Thanks everybody for your insight.

I’m going to try and seek positive changes in my life – I am starting off by changing what I can have control over, namely trying to introduce and reinforce healthy habits. I have quit smoking – I talked about this in another post here, I quit two months ago, started again and I am three days into stopping again. I am also a month into sticking with a vegan diet, I’m only starting to feel more energetic and my clothes feeling a lot looser. I had tried veganism when I was at university but I only stuck with it for three months. During that time I had felt happy and energetic and I started to learn how to cook meals from scratch instead of just eating junk food and ordering takeaway all the time. It got to the point where one night I couldn’t sleep because I was excited about trying out this new recipe I had read about on the internet a few hours before!

I’m still trying to get my art and craft business off the ground so I need to focus my energy on this venture. I am hoping that trying to take responsibility for my physical and emotional health will inspire me with my art – unfortunately I am suffering from artist’s block at the moment 🙁

I want to create art and illustrations based on my experiences but my problem is that I find another artist whose work is amazing and really inspires me, but then I feel inadequate about my own work when it doesn’t end up looking like that of the other artist (a vicious cycle to fall into). I wish I could stop comparing myself to other people and focus on my own productivity but after trying to be like that other artist, I am left with this burning question – what does my art style look like? What is my art all about?

Lately I keep thinking about the relationships with some of my friends and whether they are worth holding on to. My best friend for instance – we have been good friends for a while but sometimes I feel annoyed at him – I get really peeved off at the fact he asks a lot of questions about myself and how he can act really interested about something I find really mundane and trivial, but sometimes I find that he is really nosy and I feel that most of the time he doesn’t understand my need for wanting to be quiet most of the time. It also feels like we no longer share common interests and I just feel bored out of my skull when we go out to meet – a lot of the time revolves around waiting in shops while he spends hours browsing through comic book and record shops. One time we missed the train back home because he just had to go back to the record shop to trade in a vinyl record for something else. He is always asking me if I am up for attending things I am not interested in anymore – heavy metal concerts, shopping (I want to try and establish healthy spending habits in my life as well as trying not to accumulate a lot of things I don’t really need), going to the pub for beer, junkfood-fuelled all night gaming sessions (I need to be in my bed at a certain time, if I don’t get my sleep I go beserk) going to the cinema (I’m not a film person, I couldn’t care less about Hollywood action blockbusters – I would rather watch those made for TV films on the True Movies channel!) I’m not the most patient of people.
I keep thinking about my friendship with somebody else in our friendship group as well – this girl I have been friends with since childhood. She is one of the funniest people I know – we both have the same cynical sense of humour but we also laugh about horrible things about people we don’t like, after which I feel guilty for finding that kind of thing hilarious. We are prone to having toxic, vicious arguments and we can go for months at a time without speaking. Last year I had resolved to ending this cycle and we both officially called off our friendship last year but we both agreed to keep things civil for the sake of our other friends, but these days it seems like we are back to being almost like best friends again.
I also keep thinking about another friend from uni who has moved back home since graduation (he lives in another city which is a while away from where I live) – somebody who doesn’t really bother staying in touch to ask how I am doing unless he wants something. It feels like it’s always me who has to make the effort to stay in touch and find out how he is doing. Recently he got in touch to tell me he’s going to be back in town for a week. I really don’t want to meet up with him because I just feel nothing but resentment towards him, and it feels like I put a lot into the friendship than I get out of it. I can also tell that if I were to meet up with our old group again, it would involve meeting at the pub. I don’t really drink alcohol these days and this is somebody who pressures me to having a drink when I really don’t want to and being rude and obnoxious about it.

I feel like I don’t have a lot in common with them anymore. They also constantly remind me of the past and things that I would much rather forget about. Am I just being selfish thinking about this kind of thing, or is it normal to have these insecurities about friendships? I’m not sure about what to do most of the time – I did have close friends back at school but they just stopped getting in touch and ignoring my calls one day.

I desperately need to make positive changes in my life and I can only think about how my friends will try to hold me back. Am I being selfish and insecure for thinking that I should try and find new friends?