July 2014
Here's my face over the past four and a half years. I'm aware that several of these are mug shots and not all of them are very smiley, but I really do think that a passport photo type of expression shows your face much more accurately. I was feeling all nostalgic tonight and found myself scrolling back through old blog posts and old webcam photos. I used to use my webcam so much, but since my first smartphone entered my life in June 2015 (I was very late on the bandwagon, I know!), I found myself forgetting that my trusty laptop existed. Earlier this year, I found a few straight faced photos I'd taken which were lurking in my webcam folder, and tried to remember to take a couple more in 2017. I'm really glad that 17/18/19 year old me took so many photos because I love looking back at them and comparing everything.
In the first photo, I was 17 years old, hadn't chosen a university, and didn't have a job yet. I lived at home and I was really, really happy (believe it or not, judging from the photo!).
The second photo was taken the following summer. I was 18, had been on my first girls' holiday, and was nervously awaiting my A level results. I'd also been to my first festival, just got my first boyfriend (who, in 2017, turned out to be a liar and a cheat lol), and I was still really happy.
The third photo was taken when I was two terms into my university experience and had been living in Chester, 200 miles away from home, for 7 months. I'd put on weight and was finding it hard to make really close friends who I just clicked with. Slightly less happy than before but still doing well.
In the fourth photo, I'm holding a textbook because I was mid-revision for my end of year exams for year one of uni. I had a very round little face (and round tummy!) and was doing well. I'd made a few close friends by this point and was loving life.
Now we skip ahead two years to June 2017. I'd finished all three years of uni, been working part time at McDonald's for almost 4 years, and had lost 2.5 stone (approx 15kg) in weight. I'd taken up running again by this point and had bashed out a sub 2 hour half marathon a week before this photo. I was happy, still with 2013 boyfriend (despite a small break in which I regretfully, cringefully, embarked on a brief fling with my housemate), and was still living in Chester. Slight panic about my impending graduate unemployment but I was able to stifle it and enjoy life.
Photo number six depicts a full time McDonald's worker, who was desperately hunting for graduate jobs in every spare moment she got. I was still running lots, seeing my friends lots, and was slightly sad that 2013 boyfriend had shown his true colours and that our very long, drawn out relationship was about to end. On the plus side, I'd never been closer with my parents and moving back home to London permanently revived old friendships.
The final photo is me, as of ten minutes ago. I work full time in an office now, am technically a single lady (although a very nice guy is on the sidelines, wahaay), and run five times a week. I'm so close to my family, my friends are fabulous, and I'm absolutely loving this point in my life. I feel so lucky to have made it through these past four and a half years (and pretty much my whole life, to be honest) relatively unscathed. The world is a brutal, oftentimes nasty, place but I think I'm navigating it well. Life, so far, has been wonderful to me.
Looking at old photos can really bring back reams of dusty memories and intense waves of nostalgia. I adore 2017 and being 21, but what wouldn't I give to be transported back to June 2013 to relive this chunk of time? I wonder what things will be like another four and a half years from now...
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