Today it’s my 26th birthday! 😍🎂🎉🎁✨🎈 Forever young yeahhh!

Hola lovelies 💕,

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY (First of June) OMGGG! I’m getting old 👵 haha no kidding I’m just turning 26 but it feels like I’m already almost 30 or 100 lol. I have so much back pain lately. I really need to do some yoga and go swimming. It’s still 4 years till I’m 30 but yeah time is ticking away and not standing still. This blog post will be about my birthday and what I have learned this year. June is one of my favourite months because it’s also almost Summer which is my fav season ever! Summer vibes aloha! 😍🌊🌞🏄‍♀️ Summer time and the living is easy as they say. I’m in Spain again since Tuesday so I’m very happy. It’s 30 degrees right now! 😍🌞 I hope I will stay this happy until the heatwave 🔥 come 😂😭 Send help.

Before I will tell you all what I have learned this year I have to admit you something. I wrote this blog post this week but right now I’m adding this text. I’m crying right now in my bed 😢 as it’s the middle of the night. I feel strange to admit this because it feels like you have to be happy on your birthday. Birthdays come with so many expectations which I hate. I love to celebrate it with my friends and family. I just don’t like that I’m thinking now that I don’t have my life together. It’s just hard to live in a world where you feel more than the average person as I’m also a highly sensitive person.

I have good friends but everyone is living their lives while I’m just standing still because of being anxious. I feel like I can be myself more on the internet when I blog than in real life. I’m always hiding myself because of being bullied when I was younger. Somehow it still hurts me. I’m a very open person and love to be honest but I’m afraid to open up nowadays to people who I don’t know well. I don’t want to get hurt again or experience a broken heart again. I guess I just needed this cry and vent it all out. I’m always here for you all too 💗 I wish we could all meet each other soon. I need to heal myself and my heart. I need to find more people who understands me and who I can be friends with. It sucks to have so many good internet friends which don’t live in the same country as me.

I went to a lot of concerts this year which I’m so thankful for. I love seeing my favourite artists live. Music means the world to me 🎶 I love singing as I used to sing in a choir for 11 years. Hopefully I will do something again with singing in my life this year. I need it. Singing makes me feel free, release my emotions and just makes me so happy. Music is life. I went to the concert of Spanish singer-songwriter Sofia Ellar with my friend Maria in Spain. I also went to the concert of Pablo Alboran in June, Hombres G, Celtas Cortos, Operación Triunfo and Chenoa with my mother during the week of fiestas in Valladolid in September. When I came back in Holland I went to see Vance Joy live with my best friend in Amsterdam. Last night I enjoyed a beautiful concert of Alfred Garcia which I know from the Spanish talentshow Operación Triunfo. It was amazing to go to this concert and have fun with my friend. It was an unforgettable concert! 😍🎶 Such a great way to start my birthday! 🎉

I learned this year that my good and real friends and family will always be there for me no matter what. Distance doesn’t matter when the friendship is real. I’m also thankful for all the old and new friends I made in the blogging community, mental health community, Yoga Girl community and pen pal world. I’m so thankful for all the support, love and inspiration I get every day. My life wouldn’t be the same without you all. My biggest wish is to meet you all and hug you all in person 💕 I’m so thankful to know you all. It definitely makes me feel less alone when I’m struggling and also makes me feel more inspired and happy.

I always get beautiful pen pal letters from Sophia and Rosie ❤

I love writing 📝 so much as it’s such a good tool to let everything go. I love to blog and use my insta to spread awareness of important topics such as feminism, mental health, self love, self care, and much more. Some topics are still a taboo so it’s important to spread awareness about them and make people feel less alone. I wish to one day be able to maybe write a book of poetry or something. That would be a dream coming true 🌟. I wish to be able to connect with more people and inspire more people. Most of all I just wish to spread love, happiness and make this world a better place to live in 🌍💗

A poem I made some years ago

This year I began to read books again. I was only reading some magazines before of psychology but I also wanted to read again like I used to do during my childhood. I missed the feeling of reading and being in another world. I read some amazing books this year such as “The sun and her flowers” by Rupi Kaur, “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, “Am I normal yet?” by Holly Bourne and “Turtles all the way down” by John Green. I’m now reading some other books and I will post a review when I’m finished. Reading also makes me feel less alone and makes me happy. There are so many good books out there to be read so hopefully this new year ahead will be a good reading year for me. I’m a slow reader but I will get there hahaha 😂📚

I also learned this year to face some of my fears. I still have a lot of fears to face but I’m getting there step by step even though it’s hard when you suffer from anxiety. I still have a hard time asking for help when I need it. I feel like I can’t ask for help because it makes me feel stupid or weak when it isn’t true. Sometimes we bottle everything up which makes us feel worse. At the end it’s better to let everything out even though it’s scarry. I went to the dentist in Spain for an appointment and they told me all my 4 wisdom teeth need to get out. I’m still so scared as hell to do this one day 😢😭. I know I have to because otherwise I will get problems since they have cavities. I just don’t know how to survive the anxiety about this.

I also am still having a hard time finding a job in Spain. However, last week I got an email for an interview for a shop but I couldn’t be there as I was in Holland. I also did an interview in April for an internship in the best hotel in Spain. Unfortunately, I never got an email back. I guess it’s because I can’t do an internship since I’m not studying anymore. Anyway, I did the interview and that’s still an achievement as well because I was so anxious 💪 I keep applying to some interesting jobs I see.

This year I learned to celebrate every little and big achievement. They all mean a lot to me. Having anxiety makes life even harder so overcoming a fear is a big deal for me. I have to be proud of myself and not be hard on myself. Every year with my birthday expectations comes that I don’t have my life together but who cares. I’m just living each day and making the best of it. I will hopefully achieve my dreams even though it takes time and pacience ✨

I have also learned that I need to travel more to unknown places. I went to Granada again last Summer with my mother for the third time. I loved it 😍 It was great to see my friend again and enjoy the beach. I also love to discover new places such as the surfing village Somo in the north of Spain near to Santander. I went there in September with my mother and we enjoyed it so much. I can’t wait to go surfing there this Summer as I didn’t surf for many years. I really miss it 🌊🏄‍♀️. I also traveled to León with my mother in March. It’s a beautiful city just one hour away from Valladolid. The tapas were delicious and the cathedral was so beautiful with all the stained glass windows. It was our first time in a spa hotel 🏩 which was so relaxing. I loved the swimming pool and whirlpool 🛀. I can’t wait to do that again. You just gotta treat yourself.

One of the most beautiful moments of my 25th year was the wedding of my brother with his Spanish wife. The Spanish wedding was really a big moment of last Summer 💒 💏🤵👰. It was beautiful to be there and to witness the love of two people. It was amazing to be all together with the family and celebrate that love. It was an unforgettable day. Maybe one day I will have that fairytale aswell 🧚‍♂️ even though I believe that the most important relationship you can have in your life is with yourself. Loving yourself and respecting yourself is so important. You are already whole before you are in love with someone. Always remember that.

For the rest, I also enjoyed some time with my friends in Spain and in The Netherlands. We had fun and ate delicious tapas together. I also saw my whole family a lot. I love to see everyone especially my little niece. She slept at our house for the first time in March. It was a lot of fun and it was also tiring 😂. It’s great that our family is growing. I also went for the first time in my life to a cremation of a girl who died because of leucemia from my choir. It was a beautiful ceremony. It was heartbreaking too 💔.

I have a fear of death so it was also again overcoming a fear of mine to go. I also went for the first time to a tulip flower fields in The Netherlands with my mother which was so beautiful to experience! 😍🌷 I also swam a lot last Summer and I’m going to do the same this year. Swimming is so good for your health. I love the outdoor swimming pools in Spain so much 😍🇪🇸🏊

So it was a beautiful year with ups and downs like every year have. I’m still on my way of achieving my dreams and hopefully I will make them all come true ✨ I hope you will all be in this journey with me and never ever leave me. I will be there for you all too of course. We are all in this together 💪💕 Let’s rise each other up, be kind to each other and love each other 🌠. That’s what the world needs more of.

If one thing I know for sure is that I’ll always try to make this world a better place to live in because we live on such a beautiful planet! I love La Pachamama! 🌍

I wish you all peace, love & happiness! Forever young, wild and free! ✌️ We are all childs of the universe. This life is a gift ✨ Thank you all for reading this blog post. I will speak to you all in my next post. In my next blog post I will share more pictures of my birthday, what I did on my birthday and the presents and cards I got from my family and friends 🎁💌.

My mother gave me this beautiful balloon for my birthday 🎈 It says congratulations Chris without the H haha like they say it in Spanish 😂 Purple is one of my fav colours 💜

Love you all so much 😍💞💖,

xoxo Christina