It’s getting me again.

It’s a little later this year than usual. I thought I might have made it through this winter without that familiar pull. Maybe this year I can be content. Maybe this year I can stay present.

Guess not.

It’s a weird, uncomfortable, fluttery feeling. When it comes to catch me, I feel a strong urge to run. To run away from these people and this place and this life. This isn’t what was meant for me. I took a wrong turn somewhere. I need to turn back time or do something new or just GET OUT OF HERE. It almost feels life or death, like I’m about to be attacked. What can I do to stop this? To save myself?

A telltale sign is that I start imagining other lives in my head. Things I might be doing and places I might be living and people I might know if I had taken a different route. Lives I might have if I had just not chosen this one. And then I start planning trips. How can I escape this life without blowing it up? Where can I go to exert some independence and remind myself that I’m my own?

It feels panicky. Like if I don’t get out of here now, I will be trapped forever. This is the trajectory of my life if I can’t make a change right this minute. And it’s not for me. This life is too drab, too bland, too empty, too lonely. I don’t feel inspired or joyful or engaged or excited.

And then, ever-present logic steps in. I can see myself from the outside. I’m watching myself spiral. I am able to remind myself that this feeling comes once a year. It is not new. It is not urgent, despite how it feels. It will pass, and likely, it will visit again.

But recognition is not the hardest part. I understand what is happening, but I still FEEL it happening. It feels like there is a person inside of me screaming and clawing and aching to get out, but I know she is not the whole me, so I just shove her into the closet and pretend she’s not there. Like I’ve decided not to trust her, so I just ignore her instead. Since she only cries out once a year, just cover your ears until she eventually quiets down. I know she wants to be heard, and part of me desperately wants to hear her, but another part of me says no. If things are as they should be, why is there a part of me who fights against it? But if things are so wrong, why does she only want to be heard at this time of year? How do I know who to trust?

I know running away isn’t what I should do. But man, wouldn’t it feel good to be wild for a while?

It’s raining on my birthday.

This is the second time it has rained here in recent memory. We’ve had a very hot, very dry summer. The last 3 months have been…a lot, and the last 3 years have been even more.

I think this rain is for me.

It’s funny because in media, rain is often used as a device to portray negativity. Sadness, guilt, fear, loneliness. It always rains at the funeral. But after all these months of nothing, this rain feels like a gift. A new beginning. A sign of good things to come.

It’s not a pretty thing, this rain. It’s not a sunny, summer rain. It’s not light sprinkles and splashing in puddles. It’s cloudy and dark and heavy. But it feels like something fresh. Which is kind of my hope for life right now.

We’re getting closer and closer to when we said we were going to move. We’ve talked to realtors, looked at areas. I get emails daily with new houses on the market. It’s all very exciting and hopeful.

But, man is it scary.

Uprooting my life, moving away from the only place I’ve ever lived, leaving family behind. Not knowing anyone where we’re going. Not knowing any restaurants or stores or parks. Not knowing the weather, the roads, the quirks. It feels hopeful, but it feels heavy and dark too.

And I think that’s okay. I think it’s okay to try something new even when you’re not one hundred percent convinced. It’s okay for your excitement to me tangled up with fear and sadness and anxiety. It’s okay to not know and not try to guess. This might be the best thing we’ve ever decided to do, and it might be a terrible mistake, but either way, it’s worth a shot.

I wonder what the weather will look like next year on my birthday. Guess we’ll find out.

It was cute when I said I was going to start blogging again. I seem to do that with relative frequency. Decide on a whim that I am now a (blogger, minimalist, baker, etc…), announce it, and then lose steam and go back to being me without my new found identity.

But, I’m here now. So I guess that counts for something.

Life has felt really hectic lately. We’ve decided to move within the next several months, and ever since making that decision it’s seemed like one thing after the other has just been pushing us back. Like we are trying to swim but keep getting shoved down by waves.

For a while, I was trying to remain positive. Like yeah this situation sucks, sure, but it could be worse! At least we have enough money to cover it! At least we have a home to live in! At least it wasn’t our AC this time! But I think that was making me feel worse. I finally decided to just say this sucks and it is hard and I’m over it, and now I feel a little lighter. Like I’m at least not fighting against my feelings.

I do that in a lot of areas I’ve noticed. I am constantly pushing back on how I actually feel with how I’m “supposed” to feel. I announced I was going to write more, but then I didn’t because I didn’t want to (which is fine, it’s not like I owe anyone my thoughts), but then I felt guilty about that like I had an obligation to fulfill. I want to declutter my home, and part of me wants to dive in and get rid of everything we don’t use, and part of me feels bad about getting rid of things, and part of me feels like I am a bad wife/mom for getting rid of things, and part of me feels like I am a bad wife/mom for having this much crap in the first place.

I just never feel wholly at peace with my decisions,
or my thoughts,
or my feelings,
or myself.

I never know when to listen because I’m right or ignore because I’m wrong. Should I take a rest day from exercise because I am tired and overwhelmed? Or is that laziness? Should I be okay with being annoyed with my kids because they are at a hard age right now? Or am I a bad mom because I’m annoyed with them?

I am always fighting myself.
Honestly, it’s kind of exhausting.

My counselor told me to take notice of how my body feels when I am experiencing certain emotions. She said it is important to notice your thoughts and feelings, and your physical reactions to those thoughts and feelings because they all go together. Lately I have noticed that my brain feels like it is going a million miles a minute almost constantly. Like I am always chasing a thought that just got away. I feel overwhelmed, guilty, short of patience, frustrated with myself. In these times, my head feels like someone is squeezing it from all sides (something I had never noticed before I was told to pay attention), my chest feels like I had a half shot of adrenaline. Like when you narrowly avoid a car accident, but about half that strong.

I think I’m going to work on simplifying. Having a simple home. Having a simple schedule. Simplifying my to-do list every day. Simplifying the plans I make for the girls. Simplifying my reactions to events. Simplifying my social media and podcast consumption. There’s a lot of noise out in the world, and I don’t think I need to bring it all into my brain anymore.

So here’s to my next big announcement with an undetermined level of follow through. I am now someone who keeps things simple.

(Side note: autocorrect changed that sentence to “I am not someone who keeps things simple,” so I feel like I’m off to a great start.)

I skipped my workout this morning.

I convinced myself to skip it by telling myself that I would do it during nap time. I won’t, but that’s okay. I will do one tomorrow.

I’m trying to figure out when to listen to myself because I know what I need and when to ignore myself because I’m talking myself out of what I need. I know I need to exercise for my health and longevity, but I don’t want to. I know it is good for my body, but also I’m tired. When is it okay to take the day off and when am I just being lazy?

My counselor asked me the other day if I am a black and white person. My immediate reaction was no, but the more I spoke, the more I realized that I guess I am. I told her about how alcoholism runs in my family, so I decided not to drink at all ever. I told her about how for the first six months of the year, I worked out every single day. Then I missed a day, and stopped working out altogether. I’m sure this view on life has served me in some aspect, but it’s probably time to blend the colors a little more.

So, I woke up this morning and felt very strongly like I didn’t want to exercise. I decided to listen to that feeling today, and instead I got up, got ready, did my morning chores, got our stuff ready for the splash pad, read my book, and now I’m writing this. The babies are still sleeping, and my brain is readying itself for the day. Tomorrow I’ll take care of my body again, but today I’m taking care of my mind.

That’s important too.

I’m going to start writing again.

I somehow formed this idea that if I don’t have a solid topic and a good opening line, I don’t have anything to write about. I have always gone through waves of “being a writer,” on for a few months and off again for the next few when I’ve worked through whatever feelings I needed to get out. It’s usually in winter time that I need to unload my thoughts on the world (thanks, SAD). But, man, as we start the month of July, the middle of my most favorite season of the year, I have some FEELINGS. And I need them to go somewhere outside of my brain, so here we are.

Things are hard, hard, hard right now. It feels like wave after wave is just crashing into us as a society, shoving us back under water as soon as we think we’ll be able to take a breath. Every morning is a new guessing game of what terrible thing is going to happen to the world today. I am struggling with feeling all the things and also wanting to escape. I have little kids at home that need me for something every second of the day, so I shove my feelings away so I can be an attentive mom. And then by the time I have a minute to sit and think, I am so drained from being an attentive mom that I don’t want to spend the precious down time I have feeling hard feelings. Often, I try to escape to social media, but as everyone is also feeling these same hard feelings and sharing about them, it is not much of an escape.

It’s July 4th today. Happy Independence Day, I guess. Doesn’t feel very happy or independent to me. I love a good dress up/theme day, so I am feeling extra resentful on this particular occasion because I don’t want to celebrate you today, America. But I do want to wear red, white, and blue and dress my kids up in cute star-spangled things. But it’s NOT FOR YOU.

My house is overrun with weevils. It is horrible, and they are all over. Apparently weevils are not harmful in any way to people, and they probably came in with some food product we purchased, but I am really ready for them to leave. I don’t want weevil roommates anymore. I have cleaned the whole house, cleaned out the pantry, put all food items into air-tight containers and bags, and yet they are still around. I know it is not a reflection on me even slightly, but it does make me feel like a bad housekeeper/wife/mother/person that my family has to share a home with these tiny terrors.

There’s a lot more that I need to get out of my brain, but I set a timer for 15 minutes, and it is about to go off, so that’s all you get today. Society is a difficult place to be, and so is my house because of the weevils. Happy 4th of July. I hope you dress up and celebrate if that’s what you like to do, and I hope you ignore the day if that is what feels right to you. I hope you can relax and have fun, and I hope you can remember that there is still so much work to do. Life is hard and life is worth it. Both/and.

Talk again soon. Maybe. No promises.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to bake my way through this cookbook I got. It’s called 100 Cookies, and it is cookies, brownies, and other treats. There is no way I will be able to actually finish the cookbook this year because I’d have to make something like every other day, and I just don’t have the time for that. But I’m going to do as much as I can! Here’s what I got through in January…

These were delicious. The recipe called for a crunchy element, but I forgot to buy it at the store, and honestly don’t think I would have liked them as much with it.

I’ve been making the same chocolate chip cookies (ala Nestle Toll House) for years and years, and these blew them out of the water. I’ll never go back. They also kept much better than my others, which was a big plus.

These were good for being a sugar cookie, which is not my favorite treat. Husband loved them. I thought they could use some extra sugar in the form of frosting.

These weren’t my favorite, but that is probably because I don’t like pie or citrus flavored things. They got alright reviews from the family, but there were plenty of leftovers, so I don’t think they were a big hit.

These took some trial and error to figure out. The recipe called for letting the dough sit at room temperature for five minutes before baking, but I had much better results when I refrigerated the dough for several minutes instead.

These are basically a sugar cookie where a third is flavored with chocolate and a third is flavored with strawberry. They weren’t my favorite (blame it on the lack of frosting), but Husband and LG enjoyed them.

Who knew you could just make marshmallows? LG has been very into marshmallows lately, so I decided to try to make my own! They are definitely better than store-bought marshmallows, but honestly I’m not sure they were better enough to be worth the effort. LG was pretty happy about them though.

I had a lot of fun baking this month! I also really enjoyed taking and editing pictures of the treats. It was nice to have a project just for me. Now I need to just find someone to take all the extras that I don’t need laying around my house…

I am raising a Sensitive Child. Like…so sensitive.

This child used to cry at literally every single book I read her because she was worried about one character or another. One time we read Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes, and she cried because she was so sad that the cupcakes were missing. She cried in a Frozen short when the sled fell off the mountain. She cried in an Elephant and Piggie book at the mere thought of Piggie potentially being eaten by a shark.

She is also advanced in verbal language skills, which is an interesting attribute for a Sensitive Child. She has lots of feelings, and she loves to talk about them.

Early on in her life, we worked on labeling her feelings. Now, she tells me (100 times a day), “I’m feeling sad.” Or, “That makes me so happy!” Or, “I’m feeling frustrated.” When we meet someone new, she tells me, “I’m feeling nervous.” When Mimi and Papa are coming over, she says, “I’m so excited!” I am so pleased with this. It is so great. She is my tiny, two-year-old baby who is so in tune with her big feelings that she can express them aloud.

But also, she is my tiny, two-year-old baby who is so in tune with every. big. feeling. that she always expresses them. Aloud.

I just don’t know how many times a day one can say, “It’s okay to be sad,” while still believing it. Maybe we need to add a qualifier in there. “It’s okay to be sad sometimes, but not more than a couple of times a day. Choose wisely.” “It’s okay to be sad quietly. Unfortunately, loud sadness has been canceled for the foreseeable future. Please begin practicing silent tears.” “It’s okay to be sad, and often when people feel sad they might want to be alone. Have you considered trying that?”

The thing about raising a child is that they have a lot of feelings all day. And the thing about raising a Sensitive Child is that every single one of those feelings is big. The other day, one of the six stickers the Target cashier gave her tore after she purposely tore it, and she cried about it for a full 15 minutes. Yesterday, she cried in the car because her sister was crying, but she wanted to be the one who was crying. Today, I helped her down off the step stool after I finished brushing her teeth, and I think it might have been the worst parenting move I’ve ever made. You would have thought I threw her from the stool onto a bed of nails.

Big. Feelings.

Being a Sensitive Child with Big Feelings will serve her so well some day. It does now. She is a Sensitive Child who tells me, “I will give you a hug and a kiss, and that will make you feel better,” when I tell her I am feeling frustrated. She will grow into a Sensitive Teenager who notices and cares about her friends feelings. She will be a Sensitive Adult who understands and helps those who might otherwise go unseen in the world. She will be able to express her Big Feelings to others, and that will be such an advantage to her in life.

She will understand that it is okay to feel sad, mad, frustrated, happy, excited, jealous, nervous, joyful. And maybe she will even understand that it is also okay to feel those things quietly.

I’ve decided that 2022 is The Year of Me.

I have not been the girl I hope to be in recent years. I became someone I didn’t intend to after letting myself sink deeper and deeper into the idea that I was trapped. Trapped by a pandemic, trapped by mothering, trapped by marriage. Trapped, trapped, trapped.

But really I have been trapped by myself. My expectations, my laziness, my mindset.
“I’m a mom, so I can’t…”
“I’m not someone who can just…”
“As a wife, I should be…”

But, guess what? I can do whatever I damn well please. It’s really just that simple.

So that’s what The Year of Me is going to entail. Doing what brings me joy, even if there’s no other reason for it. Finding ways to engage with the world around me in a way that feels true and bright in my soul. Creating a little sunshine just for me.

I’ve got big plans. I keep thinking maybe they’re too grand, and I should choose one thing at a time to focus on, but that thought doesn’t bring joy, so I dismiss it. I can do what feels good to me, and if what feels good is starting 37 new habits at once, that’s what I’ll do. Because who cares?

We are 7 days into January, and these are the things I have implemented or planned for so far:

I am waking up at 5:15 to exercise, get ready, and have Me Time every morning. And by “every morning,” I mean the mornings my Future Self convinces my Tired Self that it will be worth it to actually get up and do this. So at least 3 days a week. We’re calling that a win for now.

I am changing my wardrobe. I have been in a clothing slump ever since being pregnant and putting on baby weight (And fast food weight. And dessert weight.). I have been buying oversized sweatshirts in muted colors and wearing maternity leggings. Looking real snazzy. But I am someone who finds joy in clothes, so I am getting rid of the boring mess that is my closet and slowly adding in pieces that make me happy to put on. Bright colors, fun patterns, unique textures. I have approximately 3 exciting shirts in my closet right now, and I wore them all this week because that’s what my brain wanted me to do.

I am wearing lipstick. I love a bright lip, but convinced myself that it was weird to wear one around the house with two small children. Why bother? Well, because it makes me feel good. Do I really need any more reason than that?

I am journaling every morning. One of my personal goals for this year is to complete a prompted journal. I love the idea of journaling and writing, but have always convinced myself that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I have a really cute habit of buying interesting sounding prompted journals, being so excited to look through them when the arrive, and then putting them nicely away on my bookshelf and never touching them again. Fondly remembering 7 minutes we had together before it was gone forever. In The Year of Me, I am going to finish (at least) one journal. I have been writing a couple pages each morning as part of my Me Time, and I love it very much so far.

I am going to therapy. Oh man, this was a long time coming, and I am so pleased. I feel like I finally found a therapist who fits with me, and I am getting so much out of it. It’s amazing what can happen when you start treating therapy like a therapy session instead of a lunch date with a friend who you are trying to impress. In the past, I’ve approached counseling under the impression that I need to receive a gold star for life and prove that I am not messy or unhappy in any way. But this year, I’m like, please buckle up, New Therapist, because I am about to throw my ideas and opinions all over the walls of this office, and maybe then I’ll be able to actually sort some of them out.

I am reading. I gave up social media for the month of January (or beyond? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.), and I am replacing the time I previously spent scrolling Instagram with reading books off the ongoing list on my phone of books I hear about and could possibly want to read someday when there is more time (not including the 3 hours that I have already devoted to looking at pictures online of people I barely know and never actually speak to). My goal is to read 12 books this year, because one book a month seems reasonable, and I am not someone who is a fan of making big goals and then not reaching them. So far I have read 1.5, and we’re only 7 days in!

I am being honest. Even when it’s ugly. Even when it hurts feelings. Even when I’m not proud of what I am thinking. I’ve found so far that getting the thoughts out of the tornado in my head and into the world calms the storm inside me enough to actually process some things.

I am staying in the present. This one is tough for me, but I am trying. I am sitting with things the way they are instead of planning for the next step, event, life. I am working very hard on not thinking, “Well, I will be happy when…” Because today is now, and I’d like to be happy then.

So far, things are going great. It does feel a little mid-life crisisy when I think about all the changes I’m attempting to make at once, but that’s fine. Maybe this is my bright red convertible sports car. If it continues to bring me joy, I’m perfectly cool with that. All I really want out of this year is to feel like the Me I want to be.

“You feel trapped because you are trapped.”

2021 was a year, y’all.

A whole terrible, wonderful, slow, quiet, screaming, angry, stifling, joyful, small, marvelous year.

Another year of covid. Another year of being a stay-at-home mom. Another year of no social outings, no dates, no movies, no unnecessary appointments, no seeing anyone without doing the mental gymnastics of safety.

Heavy.
Hard.
Lonely.

Another year of Luna. The first year of Livi. The loves of my life. Getting to see them learn and grow this year has been the most rewarding thing I could imagine. Learning how to be a mom to two girls is challenging and amazing all at once. I’ve never loved anything more.

A year of trying to find myself again. I am forever done with being pregnant and breastfeeding, so I have a feeling of regaining some control over my own body. I began therapy recently, so I am trying to find that same feeling of control with my mental health. Both are a process, but I feel like I’m at least heading in the right direction again.

I feel like I have both given up and gained a lot in the past year, and a lot of things were out of my control. I am learning to be okay with that. I am trying to focus on taking things as they come and doing what feels right in my gut. Figuring out what is really important in my little life. Balancing everyone’s needs and deciding when mine get to come first. Trying to become who I intend to be.

Feeling worthy of having thoughts, desires, needs, opinions that may not jive with other people’s is not something I have been fully capable of in many years. Having thoughts, desires, needs, opinions that do not mesh with who I feel like I am supposed to be has been even more difficult. The thing I look forward to most in the upcoming year is trying to erase the image of who I expect myself to be and start to figure out who I really want to be. Detaching from some habits that haven’t been serving my soul. Putting down some of the unnecessary weight I carried this year. Releasing myself from the traps I have chosen.

So, along with more practical resolutions like go to the eye doctor and get a haircut, and some more soul-brightening ones like get a new tattoo and start cussing, I have decided on my mantra for 2022. A phrase that I hope will serve me well in the upcoming year.

My promise to myself for the next 365 days is this:

I will not make myself small.
I will not make myself small.
I will not make myself small.

I’ve decided to teach myself how to longboard.

I have wanted to learn to longboard for many years now, but I am A) so clumsy (lest we forget, I broke my ankle tripping over the tiny curb in the garage last year), B) prone to embarrassment, and C) not a fan of learning new things (former GT kid here. I shouldn’t have to learn things, I should just know them already, and if I don’t, I am a failure. A blog…or therapy session…for another time.). But for some reason, a couple of months ago (you know, right after having my second kid because that’s the best possible time for this), I decided to buy myself a longboard.

And then I decided to leave it in my closet for two months.

I thought about starting during those two months, but I always found a reason not to (please refer to items A, B, and C from earlier). Finally, the other day, I decided to go. Honestly, it was mostly because I needed to be away from my house and unavailable for a while. And being outside this time of year is good for my soul, so I went.

I was immediately bad.

I expected, logically, to be bad. I am not coordinated, light on my toes, or any kind of athletic. After nine months of being pregnant (and a decade of being lazy), I am not in shape. I knew in my head I was not going to pick this up quickly.

In my heart, though, I thought maybe I would.

I did not.

After spending ten minutes or so trying to figure out what to do with my feet and stopping every time someone walked by so I didn’t face plant in front of them, I finally googled “how to ride a longboard” and watched a Youtube video where a girl who looked much cooler than me told me the possible positions to put my feet in. Apparently, the style I ride in is called “goofy” which is honestly the most appropriate term for how I’m sure I look wobbling at 0.2mph in my big blue helmet (I’m still a mom, y’all. Safety first.).

You guys. Turns out, I love longboarding.

It took me several attempts, but I (almost) have the hang of it now. I can go without falling, push to continue moving, twist my feet in the correct position, and even glide back and forth to avoid obstacles on the sidewalk. I am still by no means what you would call “good,” but I am much better than when I started. And I am having a blast learning.

Every couple of days, when Sam gets off work, I leave the babies with him and go ride for an hour on a trail near my house. I put in my headphones, step on my board, and just forget about the responsibilities of life for a while. I’m positive that I look like a huge dork, but I do feel pretty cool, and that’s really what counts, right?

I guess it can be nice to learn something new.