Growing Up (crazy pet lady)

I'm constantly being reminded of how much i'm growing up, through the constant changes going on in my life. I live away from home now for university. So when i go home, seeing changes happening to my hometown makes me feel so much more distant, and seeing my siblings grow up faster than I want them to. A couple of months ago, I didn't go home for about a month and a half, and when I finally found time to visit home, I was shocked at how old my dad looked and it broke my heart, seeing my parents grow old is not something I'm looking forward to.
The one thing that's hitting home the hardest, is losing my family pets. My cat and my dog are the two things that have been in my life constantly, in addition to my family, for as long as i can remember.  Friends have come and gone as i've moved through different stages of my life, but they've always been there.
My cat died last year, last April and I can't believe its been an entire year. There's still a hole missing and no pet will ever fill that hole. Felix was mine, nobody else in my family was attached to him the way I was, and I'll always miss him. The sad thing was, he should still be here today. He was hit by a car and the vets felt he was too old for surgery. I was in university at the time and found out when I came home for Easter break a few weeks later, when he had already been cremated. Seeing the box was one of the most heartbreaking things to happen to me to date. Well that, and going to sleep that night and not having him on the end of my bed like he normally would be.  I used to annoy everyone with the constant photo updates of him, but now I'm grateful for every photograph i took.
As well as this, my dog, a 10 year old King Charles Spaniel, has started to have fits. It's so hard to see a dog that you're used to seeing gallop around and being extremely hyper and happy suddenly struggle to even walk up the stairs. I remember when I used to take her on walks a couple of years ago and I'd let her off her leash as we reached our street and race her back to my house, she'd beat me by a mile. Now she can just about keep up when i'm walking. But she's still with us for now, and I'm grateful for every second. It's not that I'm waiting for her to go, but I just feel like it could be any time soon, she just doesn't seem herself.
I think the day my dog dies, will be the day that my childhood will have officially ended and I hope that's a long way away. Not seeing her trot to the door when I come home will be horrible. I really couldn't bare to loose her just yet.

i've learned the hard way that people come and go in your life, its up to you to keep them in your life but they wont always be around.
you cant rely on other people all the time to hold you up or carry you through life, sometimes you have to walk on your own two feet and make your own mistakes
its nice to have someone there to guide you but if you don't make your own mistakes you cant learn from them.
also, just because people make certain choices, it doesn't mean that choice is right for you. if a person doesn't enjoy something, or something doesn't feel right for them, never for one minute think that its that way with you, each person has their own needs that they need to fill themselves. decide what YOU want to  do instead of following in the shadows of those around you.
im not saying you cant gain anything from the advice of others, but if you become attached to that one person and find your living off their dreams and goals, what happens when that person leaves? where does that leave you?
it always makes you a better person to be strong and stick through things in times where you feel like giving up or you feel like its not going to work. don't give up on something that could be the best thing thats ever happened to you.
basically, be your own person, don't be a shadow of someone else's.

favourite bands.

I hate it when people get all protective over a band that they apparently are the biggest fans of.  There is always going to be someone somewhere else in the world who loves them more than you do, yeah you might have known them since their first single, but that doesnt mean your their biggest fan. My favourite band is paramore. Not because of Hayley Williams, but because everyone else likes them, but because they were one of the bands that i first got into and Hayley was a big inspiration to me and I'd love to meet her and im not going to lie and say ive known them since their first song because I havent. They were recommended to me by a freind by the time their second album was out but that doesnt make a difference. I could love them more than a person that was there to buy their first single. but again im not going to say that im their biggest fan because I'm not. I love the band and i just wish that other fans of bands wouldnt compete to be the biggest fan. a band should be a way to get closer to people, sharing interests not a trophy to be won.

feelings

when you put yourself into a mind set, you stay in it, like a kind of trance until you have the strength within yourself to pull you out of it. A good example of a mind set is when your heart broken and all you can think of is how much you miss that person or how much you want to turn back time. But as long as you keep yourself in this state the worse its going to be. You're never going to be able to change or speed up the process of healing a broken heart but, i believe that as one emotion takes over you, the other ones are diminished. So, if you keep yourself happy, surrounded by friends and family then your mind has no time to feel sad or alone. there are times when you can't help it, your bound to be alone, but trying to keep this time to a minimum will help you get over heartbreak without you realising the process is carrying on behind closed doors.
Trying to realise the positives behind the negative time you are going through can also help. as emotions are weighed out, so are relationships. as one diminishes, the others take over.  So its all about balance.

this may be pretty obvious but i feel writing down your advice to yourself makes you realise it more as advice, rather that you going insane and talking to yourself. and its always there to refer back to if the time ever comes that you feel the same.
even as i write this, i am not alone. constantly having someone who means a lot to you around you helps a great deal, because it reminds you what you have rather than what you've lost.