walking around with my little rain cloud hanging over my head and it ain’t coming down… where do I go? gimme some sort of sign, you hit me with lightning maybe I’ll come alive…
I’ve written a bunch already about life experiences and how they shape us into who we are or who we are becoming. I believe that the world around us has changed us in ways that we still haven’t figured out yet. I’m not writing a post about COVID, don’t worry. I just feel like this year plus really knocked the hell out of all of us and maybe we should be taking it as one giant lesson? Or maybe a whole bunch of little lessons all piled into one big one? I don’t know. I feel like if we don’t do that, then all the shit that we have gone through would just be in vain and that would be a total fucking waste.
I started my healing journey 2ish years ago. Time is completely blurry for me but I ‘m pretty sure I started about a year before my wedding and was definitely pre-pandemic. I started with somatic therapy to help rewire all the short circuits in my coo-coo banana brain and I know I was there for a while. I could check the pile of medical bills but I’m trying to move forward and I don’t need to see that shit. I remember considering tapering off my visits because I wasn’t sobbing at each one anymore and I really was feeling much better. And then March 2020 happened and my therapist asked if I wanted virtual visits and I was like WTF? Um, no thank you. We will be back to normal in a couple of weeks and I’ll see you then. Also, mental health isn’t a cheap business and, at the time, I felt like if I wasn’t with her in the office then there was no point. Cut to here and now and everything is fucking virtual… who knew?
I’m just gonna give you a little side note here: I never heard from that therapist again. I’m on the fence with how I feel about that because I literally just told you that I planned on tapering off, but still. No call, text, email, nothing? Did our relationship mean nothing to you?! HA- just kidding. I know that I chose to go or not go to therapy and it was to help me, not her, but an email to check in would have been nice. She never had a problem emailing me the monthly bill…
Anyway, somatic therapy was my start and it helped me so much. It helped me realize that the feelings I had were valid. And most of the time we just need validation, am I right? Yea, I know I was paying for it but to hear that there was psychological shit to back me definitely helped. And it changed my perspective on a bunch of shit that I harped on for way too long. And I haven’t stopped searching for ways to help me be better since. So that was definitely a step in the right direction!
When the world shut down I found out that I actually gave a little bit of a shit about myself. I was working with a registered dietitian (the best one out there if I do say so myself) and she helped me get all of my stomach issues under control. She did so much more than that. She made me see that I could be better in all aspects of my life. She pushed me to set healthy boundaries and every time I got off of our Zoom calls I literally felt like I could conquer the world. My stomach felt better and life in general felt better. And then sometime in June of last year my boss asked me to come back to the office and I freaked the fuck out. I was afraid that all of my progress was going to go right down the drain. I don’t know why but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that I’m a little dramatic? My brain goes from 0 to 60 in 0.3 seconds and so I meditated to calm the fuck down.
Meditation is one of the coolest things I was pushed to try. I always thought that my brain was too busy to actually take the time to meditate and let it actually work. But it turns out that there is a LOT of guided meditation on YouTube and I found that to be the most helpful. I didn’t think that concentrating on my breathing would ever get me out of my head but it is about changing your focus. I am the most wired person I know and I highly recommend it. I also found it super helpful that a few people told me to not put so much pressure on yourself to get into a meditative state. If you go into meditation worried about if you’re going to meditate or not, what’s the point? There have been so many times that I put in my earbuds and just could not get into it. That still happens now but I don’t push myself, I just listen. And it usually calms me down. And if it doesn’t work, then I move on.
All of these things to better myself have pushed me to where I am today. And that’s all I can give you. I can’t give you what will happen going forward. Every single day I’m still weird me. I can’t pick out clothes the night before because I don’t know which version of me will wake up tomorrow. I don’t like setting myself up for failure so I just don’t do shit like that. I have weird little peckadillos (as Johnny Rose would say) that just don’t allow me to plan. When I plan, I panic and can almost guarantee that whatever I planned will absolutely not happen. I wake up, most days, 25 minutes after my alarm goes off and I rush around to get out the door and catch the train. Could I actually wake up when my alarm goes off? Yes, of course I could. That wouldn’t be any fun though. Why would I actually want to get to work looking like a put together adult woman when I could just look like a fucking train wreck?
So I beg of you- don’t ask me when I’m getting a house or having kids. I’m not there yet. And I know in biological clock world I’m old as fuck and high risk and whatever. My gynecologist said I have until 43 before I’m like off the charts high risk. My husband and I will be the old ass parents you see at the park and we’ll be sitting there with his children and people will think that our kid is their kid and we are the grandparents. It will be fucking hilarious and I would consider it just for that picture alone. Point is, I can’t get my hopes up for things that might not happen. And I sure as hell can’t do it because that’s what people expect of me. I don’t need that kind of pressure.
I know that I have the ability to change and move forward despite all of the time I spent in self sabotaging quick sand. And I know I’m 40 and should have it all together by now but fuck that shit. I don’t have to do anything I’m not ready to do and I refuse to push myself down the road that society expects me to take. I have been defying everything that society says I should be since the day I got here and maybe there will come a day when I want to conform, but I wouldn’t bet on it. My brain still has a little coo-coo banana left in it and sometimes when you tell me that I HAVE to do something, it makes me not want to do it even more…
I have to live with me everyday. And some days are amazing and some days not so much. I wake up with zero expectations but I find that if I start the day being nice to myself then the rest of the day isn’t complete shit. Some days I wake up and should be locked in a fucking closet all day with the mood I’m in, but I have the ability to get myself out of it. I don’t have to be a crab ass and ruin the day for my husband or anyone else that comes in contact with me, that’s not nice. I will leave you with this… On the days you feel like absolute garbage, just be nice to yourself. You don’t have to treat yourself like you’re a piece of shit. And if you need help getting out of it, or want someone to tell you that you’re a fucking rock star, email me or something and I’ll build your fine ass up.
gonna make you wonder why you even try… (hard times) gonna take you down and laugh when you cry… (these lives) and I still don’t know how I even survive (hard times) (hard times)… and I gotta hit rock bottom…
Song name: HARD TIMES/ Artist: Paramore/ Year: 2017
TALKING ON EGGSHELLS 