At times, the end of something is welcomed. Maybe it’s finally the end of an exam that you’ve been dreading for months, and you can’t wait just to burst out of those double doors and spill into the fresh air, laughing and relieved with your friends. Other endings are not so longed-for. The end of university, for example, or the end of a book you’ve loved. Some endings are a strange combination of both.

My own personal ending occurred today, and it was a combination of relief and a jot of sadness. If you know me, or follow me on Twitter (@ameliafsimmons if you don’t, ahem….) you’ll most likely know to what I’m referring. If not, you’ll probably be able to fill in the blanks. The thing which ended had dragged on long past any sort of reason. It was something that I should have ended a long time before, but that I let drift on and on, knowing I was unhappy with it. I won’t go into details at the moment – perhaps I’ll talk about it someday as an example, but while I keep a blog, I don’t like to let ALL of my intensely personal details hang out on t’interweb.

So I’ll be brief. The Thing that ended was something that ate away at my confidence, made me increasingly miserable, and was the cause of heaps of sleepless nights. There was something in my life that was both wrong and upsetting, and it was wholly within my control. The Thing in question was something that I thought I could make better, just by willing it so, and working hard at it. I worked insanely hard. I did everything I could to maintain the Thing, but it collapsed all the same. It partially collapsed because I wasn’t being myself, and I wasn’t sticking up for myself. Seriously – if you don’t stand up for yourself in life, why should anyone else? My friends had tried, telling me to do something about the Thing, and that I was worth more, but I never did.

I wasn’t being true to myself, and I wasn’t being brave. Bravery is a hugely underrated concept in society today. Bravery is not necessarily nurtured or encouraged, and yet it is vital. Whether you are brave in terms of quitting a job that you hate to start your own company, brave in ending a relationship  – either platonic or romantic, or brave by singing in front of a room full of a people, it’s something that you need to do. The New Year is the ideal time to make such a change. A fresh start, a lack of associations, and a bit of Dutch courage combine to make us stand up for what we believe. That problem we put up with in the Old Year can be changed. It can be sorted out, or vanquished completely. Now, I strongly believe in working at things and not just quitting. But if a situation has gone far past something you can redeem, then you need to take action.

I’m writing this blog not because I feel like weeping into a keyboard. I don’t. I feel like Wonder Woman. You can too, but you have to be brave first. Yes, it’s terrifying. And you’ll be able to come up with a hundred reasons why you shouldn’t do anything and you should keep ploughing along in the old way. Make another list of reasons for why you should deal with the problem you’ve been putting off, and if it outweighs the other list, then you have no choice. I am encouraging you – no, imploring you – to make that big change. Stop being sad. Stop having sleepless nights and feeling bad for yourself. Stop the pain and the worry. Take charge, take control, be a Man, be a Woman.

It might hurt at first, but you have to trust me when I say that it WILL get better. If you know something in your life is wrong, you have a duty to yourself (and others, actually) to untangle it. In fact, you might be surprised how it feels. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have been feeling so sad and so bad about it for a long time that alleviating it actually takes a huge weight off your shoulders.

So start the New Year with a fresh perspective, feeling proud of yourself. Start thinking about how you’ll feel if you’re still in the same situation this time next year. If it’s going to hurt, then start dealing with the pain now to give yourself a better life in the near future. If you start to care about yourself and trust in your own decisions, you’re already on the road to being happy. And really? You should be happy. Because you deserve it. And because life is too short to do anything else.

Love to you all,

Amelia xx

P.S. This will be the first and last time I talk about my personal life (albeit in a VERY roundabout way) on this blog!