Thatisbeyond…this blogpost was not what I intended to write, but I will post those thoughts another day.

Do what makes you happy. That is my advice to you. Because every second that you spend doing what makes you happy, will make the rest of the time all the more manageable.

Don’t allow yourself to be judged for what makes you happy either. What other people think doesn’t matter as long as it continues to make you happy regardless.

I am happiest singing and dancing around like a nutter! Once a week I go to a dance studio and dance in a contemporary style. And even though I am seventeen stone, and I don’t look like a dancer and I get things wrong and I am heavy footed, for that half an hour I am relaxed and calm and truly happy.

I never used to be able to dance in front of the mirrors. I would shy away at the back (at drama school I would place myself right at the edge against the wall to avoid the mirrors!) but now I realised I wasted too much time worrying what people thought and how I looked. I don’t anymore, because that time is about me being happy.

I write this blog because it makes me happy, I enjoy trialling new ranges and I feel I represent a section of society often ignored in fashion and grooming – and so I write. I don’t read what people think of me because it doesn’t matter. Those who like my stuff will read it and those who don’t, shouldn’t. I don’t troll twitter following people in the hope of them following me back – this is not what I am about. Everyone that I follow, I genuinely want to read their tweets, and when I don’t any longer I just won’t. I’m probably not gonna make a career out of blogging because I don’t do that, but as long as I write I am happy and that is what counts.

I have been very self conscious about putting any pictures of me on my blog or on twitter – because I thought who would want to listen to what I have to say when they know I’m overweight and that I look the way I do. But this will stop. I won’t hide anymore because if I do I am harming myself.

The best things for you as a person are sleep, happiness, water (and lots of it) and engagement in its many forms.
I am lacking on the sleep front but everything else I strive for (and for water intake, I have to work hard because I don’t like it!)
Engage yourself in your work, your relationships, love, challenges and goals,everything. And very swiftly you will realise that you are getting so much more out if life.

This is how I am attempting to live out the rest of 2014. I have no doubt I will falter but I will do my best not to.

Too many people have life taken away from them too soon.
A very good friend of mine’s sister was recently taken from us all, far too early. A friend’s father lost this year was a man whom I respected and admired. And further back in time a mother who could have been my own, who’s zest for life continued beyond the day that she died.

These people were not my blood, I knew none of them as well as I’d like to, but they have taught me more than I could comprehend. Be happy.
Be happy. Be happy.

I dedicate this to Mama Brown and her pink leather gloves, Bob the classiest gentleman and to Hannah whom I didn’t know, but instantaneously knew we would have gotten on, if we had known each other.

May you all live happily on the other side.

You have all touched me in some way and I promise I will look after those who you left here with me, for as long as they continue to need me.

Happiness is all that matters.