On Sunday 20th November 2011- exactly ten years ago today- I wrote my first blog post.
I had been scrolling through whatever social media was then (I have a feeling it was Facebook but it looks so different in my memory) and saw that a university friend had started writing. She was posting every week and, despite being quite definitely filed in my mind under Facebook Friends Only, I absolutely loved reading about her life.
It was then that I discovered that you could just scroll through blogs and discover the lives of people all over the globe. (This was 2011 remember, Facebook had only just introduced having a cover photo and it would be seven years before I joined Instagram- scrolling the lives of strangers was a very new concept.)
This inspired me to start my own blog. I spent ages playing with background colours and patterns, testing out font styles, and moving the title around until I felt satisfied that it looked like a heading. The name- my own full name- took very little consideration. The friend I was copying had used her full name as the title, so I used mine.
I wrote in that first post that I was going to keep you entertained with my upcoming adventures but I wasn't sure exactly what they were going to be yet. I ended the post 'how exciting'. Reading it back, it's bursting with Christmas-Eve-style optimism, and I feel slightly envious of that person, not long out of university, starting this huge adventure.
I remember feeling so, so very nervous when I first posted it, and being over the moon when my mum liked it.
I later told somebody at a new job that I couldn't believe how well it was doing, and the next day she came in and told me she had looked it up and was disappointed with its success.
"It looks like it's just...your friends and family that like it."
It was around the same time that vlogging had just well and truly taken off. I think she had thought she was now working with Zoella, and was disappointed to find that the comments I'd mentioned I was proud of had all been written by people with the same surname as me.
Despite that, I'm incredibly proud of and grateful for it.
Around the same time that I started my blog, I wrote a letter from my 22 year old self to my 32 year old self, to be opened early next year. I wrote about my hopes and expectations for those years between 2012 and 2022, and made some predictions about where we would all be now.
I can't wait to read it.
I know this:
I hoped I will have worked in Disney. I could never have known how incredible it would be.
I hoped I would have a daughter called Mia. I know that 22 year old me would have been beside herself to hear I not only had Mia, but I had Mia, the best little person I've ever met. Until her little sister was born, when they tied for that title.
I hoped I would still be friends with the women I had nicknamed Minnie Mouse, Pumbaa and Madam Adelaide. I predicted that I would be, but I also know I would be over the moon to know we're closer than ever. That I almost had Millie in Pumbaa's garden. That Minnie parents my daughters via Whatsapp, and that my favourite part of the week is breakfast with Madam Adelaide on a Sunday. I had predicted all their futures and reading how wrong I got it might just be the thing I'm most looking forward to about this letter.
I know that I once again wrongly predicted who I would be married to, but correctly predicted that Jiminy Cricket would be married to her actual husband and would have children.
I could never have predicted that my parents would have split up, or that I'd have been to funerals of friends in their 20s, or that I would come to fully understand the famous Sunscreen line: 'the real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind.'
I couldn't have predicted meeting and marrying someone who loves Disney more than I do. I couldn't have predicted how much I would end up loving the children I was a Nanny for. I wrote my first ever blog post, published it, then went out for dinner to say goodbye to my family and moved to Ireland to Nanny for them the next day. Ten years ago tomorrow. I still think about them every day.
I've quite often spoken to my incredibly wise friend Simba about being caught in the trap of Waiting For Life to Start. When I started this blog, I felt like I was on the cusp of The Start of Life. I had spent a summer in France, and had loved it, and was planning on more adventures abroad. I absolutely loved every minute of living abroad, and of working as a Nanny in London during winter 2012 (for a little girl I loved more than life itself, nicknamed Millie) but it was always with it in mind that when I got back I would start my Real Life. Then we were renting. You know, just until we bought a house and our Real Life started. Then we had a baby. And went into survival mode. Just got to get her to sleep through, then Real Life will start. Then we went into lockdown. Another baby. Always waiting.
But looking back over the ten years, and reflecting on one or two things from each year that brought me joy, is the most glorious reminder that I've been living life all this time. That it's the tiny, every day, potentially easily forgotten bits that make a life wonderful, and that at the centre of that are the people.
I couldn't have predicted the little things that made these ten years what they were...
The way 3 year old Kyle pronounced 'radiator'. The marmite on toast and walk on the beach I had the day after St Patricks Day in Dublin.
The time Dumbo and I had (way) too much drink in iBar in Florida and clung onto each other laughing, unable to breathe for how funny we found this awkward American man, when he really wasn't very funny at all.
The Lion King 15th anniversary when people came to the theatre for 6am (it wasn't 6am, I can't remember what time it was, it felt like the middle of the night but was probably 9am) and they blasted The Circle of Life as they let the first people in and I had to try not to sob serving them.
The absolute joy of playing Heads Up in our pyjamas at a hen weekend.
The way a colleague kept very subtly and kindly disagreeing with me until I had a total rethink about my values. She absolutely changed me as a person and has therefore affected who my children will be, and I'm far too British to tell her.
The time Pumbaa said the wrong thing at the right time and I laughed probably the most I have ever laughed. I'm laughing about it now.
The eleven months that Dale and I lived in our first flat together. We did a lot of dancing and a lot of laughing in that home. Someone came round once and told us they didn't know how we could be so happy in such a tiny flat. I've felt sad for that person ever since.
My Dad's face at my wedding.
The time that we went out for lunch for my Grandma's 75th birthday and my cousins made me laugh so much that my Grandma was certain I'd give birth on the lovely flooring in the hotel.
The first time we took Mia to Disney World- honestly the best 2 weeks of my life. Potentially joint with the second time we took her.
The first time we sat in the house we had bought and it felt like home- about a year after we first got the keys.
The absolute surreal rollercoaster that was lockdown. The incredible memories made alongside the all consuming fear.
The time my Uncle Simon hosted the quiz after a couple of drinks and made me laugh too much to participate.
The hypnobirthing course that Dale, Mia and I all did together because we were locked down so she had to join in.
The moment Mia met Millie.
The tears when my sister in law sent me a photo of a positive pregnancy test.
The moment I met my nephew for the first time.
Almost every single thing that Mia has ever said. The way Millie smiles at herself in the mirror.
Reading my first ever blog post back today, after ten years, and realising there was a spelling mistake in it.
Today I will be saying goodbye to this blog- it lasted far longer and gave me far more than I could ever have predicted. I've changed so very much in that time, as has the world, as has my name.
Luckily for me, I will hold onto all its glorious characters and continue to make memories with them- good and bad, laughter and tears, and a whole lot of scrumptious mundanity that I will, I've no doubt, look back on with huge affection.
Maybe I'll start a new blog account. Maybe I'll finally get that book published. Maybe I'll start to sleep again.
Who knows?
In the meantime, thank you so, so much for reading; whether you've been here since 2011 or this is your first read, I really appreciate you taking the time to take an interest in my story.
Whether you have the same surname as me or not.
Here's to the next ten years.
How exciting.
