that was my soul, and made me kind of believe that everything would be alright. 

Yes, if I believe, everything will be all okay.

What are the things that come to your mind when you think of the year 2012? Please share them below with us, or on Instagram comments or DM, or just jot them down in your private diary.

FTB Time of My Life is an exercise to celebrate the things that have shaped our lives. Click here for details on how to participate.

Up next, 2013!

Eileen x