Hi, hello, hey! Here's the thing, if you know me - like know me, know me, like on a personal level know me - do us all a favour and click out of this post. You'll be doing me a favour, but mostly you'll be doing yourself a favour; there's probably some info in this post that you don't want of me.

I know that I'm only young, 19 to be precise, but recently two of my childhood friends have turned 20 and it's made me start to realise that we're all growing up so quickly. Shit, it's 2017 in just over a week - can you believe it?!

I don't really have a specific end note that I would like this post to have, or even a theme or specific points that I'd like to address but I've just had some thoughts recently about growing up that I'd love to write down. 

I loved being a child; I had a fairly privileged upbringing; went on loads of family holidays, experienced and viewed the world, lived without the massive influx of technology until my teen years and honestly I probably wouldn't change it for anything. As a young kid, you're naive. It's just nature that young children will wonder into the world, not just without a care but without any fears or previous conditioning to the world in front of them.

Many things are thrown at us, in the midst of trying to figure out our personalities, to act as hazards or tests. Relationships, future planning [university/work] and alcohol are quickly forced into our lives during this strange in-between period of life. At this age, we've spent the majority of our lives confined to the four walls of school and thus the real world is quite intimidating. 

There's almost an expectation among my [our] generation to drink alcohol at any given chance. We are shown that to have a drink [or two] with lunch is a fine, a few more with dinner is totally acceptable and getting absolutely shit-faced every weekend is normal. Here's the problem, alcohol is fashionable. I'll be the first to admit that I struggle with my relationship with alcohol. And I have quite a few friends who are the same. I don't consider myself an alcoholic and I definitely don't drink everyday or even every week, but when going out to dinner I tend to choose a glass of wine over a glass of water over a soft drink [soda/pop for my international readers]. Something that gets me through a tough day/week is wearing matching lingerie [it has to be matching otherwise I feel more like a complete mess] with a robe, sipping on a glass of Moet and listening to my favourite Spotify playlists. I'm sure there are other, more healthy, options [such as exercise] that others are doing but I find this works best for me. Exercise can sometimes stress me out more than need be.

As we come to the close on yet another year, the thoughts running through my mind are that of age and maturity. The difference between what I knew and how I acted when I was 9, compared to now at the age of 19. Further, what I will know and how I will act at age 29. Who knows?!

I never make New Year's Resolutions but this year I'm definitely going to have some personal things I want to address throughout 2017; that post will go up sometime before January 1st.

Until then, I'm going to continue drinking wine, wearing lingerie and listening to Spotify playlists because I'm still my reckless 2016 self ;-)

XO

PS. Congrats on making it this far down this more lengthy post, I've started an Instagram for my blog: it's @conquerwithcoffee [or you can just click on that hyperlink and it will take you straight to the page]. I never know the reaction I'm going to get when starting an Instagram, I had one before (when my blog was The Simple Emma), but I failed to keep up with posting regularly - let's see how we go!