Wordless Wednesday

Write Now // Pretty Pointless

This is going to be a pretty pointless post. A post containing some pretty inconsequential things happening right now that I just really want to tell someone (anyone) about. Things that don’t really matter and aren't a huge deal. It's a post containing the “not-so-deep” stuff going on right now. The random, who gives a shit, stuff. I honestly won’t be offended at all if you choose to skip it. Because it probably won’t flow or make sense. You’ll probably start reading and then three sentences in, think, “Whhhyyy is she even wasting her time writing about this?” But whatever. Sometimes things get really boring. Such is life. So, here we go. 

This was actually written on Saturday (8/24). I found myself with a little extra time and thought that I should put it to some good blogging use. Lately, I’ve had these bursts of writing motivation. I find myself wanting to share and write more about our life. My life. Because the word vomit needs out, y'all. However, school just started back up again and once September comes around Em will start all of her after school activities again. Talk about great timing, right? So now, I find myself having to decide on what nights/mornings I want to dedicate a few (read: single) hour of my time to writing. Five AM comes really early and ten PM gets here before I’ve even finished my daily evening chores. I’m also wanting to shift my posting schedule around starting next month. If my compulsive need to have things “even” will actually allow for it. I’m going to try my best to stick with a T W F S schedule for the month of September just to see if I can do it. If it doesn’t work out then I’ll revert back to the usual M W F S posts for October. We’ll see how it goes. 

Last week I purchased a new planner, “The Happy Planner Classic -  Stay Wild” to replace the small one that I had bought for like $3 back at the end of July. Originally, I really wanted to get the bigger one but my budget just didn’t allow for it. Still, the “classic” is worth every damn penny in my opinion, and it’s a decent size too. You can easily customize it, snag some cool stickers, and add filler pages if you want. It’s always been in my nature to seek out a routine and establish a schedule once school is in session. I color code everything, and the weekends are broken down into hourly sections because that’s my only window to get household things done. And this planner allows for ALL of that and then some. It's also REUSABLE - which was basically the main selling point for me. Once I got the first two months all jotted down I instantly felt this relief wash over me and my brain didn’t feel so chaotic anymore. Anxiety, am I right? So, if you’re anything like me I definitely recommend you look into these lovely little lifesavers. And no, this is not a sponsored post. I just really freakin’ love my planner. 

In other news, my lawn is a mess. The dogs started howling just now and I went to take a peek. As I walked out on the porch it gave me a chance to really have a good hard look at the state of my backyard. And damn does it need some work. But it’s been so hot lately & I don’t wanna. The grass is pretty much dead, with the exception of weeds. I told myself I would mow the lawn today, but we had one random ass rainstorm come through overnight so everything is still wet. It was glorious and refreshing, but the humidity this morning sucked. Fall is also right around the corner so it’s a little late for me to start looking into plants. Plus the dogs would just destroy anything I put out there anyway. But as I sit here looking out the window, the back yard clearly screaming at me to do something, I kind of just want to pay someone to rip it all out. I’m officially over the upkeep it requires. Any suggestions as to what I could “replace” it with? I’m all ears, y’all. I already have a ton of other things on my plate right now so if I can have one less...then sign me up!   

Alright, that’s enough torture for today. If you made it this far, congratulations! I told you there would be nothing of importance in this post. I'm sorry? Next week will hopefully be better. This will be our first full week of trying to get our daily routine down. Then we find out exactly what Emery's afterschool schedule will look like for the rest of the year. Here's hoping for an easy, breezy, first semester. Also, I recently reactivated my Pinterest account and who would have thought that it would contain some pretty awesome writing inspiration? Color me freakin' surprised. So, here's to actually having some stuff for you to read soon! Now, please accept this picture that has absolutely nothing to do with this post as my way of saying, "Thank you for sticking with my random, inconsistent, ass." I hope you don't feel too gypped after making it all of the way to the end. Okay, byyyyeeee! 

Wordless Wednesday

Currently - August 2019

I feel like August has been flying by. Emery starts school this week, and soon after we’re back to creating a pretty structured schedule. With very little wiggle room. And as much as I love having a set routine, I also love being able to toss everything out of the window and just lounge in our jammies while binge-watching Stranger Things. Now, in just a few days it’ll be back to rearranging work out days, evenings filled with homework, reading lists, and after school activities. It will be back to having early bedtimes and early mornings. And I'm just not ready. But before I go down the rabbit hole of all the bummers that come with school starting back up again how about we just get into the "currently" post for the month instead? Okay? Okay. 

Playing:  Lately, music has not been a HUGE part of my day-to-day. Instead, it’s been replaced with podcasts. Now, I’m planning on writing a podcast post every few months or so to kind of highlight some of the ones I find really interesting. I want to write a bit more in-depth on some of the subject matter that’s caught my attention, and talk about some of my favorite shows as well as why they’re my favorites. But for today’s post, I just want to throw out a podcast that has caught my interest: Certifiably Catholic. The description states: Each episode a Catholic priest, stay at home mom, and a husband/parish minister discuss how we strive for heaven in the midst of this crazy life. Lately, my need to learn more and practice my faith has been at the front of my mind. And honestly, it was actually set off after listening to one of CC’s episodes. So, if you’re Catholic and interested in listening to some of today’s topics discussed from three different points of views/vocations, then I highly recommend that you check them out. If you’re not Catholic, but curious to know a bit more about us then I also recommend that you give these guys a listen. You can start here.

Reading: Poetry has been my poison of choice lately when it comes to reading. I’ve gone through some of r.h. Sin’s work as well as some of r.m. drake’s. “Milk and Honey” by Rupi Kaur was finally purchased, and y’all it’s definitely a must-read if you’re going through a breakup or dealing with relationship issues due to the trauma left behind from sexual assault. I’ve actually been a fan of her work for a while now and bought “The Sun and Her Flowers” when it was released. However, that collection is focused more on the healing and moving forward. I still re-read it anyway. And last week I finally received the “In My Feelings Vol. I” bundle from r.m. drake. It’s a set of four books, limited release, and I just started on the first one this past Sunday. So far, I’ve not been disappointed in any of these authors.    

Watching: I recently had a marathon viewing session of “Peaky Blinders” in order to catch up before season five comes out stateside this October. I’ve got about four more episodes to go which I’ll probably finish up next week. Then there’s been the unexpectedly enthralling, “Euphoria” over on HBO. The description for this show states: Euphoria follows a group of high school students as they navigate love and friendships in a world of drugs, sex, trauma, and social media. Now, this one caught me way off guard, y’all. It also caused me a bit of discomfort due to it being a show about teenagers that have all kinds of sex and use a crap ton of drugs. I had to keep reminding myself that these actors were all over 20 years old. And I know that this is not a new concept for a TV show, but sometimes it gets rough. Now, none of the subject matter was new to me and some of it I had been through myself when I was a teenager. It was just really weird seeing it from a different point of view now that I’m older and a mother. I kept asking myself if drugs were really that easy to come by back in our teenage years? Was sex really viewed as something to “get over” before heading off to college or graduating high school? While watching Euphoria I really started to think about some of the situations I had allowed myself to get into during my younger years. And it also reminded me of how much we, as a society, have changed in these past fourteen years. It's a bit of a trip if you really sit back and look at it. So yea, if angsty teenagers navigating the waters of what we like to call high school during a time when social media makes being invisible nearly impossible, piques your interest then by all means...watch this show. 

And that concludes the currently for this month. If you have any other suggestions be sure to drop me a line either here, or any of my other social media pages. Links are all at the top. I'm always on the lookout for new artists, films, or books so I'm totally open to recommendations. Until the next post, Happy Tuesday night folks! 

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Wordless Wednesday

5 AM - Wednesday

Technically, it's Wednesday (8/14) as I write this. Yesterday, I worked on a post until almost midnight and hit publish. Only, as I laid in bed tossing around for about an hour, I realized I wasn't ready for that post to go up. I wasn't ready to be that open again. So, I got up at 1 AM and reverted it back to a draft. It just didn't feel right to me. Or maybe, it just needed to be polished a bit more? I don't know exactly what my issue was about the words I had thrown together but I didn't feel good about them. So here I am, 5 AM on Wednesday, creating something completely different. 

Lately, it seems like time has just been slipping away. I make plans for the day, with every intention of being productive, but by the time 9 PM rolls around, I feel like I barely got anything accomplished. The demands of the day have pulled me into so many directions and I just haven't been able to keep up with it all. It makes me envious of those parents who can run on about four or five hours of sleep. What's your secret people, seriously? It's hard for me to juggle being a present parent 24/7, working full-time, completely household chores, finding time for self-care, carving out an hour to work out, doing my therapy reading/worksheets, reading, working a side job on most Saturday's, writing, going to church, and still managing to have us in bed by 10 PM on the regular. There just never seems to be enough hours in the day, y'all! As I lay in bed on most nights, I just feel like I've failed at the majority of those things I had set out to do. I look back and realize that I wasn't even able to completely cross off one thing on my daily list. But I close my eyes and tell myself I'll do better. I tell myself that the next day I'll be more productive. I'll get more done. And I'll find some way to squeeze more time out of the day. 

What hit me as I woke up this morning, was the word, "STOP". The alarm went off, and my mind was screaming at me to slow down. Breathe. Remove the clutter I keep dragging back into my life and start working on what I really LOVE. So, that's what I plan on doing. What I plan to work on for the rest of the week. Decluttering my life- making more space for the things that I find truly important. I had already done it once before but I was slowly bringing everything back in again. It's as if I was telling myself, "Okay, you're doing better now so it's okay to bring back this packed schedule of meaningless bullshit and distractions." This morning though, as I sat here thinking of what I wanted to write, did it actually dawn on me how stupid that really was. I'm doing better because I got rid of things, people, and made time for what was important to me. Which means that all of that stuff needed to stay gone. There's no room for it here anymore. And if I really want to take care of myself, if I really want to find a way to move forward in my life, then I need to stop. 

Otherwise, I'll just slip right back into my depression. I'll end up stuck in my grieving process. I'll end up holding onto all of the things that I should let go of. I'll be back on my medication within a year, and feeling unhappy. "You can't expect different results without change," as the saying goes. And I'll have made absolutely no progress in anything. Remaining stuck. Everything will just be these half-assed versions of what I wanted to accomplish. Things I promised but never actually fulfilled. Goals I set but never even attempted. I'll be a shell of a mother that missed out on so many things because she was distracted or constantly needing to be "fixed". And that's not what I want, y'all. So, here's to changes. Here's to removing the bullshit. Here's to being more present with the people in my life. To putting the phone down. Again. Setting healthy boundaries and working on controlling my emotions. Here's to being the best mom that I can be, while also understanding that nobody is perfect so I shouldn't be so damn hard on myself. And here's to getting back to living life. To being positive and looking forward to my days. Here's to letting the light back in. 

Wordless Wednesday

Writing Prompt // Lesson

Write about someone that's taught you something recently.

Let your friends be a part of your team right now. Let them cook for you, bring you food, take you to movies, invite you over on Friday nights to watch Netflix, provide you a shoulder to cry on, hug you, and love you. - Traver Boehm, Today I Rise

I have someone in my life who unexpectedly became a pretty good friend of mine. There’s this sense of calmness when he’s around that I rarely get with other people which is nice. We’re pretty comfortable in each other’s company. He’s seen me on some of my worst day, y’all. I never feel like like I have to have all of my shit together when we hang out either. What I really enjoy about our friendship though is that we can spend our time hanging out and having a conversation, or we can spend it in complete silence. And I don’t feel this need to fill that silence up with anything at all. People have recently pointed out that some of this can easily be seen as very “couple like” things and I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought the same thing a few times myself. But that’s not exactly the word I would choose to describe us. Our friendship just doesn’t fit into a neat little box no matter how hard I've tried to put it into one in the past. And believe me I really, really tried. There was even a small window of time when I told myself that I needed to end our friendship because he threw me WAY off balance, and I didn’t need that in my life. 

But you know what? I don’t think there’s ever going to be a way for me to backtrack my way out of this. Or that I’d even want to if I could. Because we aren’t a couple and we aren’t dating, but we’re there for each other. He’s sat next to me, patiently listening, as I talked about my fear of being alone and how heartbroken I felt at how easily B was able to replace me in his life. He’s seen me ugly cry, heard me say some not-so-nice things out loud, and doesn’t hold it against me. “It’s shitty. I get it.” He’s even sat through four back-to-back Hallmark movies and actually discussed them with me. Yes, I know that makes him a real trooper. And even when he thinks that I’m being ridiculous for asking him to “pinky promise” when he says he’ll do something he still offers up his pinky because he knows that it’s weirdly important to me. Gotta love those trust issues, right? He brings me chocolate on those really, really, low days. And surprisingly, for two people who tend to look like they’re pissed off all of the time, there’s a lot of smiling and laughter. Sure, sometimes it's over some really morbid shit but most of the time it's over some normal fun stuff. Now, I do my best to reciprocate what’s being given to me. When he needs to talk things out I listen. When he asks for my advice I do my best to give it. When he needs to get away from the noise in his head my door is always open. I recently sat through the John Wick movie and quizzed him every few minutes on it. If you’ve seen it, you know about the dog scene, and if you know me at all then you know this makes ME a trooper too. When he starts to get discouraged I make him revisit his goals and plans for the future. Letting him know that he's doing a really great job. When he calls in the middle of the night asking if he can crash on the couch for whatever reason he has I set out a blanket and pillow. "Just make sure to lock the door when you get in, okay?" And when I think back to how or when we met I honestly can't remember, which is pretty unusual for me. But it just feels like he's always been right here.

So, I don’t see our relationship as something romantic or platonic. There's just me and him. It’s almost like he was placed in my life to remind me that there are people out there who can care about you without having ulterior motives. People who won't lie or hurt you. He's reminded me that there are still people out there who won’t expect or demand that I give anything more or less than what I'm willing to offer. There’s no pressure to be something more or less than what I am, and that in turn gives me this freedom to be unapologetically myself. And that's why I really like having him in my life. Because sometimes you just need that one person who gets that you're a little messed up, that you're seriously hurting, and they don't allow it to phase them at all. They still show up. They're here to teach us that no matter how shitty we see ourselves sometimes, we're still worth someone's time and attention. 

“Hey! Take a selfie with me.” No.  ///  “C’mon! Pretty please??” No.  ///  “Ugh! Quit being so damn difficult. Just smile so I can take the picture.” You know, you’re kind of a brat.  ///  “Yes. Yes, I am. Now, say cheese!”

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Hey There, August...

I decided that I wanted to get a fresh start, with blogging again, in a new month. So, hello August! As I mentioned in my previous post I’ve been dealing with the side effects of stopping my anti-depressants. Last week I had a session with *Mr. A, and as it turns out he agreed that my medication was acting as a roadblock to my progress. He wasn’t too thrilled with my method of choice when it came to stopping, but he did feel that it would allow me to process everything a bit better. The only problem is that now I’m almost four weeks deep and I have this urge to get back on them. Because y’all, feelings are hard little fuckers to deal with sometimes. I actually miss being passive about a lot of things, and not allowing my emotions to get too out of control. I liked the sense of calm, and control that being on medication brought me. I now find myself right back at crying over everything and having all of my emotions kick into overdrive the minute I wake up. It can be sooo frustrating! And there are definitely days when I’m so tempted to just say, “Fuck it” and get right back on those lovely little serotonin inhibitors. Unfortunately, if I ever want to grow, change, forgive, and finally get my shit together then I have to handle things like a big girl. So, it’s been a ride. And I don’t see it being “over” anytime soon. You’ve been warned.

Now, it’s August, so that means school is right around the corner for Em. She’ll be continuing with gymnastics and has decided on a new venture by trying out for swim team. This summer was a bit on the “boring” side, and we had to cancel on our vacation plans recently. So, Em says that she’s ready for school to start because that means she’ll get to hang out with her friends again and pick-up on her lessons. She’s also been really adamant about me dating which was kind of...interesting (for lack of a better word)? I was even sat down one afternoon with the app search results for “dating”, and a list of reasons why she felt I should look into the ones she had checked out. “Mom, this one has almost 5 stars, and it says that it will go based off of your Facebook profile which you already have so it’s super easy!” And while I’m not in a rush to start dating I actually considered creating a profile after the fifth day of being asked, “Have you downloaded an app yet? Did you decide on one?” It actually makes me laugh a little bit. I know Em is just looking out for me, and she wants me to be happy. She’s also mentioned that “already has kids” should be a requirement for anyone I consider dating because if I were to get remarried she wants siblings. So, yes, it all comes from a very good place in her. And I think I’m pretty blessed to have such a caring little girl for a daughter.

Moving right along, there have been a few things that I’ve been trying to work through lately. Things that pertain to me as my own person: my anxiety, love language, self-esteem, parenting failures, and overall goals. Again, feelings are just sooo damn inconvenient at times. I won’t bore you with a lot of the details today, but just know that this month is probably going to be an emotional one. Sorry in advance. I have two sessions lined up with Mr. A and several pages worth of notes I jotted down over the past month that I’d like to explore a bit more on. Can’t avoid this shit forever, right? I’ve also been thinking of adding a few things over here in my little corner of the internet. I’m wanting to talk about some of the podcasts I’ve been listening to lately. Possibly create a series out of it? I’ve thought about bringing up some of the discussions that I’ve seen come up in the online support group I joined. Possibly expanding on those or just giving my two cents? I don’t know. Lately, I’ve just felt some creativity and brainstorming slowly coming back to life in me after several months of nothing. And I don’t want to overdo it, but I know I want to do something. So, we’ll see. Anyway, that’s about it for now. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Until the next post, take care. 

📷: source

*Mr. A is how I'll refer to my counselor on here until I can come up with a better nickname.