I have these moments where life is good - I feel like I know exactly who I am and where my journey is taking me - and then I have long drawn out moments of being utterly lost - alone, no true direction, days filled with absolutely nothing. I’m already a very introspective person, but it doesn’t seem like enough to just sit in my apartment wondering why things are the way they are physically, emotionally, mentally.
Something I have been tossing around in my head for the last month (thanks to summer break) is what can I do to make myself happy. Not temporarily happy. Full-fledged proud of my life, happy.
I made mental lists, handwritten lists, verbal lists. Things got forgotten, scrap papers ended up in the trash, and people nodded with fake understanding. So today as the process started over, I knew a change that would matter. THIS. Tumblr. Electronic recording.
Writing. I have literally always been a writer. In fifth grade, I wrote a chapter book with one of my best friends about what it would be like if we lived in the magical wizarding world. I spent an entire middle school summer visiting family out in Arizona with my nose stuck to a laptop screen simply writing. I pursued journalism in high school and most of college. Whenever people ask why I switched to teaching, I always include the fact that I still love to write despite abandoning that journalistic dream. So it only seems fitting that step one to making myself happy is writing. Writing stories. Journaling about my life. Blogging about my passions.
Eliminating Body Hate. I used to be incredibly uncomfortable in my body. I was too tall. My hair too frizzy. My eyes too blind. My stomach too jiggly. My scars too noticeable. My butt too small. My skin too white. My smile too crooked. And while most of that might still be true - I’ve become more accepting of my appearance and I only want it to continue. I don’t want to be ashamed of what my parents created and what I was blessed with. I want to love myself in its entirety. If I straighten my hair, I want to do it because I love the way it looks - not because I’m trying to hide the frizz. If I go to the gym, I want to do it to keep my body healthy - not because I’m trying to be a certain size. If I go to the pool, I want to do it enjoy the outdoors - not because I’m tired of being criticized for my paleness.
Adventures. I was a very sheltered child. This was my parents doing, as well as my own. They were trying to protect me from my older brother’s mistakes and I was “brainwashed” enough that I was too scared to find out life for myself. I chose friends that fitted this lifestyle or allowed me to vicariously live through them. It wasn’t until last year that the glass wall broke within and I was brave enough to experience adventures in their truest form. Travelled to Ireland. Moved to a new city alone. Adopted a pup. Went trapezing. I need this to continue with higher frequency. I just created a NoVa “bucket list” to assist.
Love. After dating the same man for 4.5 years and having complete intentions of eventually marrying him, I lost all understanding of love. Not just romantic love, but even amiable, familial, self love. I was searching for all four in all the wrong ways. I depended on the wrong people and substituted love. The balance is slowly coming back, but there’s still a lot of work needed. I want to get back into the dating world but I’ve come to a 100% understanding that my self love should be stable before then. So my goal is to focus on that with the idea a romantic love will find its way and my amiable love will be less strained.
As I work on those four areas, I plan on documenting them here. Tumblr has a wonderful community that supports one another, and while I welcome and encourage it - this recording is 100% for myself.
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