Introducing the New Year with Funkita and Shartruese

Wearing: Funkita Garden Party The Detail Top & The Detail Bottom Swimwear thanks to Funkita; Shartruese White Bubble necklace thanks to Shartruese; May 28th 12.40PM watch thanks to Surfdome; Leopard Print Jelly Beans shoes thanks to Jelly Beans

Happy New Year my lovely readers. It's been a while since I've written up a post and I am sorry for my absence. I can't help it though every year I get a strong case of Christmas cheer that leads up to End of Year freak-outs and then the New Year joys and relief. My holidays were filled with catching up with friends, baking cookies, working night shifts and gym for swimwear season.
I wish I could say it was my happiest holiday, but I always carry a little unhappiness in me - that is, the sorrow of my recent breakup. Even the holiday distractions and holiday cheer fade at some point.
With breakups means you must  find yourself once again...so hours and hours watching Sex and The City re-runs, hard gym sessions at 2am (I got to a 24/7 gym), sparking up cigarettes and growing out my signature bangs I'm hoping I can find a happy and emotionally healthy Natalie.

I find now that I want more space then ever though - like my desire to log off Wattsapp more and more, as the idea of people stalking my time-stamp has become suffocating. If you're not familiar with Wattsapp, its a messaging service on smart phones similar to MSN and it reads everyone 'last seen' status and shows when the other person is online or typing a message. Some people point out to me I've been glued to my phone on social occasions and I sense they feel I'm being rude and not 'present'. I also have had people obsess about my timestamp and smother me with questions on why I have been online but not answering their messages.
In a time now where social media has taken over and hyper-connectivity is now the norm.. I am sometimes forced be in tedious long-day conversations where we relay mundane details of daily life and a sense of repetitiveness or deja-vu happens. The talk is now routine and painfully predictable.
It was taking a toll on me - I was suddenly expected to not live a life and lay in bed answering my messages on Wattsapp. And it doesn't help that my life consists of a lot of days off and alot of time to kill. The mysteries and excitement of life and important people was getting choked by Wattsapp.
Some conversations are amazing and worthwhile to keep and I appreciate my friendships but some are just tedious and forced. I can't spend my life texting and become smothered when people ask why I don't answer back straight away. It's not the end of the world, hey?

So one of my new years resolutions for 2014 is to become less engaged and reliant with hyper connected social tools and rather concentrate on the present moment and real dates and lunches and dinners with people face to face. Get off the phone. People are so used to communicating via a phone screen in 100 conversations at once that we run out of things to say and people become obsessed with that vibrating message tone.

With Wattsapp hopefully trickling out of my daily life, I've decided that my other New Years Resolutions this year are to:

Learn how to skateboard
Travel outside of the Country
Cook at least two recipes form each new Cook Book I received over Christmas last year
Learn to take self timer photos on my DSLR
Be less engaged with Hyper-connected Social tools like Facebook and Wattsapp
Fill my weekly planner at least a week in advance (make real plans)
Pick up a pen and draw again
And finally, be fully concious of my time and how I spend it

All in all though, I must learn to embrace myself, all my flaws and insecurities and celebrate me. I realised last year I spent alot of time feeling sorry for myself, being sucked into negativity and putting alot of pressure on other people to pull me back up again.
I definitely shouldn't be too hard on myself! I'm 26 years old and heaps of things going for me.

I took time to reflect my life with Wattsapp when I was at the beach with Betty the other week as we sunbaked and read novels and gossiped (real plans and real conversations, yay). And even though I think my body isn't 'beach body' I already felt fitter and toned and healthy from weeks of gym and I enjoyed the peace as I layed in my Funkita (Australian design and lovely) swimwear.
Life for 2014. I hope it just keeps getting better and better and bigger and brighter and colourful and sweet. And that I remain in the presence of it all.