100 Happy Days

“It’s Time To Trust My Instincts, Close My Eyes & Leap! It’s Time To Try Defying Gravity”: New Year, Old Challenges

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Today’s Mood Ingredients: Determined, Fearful, Obstinate, Risky, Adventurous.

Happy New Year! It’s taken me the past 10 days of January to decide if I was even going to make any resolutions this year. I, along with many of you I presume, am notorious for making a resolution & promptly forgetting it ever existed pretty much within the same week. This year I decided to “trick” myself. I’ve never broken a promise to someone, but I always shatter the ones I make to myself with some excuse or another. However, if challenged..by anyone, including myself..for better or worse, I rise to the occasion. Therefore, for 2018 I made those pesky little resolutions, but I’m going to take them as challenges & hopefully gain even more insight & clarity into what kind of a person I want to evolve into. So, here we go:

I. Anxiety: My very own version of a “Dark Lord” (you know I can’t go too long without an HP reference). This is my biggest struggle. I am plagued by this never-ending sense of abject terror when it comes to my family & them either being hurt or lost to me. My creative imagination (a bane & a boon, depending on when it acts up) goes from zero to catastrophe before I have any chance to try & make some sort of logical sense of any situation. The scenarios I’ve come up with in the midst of an anxiety attack are truly capable of earning quite a few creative writing prizes (or of getting me committed with a straitjacket, but I choose to see the positive – it’s new)! I’ve taken this challenge upon many times before, but this is the year that I’m finally truly fully focused on my mental health. Anxiety can be crippling, & my goal is to not only to keep it at bay this year, but to get a handle on this shitty thing once & for all. Goals: Write in a journal (not like Dear Diary, I like this boy), meditate more (Tibetan monks chanting playlist on YouTube, though!), think things through with a little more logic & actual thought (more Sudoku, less Word Search), & a little less death & destruction. I’m gonna be anxiety’s Avada Kedavra (sorry, last one).

II. Diet: Yeah, yeah, we all have this one. Mine is not to lose weight, it is to stop being internally toxic. Going to have to swap the daily Doritos & Taco Bell & never-ending pasta bowls for kale chips & quinoa this year so that my genetic tendency for “35-children-at-a-time bearing hips” does not come into fruition any time soon..or ever. Also cutting out liquor in 2018. I hate how it feels the day of, the day after, & I can’t be taking shots of anything that isn’t wheatgrass anymore. HOWEVER, touch my beer & lose a hand! 😛 Soda’s gone by the wayside & therefore my waistline is going to do the same. Goals: Meal prep (Can I pay someone to do this for me?), H20 toxicity (the new “chug chug chug!), & more green shit that isn’t a jalapeño pepper.

III: Friendships: This one is the hardest. I’ve spent my entire life being a Golden Girl (I prefer Sophia – sarcastic & scrappy) & in that, I’ve constantly gone out of my way to do/be the friend who will pull out all the stops for a friendship. My nickname is “Doormat,” & I’m way over being the base for muddy prints. I’m slowly learning to (& recommending to) remove toxic & “taker” friendships from my life. The energy it requires to keep people around just because you’ve been friends for years is taxing & unnecessary. I prefer a symbiotic relationship with the people that I spend my time & heart on (don’t be gross) & that doesn’t necessarily mean that I need to “get” something out of the other person, but someone else doing at least half of the advice-giving/taking interest is really the key to my healthy 2018 right now. Goals: “You may hate me but it ain’t no lie, baby, bye bye bye.”

IV: Relationships: A lot of the above, but maybe actually put time & effort into finding a long-term homie to hang with. Goals: Re-title my online dating app folder on my phone from “Painful” to something slightly more positive. 😛

V: Fear: Just face it. Look that beast in its beady little eyes & be my actual self before experiences & relationships & the darker parts of life dulled my innate fighting spirit. Goals: Do things that scare me (for me, that’s like not calling my mom the whole day or something). :O

VI: Creative Integrity: For all of the paths I’ve taken in my life, professionally or personally, I’ve always only had one true ambition; to be happy & content by living creatively. More than that, to extend my creativity outwards, rather than keeping it in its tiny bubble that no one else can experience but me. This is my year. This is the year that I post about something or say something to someone or articulate an idea & follow through. Not just think about it & “try” to do it & fail for whatever reason be it lack of time, support, or any other excuse. Uphold my creative integrity & see how far I can fly. Goals: Don’t talk about it, be about it.

VII: Positivity: Goes hand in hand with number 1. I’m a natural-born pessimist trying to transform into my brother. That sounds weirder than it is. He’s this ball of possibility & positivity, kind of like The Secret spit up all over him. I’m more like Eeyore meets Daria meets Chuckie (the Rugrats one, not the creepy psycho doll one) trying to be Olaf meets Happy dwarf meets Dory. I’m a true believer in you get what you put out into the universe, so I’m going to actively make it a point to do some drugs. JKJKJKJKKK..I’m going to actively make it a point to change my negative mindset so that I want to hang out with my mind more often. Goals: Think happy thoughts.

I truly have no idea how much of this I’ll be able to have success with, but if I don’t challenge myself now, then I know I’m going to become this old complacent lady with nothing to show for myself but mediocrity & that’s just a longtime fear that I’m not willing to realize. Wishing you all a kick ass 2018..full of lots of Netflix bingeing, granola eating, juice cleansing, booty shaking, fear facing, goal fulfilling insanity.

See ya on the flip side, y’all.

Today’s Interlude: 

“The Attitude of Gratitude”: A Phrase I Hate, A Feeling I Appreciate

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piglet_gratitude Today’s Mood Ingredients: Contemplative, Introspective, Grateful. Hi! It’s been a while. Life suddenly leaped out at me & bit me in the rear. However, in the time that pretty much everything was happening all at once, I did realize a few things. I live a pretty good life. It’s not perfect by any means (& obviously no one’s lives are), it’s absurdly stressful, I’m ridiculously worried 20/7 (which is a spectacular upwards movement from 26/7, congrats to me), I want to do 9 million things with the time to do only 30, and I get frustrated that all of the above is occurring. I do, however, have working (albeit mildly arthritic-sadly, not a joke) legs, mobile arms (wing span situation notwithstanding), a functioning brain (up for debate), and a plenitude of opportunity (which I abashedly admit to not taking advantage of enough).

Ok, so don’t close this blog yet! I promise it’s not a preachy post on how we should all be thankful for what we have (even though we should) & how what we have in this life is enough (even though it is). This is a post about how I realized that the words “average” & “normal” have two different meanings and depths with respect to my life. I was always the person who would get incredibly annoyed when people would tell me to think of those less fortunate than me when I was having a bad day. I mean..I am aware that there are people who have no food & no water & no families, & no one feels for them more than me & my over-empathetic self does, but sometimes, I just wanted to wallow in my own misery. COULD I LIVE!? Over time though, I realized that as much as my most terrifying fear was to be “normal” or “average” in the achievement sense, I have never been more grateful to be “average” & “normal” in the life sense. I have an immediate family of 11 that loves me unconditionally & whom I love obsessively back. I have amazing friends who have seen me through some morose times and some euphoric times. I have my health, my family (even through everything as of late) has theirs, we have a roof over our heads, we have food on our tables, and although we are wanting in many other ways, the most important thing is that we have a support system that people would literally kill for (seriously, they’ve creepily told me so). So although I want my business to succeed more, my dreams to be fulfilled more, my worries to be calmed more..I’m truly grateful that on my way to hopefully being able to realize all of those things, I have the ability and the resources that allow me to excel..& all I have to put in is the work.

If you follow this blog, you’ve heard me say this plenty of times, & I’m clearly still going through some form of PTSD from it, but I will never ever be more grateful to whomever, wherever, whatever, that my parents are still with me. To have my greatest fear nearly realized within a short span of 7 months, & to have us all restored to an almost normal (for us, anyway) level is something that I will never be able to express enough thanks for. And for better or for worse, that heavy emotional trauma was the catalyst for me to realize that I have enough. In fact, I have a lot.  In fact, I have the most.  I know I said this wouldn’t be a preachy post, but honestly, I just wanted you to keep reading because if a self-admitted, everyone-proclaimed pessimistic wallower can find a way to revel in all that she has, you guys can do it eeeaaasily! The point is, sometimes, shit is gonna suck. A lot. And sometimes, things are going to be so amazing, you can’t imagine them getting any better..& then they do. But if you want to get through the roller coaster labrynth & come out unscathed on the other side, find ways to be appreciative of the things you have, and even of the things that you don’t. A new perspective never hurt anybody!

**For those who want some ideas on how to get the ball rolling, check out these two links below which have helped me become less of a negative person.

8 Things To Remember When Everything Is Going Wrong

100 Happy Days

Today’s Interlude: Grateful by John Bucchino performed by Stephen Carr