Nicole 3.0

Remember my blog post, Nicole 2.0? I thought she was final form. I loved her, she was amazing.

But like an iPhone, I didn’t realise there were further system updates to come.

Ironically I call this version, Nicole 3.0, which aligns perfectly with the year I turn 30.

A new chapter, a new decade and a new system update.

At the beginning of 2026, my life as I knew it, kinda just stopped. The tape ran out, the ink dried up, I got the ‘please contact your service provider’ message in my own life.

It was like being metaphorically run over by a truck, and nobody wants to be run over by a truck.

I loved Nicole 2.0, she was everything i’d been working towards for a while. The years of therapy style work with myself, the learning, growing and healing, I did it. So the version I became, she was soft and nurturing and feminine, not perfect of course, but I absolutely loved that version of me. I stopped being the person who lived to work, my relationships took a front seat and I dived head first into that chapter, without a parachute.

Note to readers. Take the fucking parachute.

In true Nicole style, I dive into most things wholeheartedly, i’m a soft girl underneath, I love like a 90’s RnB song, it’s a blessing and it’s also a curse. I’m not the sort of person to regret anything, because if it’s not a blessing, it’s a lesson. I’m sure a rapper said that in a song and I’ve just made it my life motto, but I digress.

I dived into the chapter of Nicole 2.0 with my chest. I was ready for the soft life and honestly, I loved it. One thing about me, I romanticise everything. I could be making a cup of camomile tea and I’ll put on some Erykah Badu, light a candle and sit in some PJ’s and be wholeheartedly happy, like genuinely happy. You know that feeling when you get into bed with freshly shaved legs and kick your feet? That sort of happy.

I would get excited to come home from work, pour a glass of wine, dim the lights, play some Aretha and make dinner - that made me happy. When I would say things like this to my friends, they’d look at me like I was an alien that had just landed.

The smallest things give me that warm fuzzy feeling inside and it’s a beautiful trait, but it also means I feel everything so much deeper and heavier. The good and the bad.

So in short, the beginning of 2026 roundhouse kicked me in the face, It wasn’t just dramatic. It was destabilising and I was like ‘oh, here we go, there’s some lesson I haven’t learned yet, there’s some pattern I keep repeating’. So I packed my bag and went back to the school of self work and this time, I’d be graduating as Nicole 3.0.

The self work I did to become Nicole 2.0, felt like graduating high school or college, the self work to becoming Nicole 3.0 has felt like doing a PHD, while working 2 jobs.

In essence, it was hard fucking work.

One thing I’ve always known about myself is how empathetic I am (I know my friends are reading this like ‘girl, empathetic is an understatement’), one of my friends did actually say someone could blow my house up and i’d be like ‘yeah but they’re going through something’. So with that, what I’ve since learned is that my level of empathy sometimes leans into self erasure. Not cute. I have a strong case of putting everyone before myself, not because I feel like I have to, but because I genuinely want to. I will always put the ‘boot on the other foot’. And I’ll probably clean them for you too, pass the Crep Protect.

My therapist said I don’t just empathise, I intellectualise and contextualise everything and damn, she had a point.

I don’t just feel things, I try to understand them to death.

Which sounds great in theory… until you realise you’re analysing your emotions instead of actually feeling them. Or empathising so deeply with everyone else, that you completely abandon yourself in the process.

How fun.

Self work school was going to be a hell of a ride.

She also asked me one simple but key question - who is Nicole and what does Nicole really want?

A fucking break and KitKat.

I’m joking, but in all seriousness, that question was a pivotal part of this whole journey.

This chapter kinda forced me to think about myself first and put myself first. Whether I liked it or not. That question made me realise, I should have really been doing that without being forced by circumstance… you feel me?

Now before you as the reader try and decode my blog post, or read too deeply into the metaphors, let me stop you right there. There’s no villain in this story, there’s no subliminal thing I’m hinting to, there’s no ‘bad guy’, if you know me, you know i’m a certified lover girl, I don’t do bad vibes.

But I’m talking about me and my journey. So if that’s not the tea you were expecting, I’m sure you can find another coffee shop.

The last few months I’ve been in the self work school and graduation is on the horizon. I set myself some goals and one thing about me, when I want something or I’m dedicated to something, believe me i’ll get there.

I don’t do things by half measures. It’s all or nothing. My friends were (and probably still are) so baffled that I haven’t watched a series or a movie for the last few months. I haven’t really ‘switched off’.  Do you know how many times friends have said ‘why don’t you watch this, have you seen that, what the fuck are you even doing with your time?’

Well honey, I’ve been working on me. To put it lightly. Journaling, researching, learning, growing, listening to podcasts and going through my entire life trajectory with my therapist, you know, the ‘boring’ stuff. I didn’t feel great, and I didn’t want to numb it out with Breaking Bad or the Real Housewives of wherever. So I let myself feel it, but I also studied it. Of course. Come on. It’s me.

Every emotion, every reaction, every pattern.

Not to blame myself, but to understand myself.

Because feeling gets you through it, intellectualising keeps you a little stuck and understanding helps you grow.

Because nothing is ever simple right?

I hear some of you screaming ‘just don’t think too much’… okay, shout me in ten years time when all the emotions you’ve been avoiding come crashing down and you’re stuck in a midlife crisis with a Porsche on your driveway that you can’t afford, but thought would make you feel better, and a bottle of Sertraline on your bedside table.

Anyways, I’ve always loved my own company, who wouldn’t, I’m hilarious, but I really took the time to sit with myself and some days we cried, (sobbed to the point I looked like i’d been stung by five hundred wasps) some days we were frustrated and some days we laughed and poured a glass of Viña. Those were my favourite days.

I really honed in on me. No social media, which was probably one of the best decisions. It’s quite ironic working in social media but not having social media, it’s kinda like being a bricklayer with no bricks. No partying and numbing the feeling with a shot of tequila, (as much as I love a reposado), no distractions, no pointless socialising. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I haven’t got the time to avoid emotions. Because life always has a funny way of resurfacing them at some point and it’s usually at a really inconvenient time. No matter how hard you try to suppress them.

So whats that saying? ‘There’s no time like the present.’

And I can finally say this, you just have to feel it, for it to get better.

Sounds so simple right?

Probably the most cliché thing i’ve ever written.

My apologies.

But coming out of the other side, I can confidently say there’s no short cut, there’s no ‘fast track to go and collect £200 card’. And don’t get me wrong, some days you feel like you’re back to square one, but you actually just have to feel shit, to get through shit. Being busy doesn’t mean you’re okay, it just means you’re distracted, and being distracted doesn’t mean you’re at peace.

Everyone can be great when life is easy, it’s about who you are when life gets tough. So yeah I felt it. I moved through it and I figured out who Nicole is in this new chapter, and what she wants and i’m sure by the time I graduate self work school, i’ll be able to fully enjoy casual drinks with my close ones and feel completely present in the moment, without two Propranolol. Iykyk.

So here we are, it’s been a long road but I’m finally beginning to embody Nicole 3.0. Graduation is on the horizon, it’s no longer a mirage. Some days we wobble of course, but like a Weebles Wobble, we always bounce back.

We’ve learnt a lot and worked through a lot.

Was this a chapter I expected to step into? No. I can’t even say I stepped into it, I tumbled into it, wearing a blindfold with my hands tied behind my back - metaphorically speaking of course, but here we are.

The funniest thing is, at the end of 2025, I kept trying to write a blog post, ready for when I turned 30, like a bit of a wrap up of my 20’s and I really struggled to write it, which isn’t like me. If you know me, you know I love writing and I enjoy it because it’s easy. But that post.. wasn’t.

It’s somewhere on my MacBook unfinished.

But now I understand why I couldn’t write it at the time, because I still had a whole other plot twist on the way.

I remember someone once saying, your 30’s are like the upgraded version of your 20’s with more money, more knowledge and more peace.

Maybe the terms and conditions are that in your 20’s you have to go through heartbreak, disillusionment, ego death, losing yourself, rebuilding yourself… and a few hundred pounds worth of therapy.

Sounds fun. Sign me up.

I also read somewhere that the reason you learned how to ride a bike is because someone you loved let go of you.

And here we are, with no fucking stabilisers.

(Even if my elbows and knees are covered in grazes)

Until next time x