Girl on Pause

The Editor -

Girl on Pause is a new feature for Yorkshire Businesswoman by Beth Brown. In her opening blog, Beth explains why she began what she describes as her 'inner ramblings' during lockdown and will feature regularly here on our website. We hope you are looking forward as much as us to her regular blogs.

A little bit about me…

Welcome to Girl on Pause. First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my random thoughts, it really does mean so much. My name is Beth, I’m 22 and living between Leeds and York- the home of the Shambles that famously inspired J.K Rowling’s Diagon Alley (always a claim to fame.)

I currently work in a school, much like Malory Towers, as a Learning Support Assistant, helping the children who need extra support in their learning. I have a million and one dreams of what I would like my life to look like and I’m currently striving to make a few of those a reality, one of which is being able to make a living in some capacity, doing the thing I love the most: writing. I’m finding myself extremely busy at the moment writing my first novel but, when I’m not in the midst of that, I like to travel, read, hike, and scribble all my thoughts messily into the closest available notebook- all of which will be common themes on Girl on Pause.

So how did I come to start Girl on Pause? Well, surrounded by lockdown, furlough and altogether too much time on my hands, I was faced with a multitude of options on how to stay sane:

  1. Shave my head. (My hairdresser wouldn’t be best pleased.)
  2. Bake a few hundred banana breads. (My high school food-tech teacher will attest to the fact that I’m not a natural baker.)
  3. Do a 5k run. (No.)
  4. Start blurting my inner ramblings on the internet. (Apologies in advance.)

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I opted for no.4 and started a blog (welcome again).

Blogging has actually been something I’ve wanted to do for a while but being locked in the house finally forced me into action. You may be thinking: “oh great. Another blog filled with the nonsense thoughts of a girl who doesn’t really have her life together… is that what this is?", and the answer is yes, yes it is. That’s exactly what this blog is. However, I will endeavour to try my hardest to make these nonsense thoughts a little more coherent, for all of our sakes. I know everyone and their uncle has a blog nowadays, thousands of pages of words we deem important enough to post on the internet, but, screw it! I’m hopping on the blogging bandwagon, (or bangwagon as my friend once said) because, as 2013 so eloquently put it, YOLO (Mum, it means: you only live once) .

So what can the grand total of 3 people (hi Nana, I’m glad you’ve got your iPad working) reading my blog expect? Well, to follow the general flow of the rest of my life, I don’t really have a plan. I like to describe myself as unapologetically fumbling through life, so I guess that’s what this blog will also be doing. For much of the years since leaving school, I’ve felt like a girl on pause waiting for the next thing that would make me feel like my life was starting. But, as another friend once told me, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. So, at the root of it all, this blog will be a documentation of my hitting of the play button; embracing all that is life and taking it into my own hands. The ups, the downs, the lessons and all of the in-betweens.

So, if that tickles your fancy then, by all means, read on my friend!
You can find more from Girl on Pause at www.girlonpause.com or keep up to date with my attempts to romanticise every-day life on my Instagram: @girlonpause.