Starting Off

My brain short circuits at the end of the weekend. No matter how many times I do it, the start of my work week is new, shiny and filled with promise. A loan soldier, fighting for “the dream” in my generally pragmatic mind.

My commute playlist floods my mind with thoughts of accomplishment and “all is right in the world” vibes. My coffee tastes better. All these sky-rises I walk past – they’re filled with dreams come to life not tired workers waiting for the weekend. I get to my desk and think of all the ways I’m gonna kick this week’s ass.

By mid-week I’m eager for Friday but not feeling like I’ve earned it. I should’ve done more on Tuesday night. I could’ve of skipped lunch and come into that presentation more prepared, then I would’ve gotten more  buy-in. I could have went running after work today.

The should’ve, could’ve, would’ve pack of wolves comes out in full force and I’m beat again. Current life goal? How to keep those ball-buster vibes alive till the weekend. How do I get back to feeling like I’ve earned my Friday?

 

Till Next Time

I’m typing this hunched at the edge of my desk. The other half is covered in a sloppily folded pile of summer clothes that I still haven’t stored away, which is hiding the low water line of my dying flowers. I see it but I don’t care. It’s 10:37 and on a normal night, especially a normal Monday night, I would be buzzing around my house, busying myself with my bed time ritual of “hurry to slow down.” Get it all done so you can sleep.

But tonight I got the itch, the work week hasn’t gotten to me yet and instead of diving head first into responsibility and achievements, I take a detour into myself. As I brought up in my last post, these inspired moments are rare. I haven’t quite figured out their ingredients – not sure I ever will. They are always different and maybe it really is just chemical. Everything just feels right and I don’t know if that is fate or mental state or maybe a mix of both.

Was it because I exercised and relieved all that stress? Was it the glass of wine each night this weekend? Or did that make it worse? No, it was his smile that morning. It was her laugh over the phone and the anticipation of seeing it in real life next week. It was me noticing. It was my mind letting me being kind, letting me stop the noise and the imbalance. It was listening to the drizzle of the rain and discovering how being in a cozy bed when its pouring outside your window is almost as satisfying as a hug – cocooning you a warm little space of relief.

These moments polarize my mentality. I see that I spend so much time trying to get away from the ugly feelings – stress, tension, doubt, fear, sadness, nothingness – that I grapple at the little things. I am saying this like I have some sage wisdom now- Ha. Ha. Ha. I’m so smug in my easy peace of mind. But I empathize with my more frazzled state as well. It will come again and I understand that its nothing I can run away from. I will ride it out and have faith in the next wave of clarity. The next time when everything feels right and you just can’t place it but it’s so nice you don’t want to.

Till next time…

Get Grounded

I went home for a week. I came back to my family and my roots. You forget how quickly you lost sight of those things – the little pockets of unused muscle memory that keep you grounded and give you clarity. The dirty dishes in the sink that you suddenly don’t mind. The worn quilt that doesn’t need to be replaced, just nuzzled and savored. It’s was a “duh” moment that I experienced in all of its ironic glory – I felt more beautiful and alive when I wasn’t caring about what I looked like or how I was living.

It makes me wonder if growing up just makes you come full circle – you constantly recognize yourself changing, developing, growing – you’re on this hamster wheel of evaluation and you can’t get off. Then you come home and you see you’re still made up of the same foundation. Maybe you shed some layers and revealed a shiny new coat of adulthood. Maybe you’ve come back weathered, tarnished and a bit worn from life’s pressures. Probably both, just one shows more than the other. But underneath it all, you’re still the same person. Without all the theatrics and ambitions and bullshit, you get back to your bare bones and you’ll think that your nothing without it all, but trust me when I say, you’ll feel so weightless you could fly.

Relieving the Pressure (You Put On Yourself)

Tonight carries a certain sort of mental twilight… the kind that emanates from a peaceful state of mind. It streams out of methodical, rhythmic actions, flooding the cracks and crevices of the remaining evening – all resulting in your head just falling on the pillow, feeling content, sleepy and null of those pesky anxieties that keep us from that REM sleep.

These nights rarely occur during a weekday and, knowing this, I stopped myself to put my finger on it. Why was tonight different from any other weekday? What put a subconscious halt to my eternal hamster-wheel of a brain?

I took the pressure off.

I didn’t pick up dinner ingredients. I grabbed Chipolte on the way home. I didn’t debate if I was too exhausted for the gym. I just got up and went… and worked my literal ass off to the point of looking part-radish, part-human. I didn’t force myself to be in bed early. I sat at my desk and started churning this out. 

These are not particularly ambitious or particularly indulgent things but I stopped worrying about meeting a personal quota or agenda. I simply lived and told myself, “this is enough… I am enough for today.”

Nights can’t always be this mentally calm. I will stress about that looming credit card bill or planning that weekend trip or whitening my teeth or whatever other random concoction I need to feel that buzz of stress and 5 minutes of satisfaction for getting it completed. But in this night where I simply let myself live, I’ll remember that taking the pressure off feels so much better than falling into that black hole of “you haven’t done enough.”

Those little bricks will create an eventual big house and no matter how small, they still keep you growing… that one workout, that one blog post.

Pressure off 😉

Ignore the text… this was drawn at work, on the back of a document.

The Theory of Green Grass and Love

I’ve always had such a strong intention to blend my desired concept and my dreams with my real life. I’ve always loved theories, brief puffs of emotion, imagination, segments of beauty, Kodak moments. According to the popularity of Pinterest, so does everyone else.  They like believing that the picture will match the real life occasion. The part where the dinner we made was delicious and the music we played made us feel like we were making a feast on some coastal French terrace with friends that are really tan and laugh a lot while drinking red wine.  Our imaginations like to create this beautiful scene but leave out the parts where our feet are hurting from today’s work pumps and the pot of burnt rice is still left in the sink with brown crud at the bottom. Concept is vague, an associated feeling, a segment of an entire, messy process, but just the good part. Reality brings in the dusty bits of imperfection.

But as we’ve been shown time and again with research about the online-ego we create, we don’t want reality. We want to Photoshop our daily lives, leave out the boring, stressful, tedious, painful parts. And I know I am the biggest offender in this department. I skip through songs to get to the best part, I reminisce the good parts of my memories over and over and over again, disregarding the whatever parts, I meticulously follow blogs that have pretty pictures and ignore the text,  practically drowning myself in make believe or “feel good,” because sometimes that is all I’ve got to work on – reality can be disappointingly practical.

Nothing drew my attention to this more, than my relationship with my boyfriend. Even writing that I kinda want to make that mock gag signal by pointing a finger down my throat. I mean, maintaining this ego-driven idea that I’m this deep-thinking feminist, it makes me frown that I’m discussing my relationship and exhibiting any impact it has on my life. You guys all know, I’m a free thinking individual  😉 Alas, I’m also a huge liar. I think about, care about and work a lot on my relationship. It matters to me more than I’d prefer to express and, well, it’s changed me.

I truly thought that love came in one category – one of pure bliss, perfection, pleasure, happiness, romance (I hate admitting that one) and (my fav illusion) that HE would complete me. By that I actually meant he wouldn’t challenge me in any way, but he would just tell me I’m the best thing on this earth and was always right and that he wanted to do everything that I wanted to do at the exact same time that I wanted to do it and would feel the same way. Basically, I didn’t realize it, but I wanted to date a idea. I wanted to be loved by someone so much that it would validate me thinking I was really great and life was perfect. I didn’t want to love someone. I just wanted to be 100% adored and live an expectation I set for myself.

Loving him was accidental, fateful, sometimes shitty, sometimes beautiful, sometimes perfect and sometimes all levels of WTF. I was my own biggest fool of love, thinking it was all about myself, my ideas, my theories, my dreams and was put smack dab in the middle of loving someone who was none of these ideas in many respects. I had to negotiate with myself and many times I hated it, I countered my own emotions saying that if I was with the right person, if I had fallen in love with the right person, everything would perfect and going exactly as planned.

I didn’t realize that love is one of those things you don’t really chose. It just happens and if you want it, you maintain it.

He’ll be the first to admit this. Omitting the rare occasion that he is super mushy because I’ve engulfed him in a weekend of lovey-dovey, couple-centric activities, this guy is NOT romantic. He hates fantasy. He lives for facts, practicality, NPR and statistics. He likes things simple. He doesn’t like being emotional. Crying turns him into stone. He savors being alone and does not prefer to mule of his emotions but rather play some really aggressive/militant video game. Art just confuses him and he gets no joy from posting cute pictures of us on Facebook (HA I can’t even imagine).  I love make believe, kittens, talking about myself and my emotions, talking about other peoples lives and analyzing them. I live for beautiful things and crying is like crack to me. It feels good to let it out when I need to. I also love being around other people, pretty much all the time, even if I’m not talking to them.  Art makes the blood course through my damn veins and I love showing the fun, happy, romantic, cute, epic parts of my life.

But there are many things Facebook, Pinterest, imagination and dreams cannot foresee. They don’t consider the monotonous weeknights that are turned humorous or simply happy from his company, they don’t show the times I’ve been all levels fucked-up/crying/crazy woman and had his shoulder to cry on. Most importantly my imaginary relationship doesn’t show the total function of all the little things, the little crap that is insignificant, boring, stressful, shitty or down right UGH that we’ve pulled through together or made all better by supporting each other.

While Mr.Serious might not give a rats ass about smiling in pictures and looking like we’re having the time of our lives, he will really be there in the moment and not because he’s envisioning how the moment should go, it just does and he lives it. (gushing words, get ready) I love the way he is so truly genuine that he may not seem like the warmest person, the most likeable, popular, charismatic person, but while everybody else is trying to prove themselves to you and their social setting, he’ll be the one who catches your fall whether he seems to like you or not. Whether he loves you or hates you, he will always respect you and show it. He is not above anyone or below anyone, he just is. Humble and confident all at once.

Truth be told he could theoretically be my other half. We have many commonalities but a ton of huge differences that really turn each other inside out and see what we each lack or fulfill.  While I’ve spent much of my life thinking that I was open minded, I never realized how close minded I was to people that weren’t into the same things as me, who didn’t thrive off of other peoples energy or love talking on the phone. It took loving a man as such to see a little better as to what I am, to see how much imagined love and true love  can both intersect and all at once seem like oil and water. I’ve learned that love is not green grass you placed in your imaginary yard as a little girl – love is not always a “match the two identical cards” game but sometimes a two very well fitting, albeit jagged, puzzle pieces game.

Best Friendships

“Never trust a girl that doesn’t have girlfriends.” I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before… I know why they say it too, because relationships between women are the most complex. While they can also be the most rewarding, they involve a perfect dance of consciousness, care, social graces, mutual respect and humor that isn’t quite the same as any relationship you’ll have with a guy whether its friendship or romance. I’ve always thought that if a girl cannot maintain a close relationship with another chick she’s probably too selfish because there is nothing more giving than a girl friendship – with men you can get away with being opportunistic, self-focused or independent. With girls you have to relate, being thoughtful of their lives/actions and show that you care, knowing that you’ll always get the same in return. There is a loyalty, selflessness and bond that is unparalleled.

My mom always told me that, while it’s important to love your guy, strongly maintain your friendships with your girlfriends. They’re irreplaceable and will give you things that romance can’t. As always, she is right. There is just something about girlfriends that serves a purpose that men can’t. As woman with a mission to stay happy and sane, it’s a vital necessity to give that kind of BFF love and take it too.

While I’ve been lucky to find a handful of truly spectacular (amazing) women to laugh, love and cry with – to inspire me, help me, humble me and pick me up when times are shit – there is one girl in particular that has won my heart as my truest friend, my soul sister, my PERSON. Let me introduce to you Miss Ashley Rose. 

 We met the first day of pre-college,  in our dorm hallway. Pretty instantly, we became each others family away from family, chosen sisters on a path to creating a truly idyllic 4 years of growth and education that would surpass any semester in STATS 101. We grew the most beautiful friendship two girls could ask for. Among the big best-friend milestones – the trips around the world, the moving in together, the throwing parties together, the merging our social lives- we tucked away little memories that built trust and love piece by piece.

For every woman out there, I hope you have an Ashley. A unique, enthusiastic, sunny chick that makes you feel ridiculous and liberated and happy all at once. A girl who lives off of flamboyance, sparkles, dreams and laughter. A friend who makes you want to tell her you love and appreciate her all the time and reciprocates that feeling.

One of the First Nights We Hung Out… Little Freshman Babies! Hello, Awkward Half-Hug

I make it very clear how highly I think of my darling friend, but the loveliest part is the bond we created. All throughout out college we stuck by one another… simultaneously, the most gregarious pair of social butterflies and obnoxiously joined at the hip. Perhaps that’s why we’ve always worked out, we never stifled one another, we only gave each other more reason to fly. Our bizarre little union was so intense that we cried and laughed our final day of living together because we knew that we’d have a better chance of finding relationships now that we didn’t have each other as often. Maybe we’d actually need boyfriends because we didn’t have our other half… Despite loving my boyfriend very, very much, my relationship with him would be the furthest cry from a “replacement” of my relationship with Ashley. The bond Ash and I have is not something you can replicate.

LoOkInG HaWt

I hope you have a girlfriend. It’s good to have a girlfriend. A pal who mocks life’s bullshit the way you do, who agrees with your bitching even when she knows you’re being dramatic. A girl that supports your less-than-perfect habits/humor and thinks you’re funny all the time and encourages another glass of wine or missing the train to take a taxi.

I hope you have a best girl friend. 

Best Friends

Say Hello to My Little Friend, Anxiety

This past weekend I got a lot of love and it made me feel like a big sigh… like my entire life just took a nice big sigh of relief and that is all I was… a sigh made of flesh and bones.

I almost feel comical writing this as though I have something to sigh about.  My life is recognizably good  right now. I don’t have any true hardships. I live in a world of love and peace and pleasures and wealth of all sorts, not just the monetary kind. Still, leave me without a defined purpose and you might as well put me in a straight jacket. Me, my brain and I… we can go places… shitty, cryptic, cynical places. Without intention but in full throttle, my lack of purpose will drive me to feel like something is wrong and I’ll put it on everything and suck the enjoyment out of my life- my relationships, my habits, my health, my anything.

The Confession: 

As a truly sunny person with an general enthusiasm for life, I feel almost like a traitor admitting that I have some legit anxiety issues. Not the kind that leaves me hyperventilating and sweating from a panic attack (I feel for anyone who does deal with this), but enough to know that it affects my health and peace of mind. Some people think worry warts are funny “HA HA HA that silly woman, she is sooo hilarious with all her goofy worries, she is so endearing like the main chick in a rom com, HA HA HA…” And I make fun of it too. I make light of my own pain because humor makes me happy and it’s a way to express my thoughts without making people uncomfortable.  I also feel like anxiety is somehow self indulgent and should not be openly soothed. Crying from my own worries never fails to make me feel like a self-pitying idiot. So, here I am, getting emotionally naked for the world, letting them know that I can be a restless, worrisome piece of poo, all with a blog that has my goddamn  full name on it. I am (possibly against my better judgement) branding myself in a less-than-perfect light with hope it will bring solace to anyone else who suffers the reality of anxiety.

The Sentence:

According to my dad, I got this wonderful trait of worry and anxiety from my mom. If she doesn’t have something to worry about, she’ll find something. And so it goes, we share this wretched fate and vent to one another. Thank goodness for her, with 45ish years of learning and a wisdom that’s quiet but vast, she reminds me that life is too short to worry about the what if’s and that it is better to just enjoy the moment. All you sentimental, mush-ball, mommy-blog quotes, you’re right –  I am becoming my mother –  but happily so because she has also become my beacon of sanity when our shared trait rears its ugly head.

The Situation: 

Well, like eluded to earlier, I had a bit of a freak out this last week. While I was supposed to be SO EXCITED about my two weeks of funemployment – that beautiful crazy stretch of time between accepting a job offer and starting your position – I actually had to maintain  my sanity when I was left with all this time to do whatever the hell I wanted. I’ve somehow come to the life conclusion that I am most happy when I’m most overloaded with ridiculous amounts of work. I’ve finally accepted that I like to place my anxiety into a funnel of purpose. Having a complex, crazy task at hand keeps me sane. I am fully aware that some people like the peace and quiet of no work, they dream of winning the lottery and ditching their jobs, however, I am not one of them. My drive is my sanity. Call me an addict – I won’t be offended and I’ll probably never stop.

The week went on and little by little I grew a mental monster of anxiety and doom. About what you may ask? Everything and for absolutely no reason. Logically I understand that things are great but emotionally, I had a bit too much time to dig myself into a black hole of “lets analyze my whole life.”  Despite the brief spurts of relief – spending quality time with my best friend,  side projects, dinner dates, happy hours with the most fabulous people and trips to shop with emergency retail-therapy money, my mind lingered into undefined restlessness.

With a hefty salve of mental elbow grease, goods words and even better hugs I got past my own spontaneous paranoia. So here it is – my best remedy of taming the wild beast of anxiety – that intangible but massively present asshole that gets to us time and again.

Remember That It’s All In Your Head  – I find mental health to be such a strange thing  – the way it blends chemicals/hormones that we cannot control  and our very much controllable outlook – how we chose to react to it. There is no doubt in my mind that happiness is part what we do with our minds and part what is out of our hands. When I really feel like I’m getting in over my head with anxiety, I have to remember that it is all in my head  – this is both calming in that I can tame it and relieving in the sense that it is something that just happens and I have to roll with the punches. It can be good to remember that your anxiety isn’t always the result of a life circumstance that you need to worry about and fix, but just your head, being silly.

Talk to Somebody – I kind went overboard with this because I have a personal bias to vent to my loved ones. I spoke to my mom…. then my dad and eventually had a little teary-eyed, narcissistic bout of despair to my boyfriend.  It feels good to just say all your crazy thoughts and to get outward approval that these worries are just that – worries. Not fortune-telling, not a soon-to-be reality, but your own mental bug to squish. While everything might feel so real and plausible and hopeless, your loved ones will happily remind you that life is good, you’re okay and things will be OK.

Don’t Always Trust Your Gut Thoughts –  By this I mean, don’t automatically assume its your gut or your intuitive wisdom, sometimes its just your own worries or biases, that defy logic and keep you from accepting things that might be in your favor. As a naturally intuitive person, I’ve frequently sought counsel from my feelings rather than the obvious facts in front of me. I’ve had countless bouts of good and bad “gut” feelings about something that I really just hadn’t felt or experienced before like traveling around Europe on my own – not always easy and breezy or intuitively chosen but massively worth it… or the amount of times that I became infatuated with a slippery snake of a dude in college because “I feel like we just had this crazy connection.” The older I get, the more I believe that life is a lot of choosing things by both logic and emotion. Sometimes, our worries can mask themselves as intuition and hold us back from true growth.

Try. And Then Keep Trying More – This sounds simple but it can be very hard. It’s oftentimes much easier to keep stuck in our own ugly feelings, to let our minds run wild and lose ourselves in doubt or worry… justifying it because you felt it so it must be valid and noted and dissected. But to truly try to defy your own thoughts, to hush them and stomp them out with the positive.. you have to be mentally strong and you have to have perseverance. Trust me – I know what a messy web anxiety creates. You start with a worry, then you have to understand why you are worried about this one thing, then it leads to another worry and etc., etc., until you have come to the conclusion that your whole life is awful and upside down. The best method for me is to quell my worries by countering them with a positive about life. Example: Say I’m worried about if I’ll ever find a job… because this was totally a worry for me about a month ago. Instead of going down the path of “the economy is still sketchy, no one wants a 20-something, there are so many other qualified candidates, OMG OMG OMG my life is such a fail *imagine myself depressed and homeless in 4 months*” I rethink – “OK this takes patience, a lot of people go through this and find jobs, I have a lot of people who love me, I’ve experienced some great things *flashback to happy moments with people I love.” This helps. This made me want to look at that blank screen and type up another cover letter. Sometimes you have to re-start your brain with positive thoughts. Think happy thoughts! You might not fly like Peter Pan but you will get places.

Do Something – And this time, do trust your gut. Will you benefit more from doing something productive or something fun? Because, FYI, you will still feel like a restless poohead if you choose the wrong one. Trust your feeling on this – do you need a break or do you need to get your hands dirty? Whatever it is, get to it. STOP brooding, but your brain to work in more productive ways and get something done.

 Let In The Good Stuff – I am definitely guilty of muddying the color in my life. When I feel subconsciously raked with anxiety, I’ll just go through the motions of my day and wait till it passes. Moments that are colorful and vibrant are turned a slight grey and filled with that nagging feeling of “ehhhh… I can’t place it but something is just bugging me.” Let it go. It’s not that easy but the best way to try is to live in the moment and savor the stuff in front of you. All self-help, life, happiness, etc. blogs say this…  so this shouldn’t be news to you. But its very important and very true. Stop over-analyzing and just live in it. Experience it. Don’t just watch from the sidelines. I’m a bit too young to be sure but according to various sources, life is short and goes by too quickly. It is better to spend time experiencing it rather than dissecting it. 

Work Out – Also, something a lot of blogs say but fuck, its so true. You don’t have to be an Olympian just take a fast walk. Put on some good music, drown out your own mind and instead envision the strength of your stride, take in the fresh air (or smoggy city air that still feels fresh) and just get lost in the physicality of working out. 

So there it is – my personally tested remedy for an anxious mind. My ugly half. My not-so-cool truth. And SCREW anxiety… ain’t got nothin’ on you 😉

Am I Doing It Right?

You walk into a building and know you’re supposed to get to room XYZ but have no freakin clue where that is because you’ve never been here before. You walk over to the illuminated directory with determination, scanning the list, matching room XYZ to its correlating blue-ish color blocked out on the map. Nope. Still no fucking clue where you’re going. Your determined, purposefully inquisitive stance turns to meek confusion as you look back at the security guard, wait for eye contact and give the hesitant “Help me, I’m stupid” look.

This is my 20’s in a nutshell. I act like I know what I’m doing. I probably have a good idea…I think I am going in the right direction… No. Nope. I still want to ask if its the right direction… is it the right way? Let me check…

And you know what I’ve learned the most so far? There is no way to check – no certified O.K… There is no crystal ball. There is no singular person who is going to tell me if what I’m doing is right or wrong. It’s all subjective. There are no letter grades or pass/fails in life. I just have to feel it out for myself and decide what fits.

The weirdest part is I don’t know quite what fits because this is my first round of everything grown up. I’ve got my grown up pants on and I don’t even know if they feel good… please just give me some yoga pants that I wore in college. Those were lazy, comfy, easy and slimming. Everyone is telling me everything gets harder and harder, worth it, valuable, survivable, doable but harder. I want to grow, I want to develop and all that good stuff but I don’t want it to be harder. UGH. I want to have my cake and eat it too. (seriously I love cake… chocolate boxed cake)

Me Trying to Get Over “Being an Adult”

To be honest I really had no worries about my post-college life. I thought it would just go on and laa-dee-daa, I would survive and it would be different from college but not that different. Well, the adjustment proved to be quite a bitch… and while finally I feel as though I have a steady footing, I still feel… unsure… see the trend here? All the additional pauses. Hah WELCOME to my life story.

So Innocent. So Unaware of Life After Graduation.

Not to go all Britney Spears (circa 2001) on you here but I am not a girl, not yet a woman. I feel as though life is coming at me too fast. Like everything that happens to me is retorted with a “but I’m only 23! I’m so young, this is for old people!!” and then realize that I don’t want the same standards I held for myself in college. Ohhh college… life was so beautifully organized with the ebb and flow of semesters, finals, stressing the fuck out and then the serenity of a long break after all the pandemonium. A valid excuse for everything. I had to stay up late to study and watch Downton Abbey. I didn’t have enough money to invest in a really beautiful apartment but I sure as hell saved for that spring break cruise to Cabo. Life no longer swings on a pendulum between breaks and getting down to business. I have to decide when the breaks are and, quite frankly, I’m bad at it. Even if I’m on break no one else is and I feel like I have to work and should be buzzing around like the rest of the adult population. Le sigh… THIS is my main bitch about adult life. I run the show. 100%. And while its considered freedom it feels anything but. Trust me – several months of unemployed freedom never felt so confining. Moving to big ass city never felt so invigorating frightening.

What have I learned so far in this post-graduation life? Almost 2 years after taking a blind leap that I had know flippin idea I was taking? I’ve learned to accept whatever people are doing with their lives too. I’m in no place to judge. You wanna take a year off and screw your way around Europe? You wanna marry your long-term boyfriend and put a down payment on a house?  Or maybe a little mix of both… get engaged to that lazy-ass, albeit charismatic dude you’ve been dating for 4 months? Sure! Just please consider getting a part time job because you want to secure yourselves financially (and I am worried that his bead art at First Fridays isn’t going to pay the rent)…  Ok. Awesome. Lets grab some coffee or, better yet, wine and I want to hear all about it. I want to respect you for your bravery. I want to laugh with you about your fuck ups. I want to embrace your life because I no longer feel like any of us have a god damn clue what is right or wrong, just what works for us at the time.

The more I live the more I feel okay to say – live and let live. It’s not laid back. It’s not “liberal,” it means embracing even the ones who do not embrace in their own nature. It’s realistic. It’s the best way to get by in life, meeting all the random people you meet. There is ALWAYS a status-quo, a social norm, a competitor to out-do… But the only person who you should live for is you and the only person you have room to critique is yourself. It took me 23 years to figure that out and its still very much in progress.

Hope this post brings you relief of a familiar feeling or relief that you might actually have a good idea of what the heck you’re doing in life. Cheers to those who’ve found it or are at least looking 🙂

Mini 🙂

Love Thyself

Since my early teens, I’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day with a tradition of treating myself. Don’t get pervy, don’t take this out of context… I buy myself a pair of really cute, Valentine-colored panties and where them on V-Day. It’s nice because no one else can revel in them, see them or appreciate them. It is the most personal gift I can give myself and it’s just a tradition I’ve held onto.

In lieu of this love-devout day, I think its nice to recognize the person you should love most – yourself. I kind of hate when people literally say, “I love myself.” I sit there and I’m like, “Okay, conceded. You need to douse out that flame of narcissism with a heavy dose of humble.” And usually I find that the people who vocalize how much love themselves tend to be insecure. Much like the occasional, barftastically publicized relationships that are validated through excessive FB statuses and kissing Instagram pictures, if you’re confident in your love, it feels nice to share, but you don’t NEED to share it. Being comfortable in your love means feeling it without anyone else’s approval. 

I also find it obnoxious when relationship articles say you have to love yourself before you love someone else. It’s 100% true – you can’t rely on someone to fill a void that you need to fill yourself – but its  SO vague? Well, how do I know if I love myself? There are so many ways to love someone else, how can I even tell if I’m loving myself?!

While love is universally known to be magnificent, there are so many forms and its hard to pinpoint. However, I think loving someone involves  a few general qualities. To know if you really love yourself, you should see if you do/believe in these things for yourself too.

How to tell if you Love Someone (and Yourself):

1.) You Forgive   – When we love someone, we tend to recognize there deficiencies, but their qualities  are important to us , so we can see past the less-than-awesome stuff. We know that they have an ugly side, but we choose to see their good side.

Yourself: Forgive yourself for your flaws. When you imagine your loved ones getting older and chubby and wrinkly do you think you’re gonna love them less for these things? No! So why worry about the changes in your own appearance? When your loved one forgets something big or fucks-up one time, do you forgive them? Usually 🙂 Practice forgiveness on yourself too.

2.) You Love Them Because You Just Do – Sometimes (oftentimes) love can’t be explained. We don’t know why we choose to see the good more than the bad and why we hold that person higher than most of society. Whether its immediate or takes some time to embrace, we give in to love and let it fill us up with goodness.

Yourself: So you might not have written a best-selling novel, you might be a crabby jerk when you wake up or you might have $3 in your bank account. Do you love your friends, family and sig. other because they’re trillionaires or because they never-ever get mad at anyone? NO. Because no one is like that. It’s unexplained why you love them to the amount you do. You just do because they fit you like crazy puzzle. Fit yourself too. Love yourself because you’re just you.

3.) You Appreciate – Loving someone, you recognize the effort they put into things, whether it relates to you or just reflects on their character and you feel grateful or proud of them. You don’t take them for granted because they are a big part of your heart and thoughts.

Yourself: When you’ve done something big or well or kind or anything positive, recognize that you are doing well. Life ebb  and flows, so things can get blah again, but when you’ve done something phenomenal, be happy for yourself. Appreciate the work you do – regardless of the haters.

4.) You Do Nice Little Things for Them – Love makes us want to be nice. It can also makes us want to pull our hair out, because our general source of peace and happiness is also human and can disagree, conflict, piss off… but in general, love makes us want to go the extra mile for that person. It feels good to treat the person you love.

Yourself: Sometimes life really takes us for a spin and its easy to lose focus on our own discomforts. Things get so fast paced and your so eyeballs deep in work and/or your social life,  you forget to breath, you forget that you haven’t eaten for 8 hrs or you need sleep. It’s good to be ambitious but its also good to do nice things for yourself. Take a break just for you. Feel worthy of doing nice things for yourself. Say no to whomever and say yes to you. Selfishness can be healthy in the right circumstances.

5.) You Call Them Out on Their Shit – Love and trust have a good mix. When you love someone, it feels okay to call them out on their crap because they know you love them anyways, they value your opinion and recognize that you’re trying to help them (instead of taking  out your own frustration because there is a difference between helping and bitching).

Yourself: I’ve seen a quote floating around that says something along the lines of your “soul mate” really turning you inside out, challenging you to develop the strengths you didn’t know you had and opening your eyes to the restrictions you place on yourself. Call yourself on your own bullshit. Know when you’re being a dick or lazy or depressing. You have this thing called gut feelings. Evaluate what you’re doing wrong, stop and take a plan of action to become better. Most importantly, remember that you’ll forgive yourself and give yourself that second chance.

6.) You’re There For Them When Shit Hits the Fan – Stuff might get rough but you remember the good times or maybe you remember the times you had it bad and they helped you. When the cards are down, you are there for the people you love. It’s unconditional.

Yourself: This is important. You cannot be your own enemy when life happens. You have to have faith that the storm will pass and be there for yourself. Don’t jump ship. Don’t support someone who doesn’t support you because you believe they’re right about your shortcomings. Fuck them. Be there for yourself in the hard times. After all, you’re the one who has to wake up in your own body, live your own life and the repercussions every single day.

Love You. Love Whomever. Embrace love. 

❤

Steps to a Better Day. Even Indulgent Ones.

If you can’t tell, I’ve been on a bit of a step binge lately… listing A, B and C  or bullet pointing for how to become this or that. This could be a result of learning how to code lists… but I would like to continue this with a post about how to have a better day, any day.

 **Disclaimer: I’m a hypocrite. Sometimes I don’t practice these things. BUT when I do I feel better, so hopefully you will too.**

1.) Wake up positive! Ok – Just kidding. When it is 6am and you’re totally feeling like the only thing getting up this morning is your middle finger, being positive is such a hard thing to do. But there are steps to feel like you’re ready to face the day:

• Open the blinds, let the sunlight in. We all have a biological predisposition to feel awake and possibly energized by light, use it!
• Act like your about to start an important day.This definitely involves a little childhood make-believe. Sometimes you’re just going to work and anticipate a dull day. BUT it always helps to feel pumped, like you’re living with purpose. It’s not taking yourself seriously, its taking your life seriously. Look in the mirror, feel your life movie reel, remember you’re makin shit happen. If this takes a bit of music motivation, put in those headphones. If this means feeling empowered by working out pre heading into the office, do it! (that’s a whole other can of worms that involves a shit ton of self discipline so this recommendation is optional)

2.) Keep in touch.

• Text or email someone personal each day. Whether its the same person or a different one each day, I’ve always found that keeping up with friends is a great way to remind myself I have a life outside of work, a happy place that stretches beyond my ambition and is also a great way to make plans to see friends as well. While it might just be my extrovert guilt, I feel bad when I’ve been a hermit. This helps me keep up with my relationships and stay in touch with the real world (outside of social networks and work).
• Talk to someone you love. While this could fall into the previous category, I feel like its particularly good to talk to someone who gives you a surge of comfort and happiness. For me, that could be my mom or sister. They can be total pooheads and call out all my flaws, they can also be my rock and remind me life is more than my immediate stresses. Even if its a 5 minute check-in call, loved ones make you feel loved. DUH.

3.) Treat yourself. All day, errryday.

• Put cream and sugar in your coffee. It’s all about moderation – but add the good stuff to life. These are the times you have to imagine, what if something tragic happened to me tomorrow? Would I want to skimp on the lollipop jar in the kitchen? Would I really want to skip my break of painting my nails, watching my 30 min show before making dinner? No. I want to do silly little things that make me happy. Emphasis on little things. Don’t spend your whole day indulging. You will feel guilt. You will feel useless. And those both SUCK.
• Buy the clearance item or chocolate that isn’t on your grocery lists. I am positive that any personal finance article will completely defy this rule, saying it is the way to get yourself into trouble and induce buyers remorse. But I don’t. Whether it makes me an addict or human, I get a rush from shopping and more so, from getting deals. Love me a bargain. My rule of thumb? If I spent more on lunch that day, its justified. So $7 on a sandwich but $5 for a cool top from target on 70% clearance. Ok – mine! Made my lunch? Nope. No shopping for meh. My other rule of thumb? Don’t put it in your cart. If you really want it you’ll go back to it, if you’re just being impulsive, you’ll be too lazy to go back.

4.) Do the thing that haunts you. This is the total opposite of step #3 but an absolute necessary counterpart. You must have both. Indulge too much and you’ll feel like ass. 100% discipline is just boring. You need both.

• Contact the person you hate or brainstorm the task you fear. We all have that token horrific client or that project you are petrified to dissect or that company you’re afraid to reach out towards. This IS a happiness article cliche but its because its freakin works: Conquer that thing that is killing you slowly. Usually its a fear of a person or tasks. Time yourself for 45 min and get crackin. If I really get eyeballs deep in something for 45 min, I’ll finish it out no matter how much it pains me.
• Put your headphones in and get moving. This could honestly be just doing household chores or running errands or legit running. But moving, feeling physically productive makes a MASSIVE difference for a good day. I don’t care if its walking to City Target and lugging back a massive bag of groceries or doing a 10 minute high intensity workout video, get off your ass. You’ll never regret it.

Do you have something that makes your day better, no matter what day it is? Let me know 🙂