Hey friends!

Sooooooo, I have some news — as of May 3rd, I have officially been blogging and sharing with y’all for one year!!! (Yes, I kind of missed it. I know! I’m sorry. It’s been a crazy month, plus I bought my domain back in February (not May) of last year so it didn’t notify me. I promise I’m writing it down for next year.).

Small details aside, I’m really excited about this. Not only am I really proud of myself for committing to this blog, it’s kind of crazy to see how I’ve grown and improved as a writer over the last year. While I kind of cringe looking back at my very first posts on this blog, I know I had to start somewhere and that I’ve become a more skillful writer with time and effort. As such, I wanted to do a little update of my first ever post where I shared 10 facts about me. As well, I wanted to elaborate a little on what I’ve learned, what’s changed in my life, and where I hope blogging takes me in the future!

So, without further ado, here’s 10 (updated) facts about me!

• I am currently 22 years old residing in Vancouver, Canada. Well, I’m 23 now, but otherwise this is still true!
• I have a degree in Psychology from UBC. At the time that I wrote this, I was really struggling with what was going on in my degree — even I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen, and as such, I just wanted to pretend I had graduated and finish up my remaining two classes quietly. With time, I realized how harmful that was; not only do I hate being dishonest, but I was kind of lying to myself. It was a brutal and stressful year, but I made it through. And now, I’m officially a UBC graduate with a major in Psychology and a minor in Creative Writing!
• I am an alumna of the Kappa Kappa Gamma organization. This hasn’t changed, but I have become a lot more aware of the long-lasting impact my sorority has on my life and how I can still lean into those friendships and rely on my sisters, even in the hardest of times.
• My hobbies/favourite things include exercising, travelling, makeup and skincare, as well as hanging out with my friends. I don’t really know what I was going for with this one — it’s a little all over the place and doesn’t really include any hobbies (although I was a little too busy for them at the time). My REAL hobbies include blogging, photography, makeup and art. (Obviously I still love skincare and my friends — but those don’t really strike me as hobbies, per se).
• I’m a HUGE cat person. My parents have a Siberian Forest kitten named Dmitry and he might be the love of my life. Dmitry is now one year old! This is him now, I miss SO much.

• I’m originally from Toronto, Canada and I moved to Vancouver at 17. Still true! I haven’t been back in a while, sadly — especially since with the current situation, it seems like I may not be able to anytime soon.
• Tea over coffee but I still love both. I actually only really drink coffee when I’m working — and even then, I mostly drink lattes. Plain roasted coffee is great sometimes, but I don’t make it at home all too often. Tea, on the other hand? I make tea usually twice, sometimes three times a day. I wasn’t kidding when I wrote this, I really, REALLY love tea.
• I LOVE the outdoors, plants are a huge essential in my home decor. I just put up the two cutest little plant pots on my wall, which is pretty fitting here! (If you want these for yourself, you can get them from Umbra!).

• I’m an aspiring Wedding Planner. This is still true, but unfortunately I’ve graduated at just about the strangest and most uncertain time for the job market. Who even knows what the wedding industry will look like after this? So, fingers crossed, but I’ll be keeping an open mind.
• My absolute favourite beauty line is NARS (with Tarte being a close second), and my favourite skin care line really depends on the product but I’d have to say probably Naturopathica. This is so funny to me, because this honestly sounds a little dated — these feel more like my opinions of two years ago. However, nowadays, I’d have to say my overall favourite makeup line would have to be Anastasia Beverly Hills. As well, my favourite skincare brand is probably Biossance (with Herbivore as a close second).

It’s so weird taking this time to look back and reflect — it really has been such an intense year. When I wrote this post initially, I was fresh out of my 2019 exam season and grappling with what was going on with both my degree and my future, as it was all so up in the air at that point. Being a recent graduate is definitely never easy for anyone, and I know from watching all my friends enter the post-grad life that it’s far from an smooth transition. It’s intimidating searching for jobs, and starting your first job post-grad can be overwhelming. It’s tough to stay in touch with a lot of your university friends, especially those that move away, have conflicting schedules or are still finishing their degrees. Post-grad life is incredibly isolating at first. I’ve heard time after time from each and every one of my friends how incredibly lonely they felt for the first year or so. But not only did I have to go through all of this myself — I hadn’t even actually graduated yet. I still needed to get a job, and finish up my classes. It felt like I spent the whole year in flux — I had all the aspects of post-grad life and struggles, without the actual degree.

I wouldn’t say it ever got much easier or less scary over the last year. I always felt like I was two steps behind. I transitioned from my on-campus apartment to downtown life, my incredibly intense new job and online classwork faster than I could ever keep up with. I never had any time to socialize, keep up with friends, or do anything for myself. I didn’t have the ability to fully move into my apartment with how busy I was, and I spent months without having any furniture at all. Beauty treatments I used to keep up with regularly became a thing of the past. All I had time for was trying to catch up. I spent a lot of the last year not really living, but surviving.

This isn’t to say that it was all bad. In the last year, I got a chance to do a lot of travelling, which I am so very grateful for. I finally did finish up my degree, and I’ll be able to have a little virtual graduation this summer and put that chapter of my life to rest. As well, I think I’ve come to realize I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. I have dealt with so much in the last year, and even when my worst issues were just juggling my classes and seven day weeks at my job, I made it through in one piece in the end. If you had told me last year what this year would have been like, the changes my life went through and how much I would end up losing, I wouldn’t have believed I could have survived it all. But I did.

I kind of feel like I’m finally beginning to wrap up this year of my life and move on to the next phase, and honestly — as monumental and educational as it was for me, I can’t wait to put it behind me. It’s weird thinking ahead to the next year and what it’ll hold for me and my blog — everything is so uncertain right now, there’s no point in really setting any solid plans. However, I do have some ideas for where I’d like my blog (and life) to go over the next year — for starters, I’m hoping to have more time to dedicate to creating content (both for my blog and Instagram), as well as finally being able to reach out to brands for collabs. I’m hoping to settle into a real routine and find a full-time job that I love. Most of all, I’m just hoping to be able to really take the time to put together posts I can be proud of, week after week. This blog is a huge passion of mine, but I don’t often have a lot of time to dedicate towards it — but hopefully by this time next year, I’ll be able to change that.

Before I go, I just wanted to give a little thanks to all of you for supporting me over the last year. It really means so much to me that so many of you care what I have to say, and I love being able to share my thoughts with all of you. While this year has been pretty rough and it’s been tricky coming back from my hiatus, it means a lot seeing the support I’ve been getting since. So thank you, all of you, for making my first year of blogging so fantastic! I can’t wait to see where the next year takes me. Let the journey begin!

Xoxo,

Meredith