Isn’t quarantine the best time to restart that blog?

The first blog I wrote started in oh 2014 I think? I decided to make a list of activities I would do and post them on the internet to keep myself accountable. Even as I type this I feel like a cliche. Like Sarah Jessica Parker in “Sex in the City” or Amy Adams in Julie & Julia.

But I do miss writing. And specifically this blog type of writing. Somewhere between a journal and a piece. It’s not quite a journal, because I know that other people will read it. And it’s not quite a piece–the personal essay or poem–I’ve been writing lately, because there’s less pressure. Because I don’t think it has to be this meaningful, awe-inspiring thing. This is just me musing, with a little bit more of a point than I might have otherwise.

So what can you expect if you see this post?

1. Very inconsistent posting.
2. Probably some recipes (and definitely a ranked list of the cookies I’ve made in quarantine so far).
3. Me digging up some old archived posts I never actually published (get real excited for these you guys).
4. And mostly some random musings that cross my mind at 9PM on a Monday.

Stick around!

Friday was my birthday.

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen this post.

My friend the other day said when she saw it, she thought about the horoscope descriptions we’d been reading and my apparent Leo-ness.

I got defensive. I always do when I feel I am being judged. Even though I love being a Leo. Probably because I’ve never quite agreed with Leo descriptions aligning with who I am (full charts, anyone? my moon’s in Saggitarius). Probably because, though I was proud of myself for making that post, I also hesitated for a moment. Wondered if it was too much.

~                  ~                  ~

Three years ago, when I turned 26, things looked really different. I was in a relationship with a partner that had lots of good qualities (and some bad). I was much closer to my family. I didn’t have nearly three years of the most productive therapy of my life under my belt.

Three years ago, I decided I wanted to test my friends to see who really truly cared about me. This is a mindset I had a lot back in the day. It still pops out now and again. I used to have some inexplicable desire to get into a major accident or get hugely injured so I could see who would show up. I wanted to know that people cared about me and I needed proof.

So three years ago, I decided to test my friends and I did a social media blackout for a month. The month of my birthday. I deactivated my Facebook. That thing that many of us relied on to remind us people’s birthdays.

A lot of people forgot my birthday that year. I cried a lot on my birthday that year. I got frustrated with how my birthday lunch with my family went that year (a lot of drama that had nothing to do with me). I had a wonderful wonderful birthday dinner with my partner. A dinner I planned and booked after weeks of hemming and hawing about being chill and seeing what will happen. He bought me a pair of earrings and a movie he’d introduced me to that I love.

I saw that I was allowed to ask for and even plan what I wanted for my birthday. And that it didn’t minimize its feeling good that somebody else guessed what I wanted.

Since then, on my birthday, I’ve still had a hunger for someone else to guess what it is that I want. To take the reins and plan a birthday celebration that would magically be exactly it. And every year I would be in therapy at some point leading up to my birthday and tell my lovely therapist how scared I was that it wouldn’t be what I wanted. I’d say that I was putting too much pressure on my birthday and that I needed to lower my expectations.

Her response would be, “what do you want to do on your birthday?”

And I’d say, “I don’t know.” I genuinely didn’t.

And she’d say, “well, figure it out and make it happen.”

So effing simple.

I wish I could break down for all of you, for myself, what creates a person that thinks the way I used to. It’s a thing I don’t fully understand yet. But in saying this to me, it was like she gave me permission to create the birthday of my dreams for myself. So I did.

Two years ago: I invited five friends to dinner at a slightly fancier Cajun restaurant (hands down, my favorite cuisine).

One year ago: I spent a day collecting free Portland food, I had brunch with my parents at a place I’d been wanting to try for years (southern comfort food), and went on a kayaking trip with five lovely people.

This year: I got my Portland freebies and had a potluck dinner barbecue with a larger group of friends. Also brunch made by a lovely friend and a pool party-ish.

~                  ~                  ~

This year was softer. This year, I had less of a plan. I had a lot going on at work. I had a lot going on outside of work. I just couldn’t get my brain to think ahead (which is so so weird and out of character for me). But I had an idea. An outline. Things I did know. I knew I wanted to be surrounded by friends. So I made that happen. And I trusted that it would turn out OK if not EXACTLY what I had in mind.

It was an interesting middle ground between expecting everyone else to guess what I wanted and making what I wanted happen. I collaborated and shared the work. I told people what I knew I wanted and what I wasn’t so sure about, or had no preference on. It was trust. And it paid off.

I was surrounded by amazing people all throughout my birthday. I felt loved and appreciated and cared for and seen. And isn’t that what I was looking for all along? Isn’t it what most of us want?

So this year on my birthday, I didn’t get rid of Facebook and put my friends through a test they didn’t know they were taking. I let them know–hey, I’m here. This is what makes me feel loved on this day. And they came out in droves. And telling them what I wanted didn’t make it feel any less good when they gave it to me.

So tell people what you want. It’ll increase the odds of your getting it significantly.

 

It’s happened twice now. This being overtaken by an urge to dance around weirdly and fiercely and jokingly and laughingly and lovingly.

It’s happened twice over the course of two days.

This weightless joy emanating from my heart through my toothy smile. Through my flailing limbs.

It’s happened at work and at play. And when things that scare me are going well. When I am taking a risk and trying something new and putting myself out there and following this pull that I can’t necessarily define.

Love, maybe.

I tore down an old life, piece by piece, decision by decision over the course of years. I tore down an old life and it didn’t bring me joy. The tearing didn’t bring me joy. It brought me peace and sadness and fear and loneliness.

And freedom, definitely.

The tearing down made room for new things. It made it so that out of sheer inertia I couldn’t just keep doing what I had been doing because it was gone. The tearing down made it so the risk was taken and the canvas was freshly painted with a coat of white.

A fresh start.

And now, after a year of not tearing. After a year of building and creating and honing and finding and loving and fighting and crying and living and falling and crashing and wondering and fearing, I am being overtaken by an urge dance around weirdly and fiercely and jokingly and laughingly and lovingly.

Twice over the course of two days.

I am surrounded by people who love me and are proud of me and show up for me and support me in my weird and wild pursuits. People who do not dismiss what I am doing because it is unfamiliar to them or weird or not what they had in mind for me. People who instead ask questions and wonder and show up and tell me when they need more or different from me. People who also take risks and tear down and seek new and dance around weirdly and fiercely and jokingly and laughingly and lovingly.

I am surrounded because I sought them.

I am surrounded because I got so lost and tired and desperate that I tore. And after I tore, I built.

I hate this feeling. This suspicion, anxiety. This despair–why is the universe doing this to me? This self-centeredness–as if the universe has time to do anything to me.

I wonder, what will I get out of this? What will I learn this time? What did I miss last time that this is happening again? Did I miss anything? Or will this always happen again? What is the right way, the best way to deal with this? How do I move forward?

I wonder, will I ever feel secure in any of my relationships–friendships, family, romance? It feels like I inherently trust no one. It feels like I lose trust more easily than others even when I do manage to gain it.

I want to be an open book. Instead, I sit at home and cry alone a lot. I still feel embarrassed to cry in front of people. Or I still feel the room shift when I do. I still feel (most of) them stiffen with discomfort, not knowing what to do or say to make it stop. All I want is that they stay present with me in the sadness. In the fear. That they let me cry. That they not want it to stop.

I want to be an open book and when a friend asks how I’m doing I lie because I’m confused about why she’s here and why I’m with these people when I thought I would be with other people.

I lie even though I don’t want to. Even though I’ve been an open book with all these people before. But none of them have gotten it right. And is that fair to them? Is that even true?

Some of you may be thinking get over this, you’re lying to them by choice, and I only wish it could be so simple. I wish I could just choose the other thing. Sometimes I can. But not always.

I wonder what happened to me to make me this way? Was it decades ago or just a couple of years? I cannot think of a single thing that warrants my feeling this broken and anxious and suspicious of the people I’ve chosen to have in my life.

It feels like a mystery. A puzzle I have to solve. Because when I solve it maybe all of this will stop.

I feel like that’s naive. A hopeful tale to get me through this.

ok.

pizza week was epic.

I ate 13 slices of pizza over five days (yikes).

I learned my body likes pizza but it also appreciates some veggies.

~                 ~                ~

Today I was telling my therapist about some stuff at work and she asked my if I had to leave the kiddos when they had feelings because it implies that their feelings are too much to deal with. And it just brought up a lot of things.

I think I’ve always considered myself a feeling person. I cry a lot. I laugh a lot. But the truth is, I know there are a lot of feelings I am not tapping. I have a lot of feelings. And I guess some part of me still thinks that those feelings are too much. I tend to spread them out among my support system. But after I share something with someone, I feel some need to be the fun friend for a while. I push the pause button on sharing in that relationship for a while.

I do not know how to convince these kiddos or myself that feeling isn’t bad. That having a lot of feelings is just having a lot of feelings. That it’s ok. That there is nothing wrong with them for feeling so much. That there is nothing wrong with them for acting out when they have big feelings that they don’t know how to deal with.

Work has been really hard. And that makes everything else really hard. And my feelings have been really hard and that makes everything else really hard.

And that is ok. They are just feelings.

It is ok that it’s hard right now.