Day in the Life 17

Tonight has definitely been a self-care kind of night.

We’re curled up in the dim light of the Christmas tree, where we watched The Santa Clause and ate leftover ham and green beans.

I bought the guide on meal prep—which I am super excited about! It’s perfect for me. It has the recipes for how to prep ingredients and then meal suggestions. I can’t wait to make some of the items she shares. I looked through the booklet while drinking some earl grey tea.

I don’t know how many days it’s been off my personal Instagram, but I really don’t miss it at this point. I feel better. The spirit of comparison has died down and I’m enjoying seeing the world through my blog Instagram—following other bloggers and celebrities.

I’ve started to play with the idea of giving up coffee. What would my daily routine be like without coffee? I wonder how much healthier I’d be. I wonder how much of my mood and personality might change. I wonder how much better I would feel.

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers drinking matcha. Maybe that’s a switch worth making. More matcha, more tea maybe?

Blank Canvas

It has been such a struggle to write anything lately. I think it's because I struggle with vulnerability, which is so different than how I used to be.

I think it's also because I've realized that I don't want people's pity. What I want is simply understanding. Keep your sympathy. Bring me instead your empathy. Let me know I'm not a weirdo, that I'm not an outlier.

I just started reading Brené Brown's Braving the Wilderness. She talks about the moments that impacted her, that started her down the path of feeling like she didn't belong. When I think back to these moments in my own life, these include:

High School- M/K

Right before I left California- Mom/Dad

When I started believing in God- S/K

Right before I got married- K

The last one, aside from my family hurts, is the one that hurt the most. This is a little funny to me, only in that in every moment mentioned before that, I remember saying to myself, "I will never experience a greater pain than this." But this last one, what a doozy. It's the worst because it literally changed me. It shut me down and made me feel the most alone I've ever felt. And that's a pain I will carry with me until I can let go of it, because no one I've met can empathize with what happened.

And at 32, I still find myself not fitting in, feeling so different. So like high school all over again. And it's lonely. And exhausting. Feeling different is exhausting.

I really enjoyed Brené's "I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't)"—it meant a lot to me to know that I'm not the only one in the world dealing with overcoming shame. I'm excited for what I'll learn in this current book...maybe being able to see myself more clearly instead of through the lens of past hurts that I can't seem to shake.

Somewhere, somehow I need to learn to love myself on this long road to belonging. Brené shares an interview with Maya Angelou:

BILL MOYERS: Do you belong anywhere?

MAYA ANGELOU: I haven’t yet.

BILL MOYERS: Do you belong to anyone?

MAYA ANGELOU: More and more. I mean, I belong to myself. I’m very proud of that. I am very concerned about how I look at Maya. I like Maya very much. I like the humor and the courage very much. And—when I find myself acting in a way that isn’t—that doesn’t please me, then I have to deal with that.

I titled this post "Blank Canvas" but it's not quite that simple. I see this new season as a blank canvas, but the canvas isn't new and stark white with no blemishes on it. Instead it's a canvas where the artist decided to start over and repainted it white in an attempt to start fresh. Some shades and shapes show through the new glaze of ivory, but it doesn't mean it's unusable. The remnants will remain underneath the new layer of paint, but what will come is something new.

Winning a Fitbit

Something especially fun happened today—I won a Fitbit Charge 2!

I never win things, which is why I feel like I need to record this. Plus, it’s a pretty cool thing to win.

Honestly I’ve forgotten how to use my original Fitbit, so it may take some time to relearn how to use one, but it’s a challenge I’m happy to take on!

Halloween Movie Night

Last night I pulled out our air mattresses from the closet and set up our den for a prime movie-watching night.

T loves Halloween—like, loves it, but I have always refused to watch Halloween movies with him until now. And it’s only because our friends are into Halloween movies, too, so it gave us some quality time together.

We ate really good Chinese food. We sat and talked. And then somehow I actually made it through The Thing and Friday the 13th. 

It was honestly the most awesome thing we’ve done in a while. I think as an adult I feel this pressure to do fancy dinners or fancy things, but sometimes the best fun you can have doesn’t require much. It's not always something you find being aesthetically celebrated on Instagram.

This was fun. This was memorable. And I feel so priviliged to have a husband and some really special friends that are open to this kind of unphotogenic, but nonetheless awesome funness.

Writing

"She knew she was really sad,

when she stopped loving the things she loved."

atticus

When I read this last night, it was after the lights had been turned off and the city was asleep.

And I almost started to cry.

I've been a writer my whole life.

Whether I've admitted to it or not, that's what I am. I write to express, to feel, to be relatable, to be recordable. To go back into my mind and pull things out, to ponder, to feel my sadness and let it go.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Young author's fair, childhood stories about princesses, Xanga, then Vox, then and now Blogger.

Then something happened. She came into my life and because I could no longer be anonymous with my feelings, because I no longer wanted to process through the pain, because it hurt too badly to express myself and because no one could understand what I was going through... I stopped.

Four years now since I've written like I used to. Four years since connecting with myself and others on a platform that really worked for me.

I don't think anyone understands what I went through. I express my feelings and they hear family feud, but it was so much more deep than that. It was psychological. It was enough to change me.

My coworkers bought me Lara Casey's Powersheets. I haven't looked through the booklet yet, but maybe one of my goals can be to write more. Or to write anything at all.

A Tradition of Growing

The sweetest year in my life was easily 2012.

It was in that year I had worked diligently at knowing who I was (God's beloved daughter), what I was all about (living my life for God), and even though I didn't exactly know what I wanted out of life, I at least knew what I didn't want (a relationship just to fill a void).

But the sweet spot I was in crumbled with the onset of 2013.

When you let someone into your life, when you let yourself be vulnerable, sometimes you get the short end of the stick. I let somebody into my life who hurt me, and not just once, but consistently. They had access to my every-day life and there wasn't much I could do about it. With the added emotional and psychological instability, there were no boundaries and nothing was safe.

For two years I lived in this place of fear, hatred, and uncertainty. And I began to lose who I was. The joyful, always-look-on-the-bright-side, caring, funny girl—I lost her. I could no longer see who I was to God and my perception of myself was dampened. I was insecure, sullen, pessimistic, and started to think, "If someone hates me this much, I really must be an awful person." I saw myself as unworthy. There was a deep shift in personality that reflected two years of inescapable torment.

In 2015, my antagonist was finally, completely out of my life, but the damage was done. They had succeeded and I hated myself. I questioned everything I did, everything I said. And that continued for a long time. Me questioning my intelligence, my worth, and my capabilities. For a while I was really akin to an abused dog—I was always expecting someone to hurt me or lash out. I felt like a prisoner in my own head. I couldn't escape the feeling of oppression.

As with all things though, time passed and as it did, coupled with distance, the wounds started to close. With no one around to constantly bully me, with lots of love and encouragement from friends and family, I became a happier person.

It's taken almost two years to get to this point where I've started to feel like the old me again and I realized I felt this way only a couple of weeks ago.

I was driving home after a good day, singing along with the radio, and I had the thought, "I feel like me again." I feel like me again! The thought caught me off guard. I started smiling because of the overwhelming relief I felt.

I feel happy, but more than that, I feel hopeful again. I'm slowly starting to open up and let people in after a long time of shutting down and shutting people out.

It's really fitting that I'm writing this today, on the anniversary of my one year challenge date. Five years ago I set myself on the trajectory to be someone different. And now I'm changing again. It's like the echo of a former me calling out and celebrating, a new chapter! A new story to tell!

I am so thankful for the healing and growth that have happened so far, and look forward to seeing where I am—and who I have become—a year from today! I'm prayerful that I get to be an even better version of myself. Thank you, Jesus, for all you've brought me through and how I know you'll continue to love me in the trials and celebrations to come.

The Yellow House

When I left home at the age of 21, I never imaged there would come a time when I would be visiting for the very last time.

0

Big Dreams of Living with Less