love: by an artist/aries

Let’s talk about support.

Giving support. Supporting things.

Being supported.

I suppose it’s quite a heavy thing to launch into so early on in the blog, but it’s important. I know how important it is to my best friends, and I hold this so so close to my heart.

Every week Alannah and I go for a walk along the beach. It’s quite a leisurely walk, I won’t lie, we’re not in the running for the Olympics any time soon- but our runners are laced up and there are compression tights involved.

On this walk, we talk about everything we haven’t covered already during the journey to and from uni, on our joint lunch and study breaks, over text or while making a midnight rhubarb and apple crumble. We talk about friends, boys, girls, concerts, travel plans.. What type of cheap white wine we drank on the weekend that led us to believe that kissing someone still in school was a good idea. (It was- I stand by it).

Alannah and I have known each other for fourteen years. That’s a really bloody long time. We’ve lived in each other’s pockets since the day we met. We’ve grown (obviously) and seen each other through some huge things. But the biggest thing throughout this all- we’ve supported each other. For every single thing we’ve done or taken a shine to. We've encouraged it, done what we can, always backed the other up.

Quite recently we’ve started to move into a new topic of conversation- our dreams and goals. If we talked about it in the past, it was skimmed over. But last week we dove head first into it. Opened up about everything we wanted.

The biggest thing we both wanted? Support.

As a best friend, sister, brother, son, daughter, girlfriend, boyfriend- as a human. Support is important.

If your best pally comes up to you one day exclaiming ‘I reaaaaaally want to start a YouTube channel!’ with so much passion that their heart could burst, what do you do? You’re sure as hell not going to shoot them down, are you? This is what they want to do! If you don’t understand, ask questions. But support their radical, outrageous dreams and goals.

Imagine if you hadn’t been supported to make one of the best choices in your life? This could be their moment. Be there. Help them. Support them.

In my excitement of this blog starting- and from getting SO much love from y’all that my face could split in half from the stupid smile I’ve been wearing for days- I went to have a bit of a rant about how bloody cool it is that people in Portugal and France and the Czech Republic have looked at this page. But before I got to that bit, I said ‘So I started a blog and so-wait. Have you seen it?’

Their reaction?

‘It’s good’.

Ooh. That wasn’t a reaction I wanted. Not under any circumstance. I had brought up that ‘One day soon I’m going to start a blog’ with them, and they smirked and walked away.

You shouldn’t have to go through life relying on yourself to build up your own confidence, and while it is important to find that self-assurance, you should never be scared or worried to rave about how excited you are about something because of their reaction. I admit that I do this- and often.

While this person didn’t give me the support I wanted, it was a lesson.

Not a lesson to not go back to that person, though. I’ll be going back at every chance I have to hope they’ll change. It was a lesson that some people just don’t know how to support.

Every single person is going to have wild, creative, incredible dreams, and I encourage all of you to  pursue all of them, and to help lift everyone else's dreams off the ground and into reality, too.

Sit down with them and ask ‘How can I help? What can I do to make this dream a reality for you?’ Support everyone and everything. Be passionate.

I can guarantee that I’ll be by your side and be ready throw enough enthusiasm at you for a small town.