People that need help don’t ask for it

I’ll never explicitly say I need help. But I’ve been begging for help for as long as I can remember. It’s the bailing on plans, the “honest” excuses, the social media stories, the lack of communication, and the distancing of myself from my once closest friends.

The thing you don’t count on while making these silent cries for help is that the people you’re calling to don’t care enough to hear you. They don’t consider that you’re actually not okay. They make excuses and place blame and welcome the distance. And you’re left. Now alone. Dealing with the same unwavering battles.

Blink.

I am on yet another downward spiral and at the core of it all is time.

I feel like time is slipping through my fingers like quicksand and every time I try to stop and hold it in my palm, I am shaken by just how much I have lost. I am 26 years old. It seems like a week ago I was dancing on tables and falling down driveways in college. I blinked and all my friends are married homeowners and I’m still… alone.

My biggest fear growing up has come painfully true. I am alone. I have no husband. Or boyfriend. No prospect of a family. It’s just me, alone in my apartment with my two cats.

Growing up I felt like I’d use my early 20s for fun. 24 I’d meet the love of my life. 26 I’d be married. And by 28 I’d begin to start my family.

Funny how plans work. Nothing in my life has gone according to plan. I keep reminding myself I have all the time in the world, but I see how quickly time can go. And my biggest fear now is that I’ll blink. And 26 will become 56. Or 86. And I still won’t be where I want to be. And I still won’t have found happiness.

Nightmare in America

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade I can’t help but think of all of the women quietly affected by this.

It’s just incredibly sad to me to think of all the scared women out there who now have yet another obstacle to overcome. When I got my abortion, the process was easy and reassuring. I felt safe and secure in my decision and it was handled as a priority- taken care of in less than two weeks. Had I been forced to carry my baby to term, both the baby and I would have faced financial hardship and unnecessary stress that could’ve resulted in physical and mental defects. I would’ve been forced into a lifestyle I was nowhere near ready for and that baby would have been sentenced to life with an unprepared mother. I did the best thing for me by having the abortion and I mourn for the women who have lost that ease of access to something that is necessary.

Breaking the cycle.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything.

I have recently felt very trapped in a mundane cycle. I am living in a place that does not feel like home— close enough to see the people I love but far enough to feel very alone. My job is exhausting, my second job is exhausting, and life is just draining me.

I do very little for joy. I see my friends, I work, and I “relax”- which involves laying on my couch, napping, and overeating. But I have abandoned all passions.

I have been in this slump since before the pandemic but the pandemic has really brought this issue to the surface for me. I’ve noticed it more than ever before. I have no plan or pathway for the future. I don’t even see a vision of myself in five years.

I attribute this lack of motivation and drive to my depression, which has worsened so badly in the past year and a half. I was in a relationship where I was so unhappy and turning into a version of myself I didn’t recognize because the fear of being alone during a pandemic was so excruciating that my dead-end relationship seemed like the better option. My friends stopped checking in as much. My depression was so bad I could barely move some days. On top of all of that, I was trying to teach first grade in a pandemic— and feeling inadequate every step of the way.

I finally feel like I’m climbing out of my slump. I’m starting to look at and envision plans for my immediate future— where to next, what to do next, who to involve. I feel a little better about myself and what I have to pour into the world, whereas for a while I felt I had nothing to offer.

Here’s to a fresh new year (starting in May oops) and finding the best version of myself one step at a time.

Awake

Well everyone, summer is over and Monday morning (at 5:30am) I will be waking up to go back to school.

This has been such an incredible summer, but I miss routine. I have allowed myself to fall out of all routines that I followed throughout the school year. In some aspects this has been good, but my body and apartment are ready to get back to regular meals and cleanings.

I had three months to lose weight, read novels, find and love myself, and get tan by the pool. You want to know which of those things I accomplished? Not a single one.

I slept in till 10 or 11 most days, watched A LOT of Netflix, and ate out so many times my bank should be sending me to the doctor. But I didn’t stress, I didn’t have to work, and I got to truly take a much needed (bit too long) break.

After this summer of unwinding, I can officially say that I am ready for school and excited to start another great year!

Reality.

Wow it’s been forever since I’ve written but I’m feeling inspired to share.

I have spent the past 6 months tied up in a back and forth with a guy who continuously put me on the back burner and used empty promises to keep me around.

He would bail on plans and ignore texts, only to resurface when he wanted a hookup that would end in empty “I’ll work on it”s.

I did a lot of bluffing. Saying I was done and was blocking him, only to allow him to slide back into my inbox weeks later with a “let me make it up to you”.

After six months I have come to two realizations: I only allowed this because I feared I was incapable of finding something else and also I am absolutely dispensable to him. And I am not the type of person that should allow herself to be dispensable to anyone.

He never took the time to get to know me, so how could he possibly know what an absolute gem he could’ve had? Instead of blaming myself( like normal), I’m blaming him and pitying him for letting this one slip through his fingers.

Finding someone who actually values and appreciates me will be worth the wait. In the meantime, I’ll be working on that self-love thing I’m always talking about.

Hot Cup of Coffee

Good morning readers,

After a week from absolute HELL, I was able to lay in my bed and relax until 10 this morning and oh my god it felt so good. I woke up, made breakfast, and now I’m going to clean my apartment. I love weekends like this where my biggest responsibilities are to my self.

Life is so crazy busy and we need to take time for ourselves before we get lost in the hustle. If you have weekends off, take the whole weekend for you every once in a while. They only come every five days. If you’re like me, those five days can feel like a marathon.

I’m not sure if I’ve said this before, but I teach. Kindergarten. So, my days are long and exhausting, then I usually go out and see friends on the weekend. Granted, this is just as important for my mental health. However, I occasionally need the whole weekend, or at least 2/3 of it to recover. That means just me, my couch, and a book or Netflix.

This past summer I worked full time as a server in a local restaurant. I had one, maybe two days off a week. And every single time, I would plan things for my day off. After about a month of doing this, I felt absolutely crazy. I needed a break and I refused to let myself have it because I felt like there was so many more important things I had to do. That’s where this bottom line comes in: you are the most important thing in your life.

You have to be selfish with your time, especially when you have so little. You have to put your needs above anyone else because, at the end of the day, they’re going to do the same. If you don’t take care of yourself, a little at a time, you’re going to have to do so much work for your health in the end.

I’m slowly learning to be selfish with my time and listen to my needs. If I don’t, who will?

Saturday night

Welp, it happened again. I fell for another egotistical, immature boy disguised as a man who “wanted to get to know me”.

This type of boy was so common in college that I forgot to look for any other type. However, I’m almost a year out of college and they keep showing up in my post-grad life. This Saturday night, I was stood up by a boy I had thought about for weeks. And looking back, all those thoughts were fantasy.

He held no substance. We didn’t share interests. He was just a copy and paste version of every other man on twitter. Nothing made him stand out other than the fact that, for two seconds, he pretended to be interested in getting to know me. That’s when that stupid cliche quote comes into play: “We accept the love we think we deserve”.

I hate to always bring everything back to self-love, but c’mon. Why else would I let a man who makes memes in his spare time and refuses to use punctuation ruin my Saturday night? Deep down, I know I deserve better but I was so quick to settle for the first man to show interest in me. If one of my friends told me about him, I’d tell her she was crazy and needed to immediately block him.

But that’s the whole point. We allow so many more things when it comes to ourselves than we would with a friend. I would never let my friends be talked to or treated the way that I, so often, allow myself to be treated. I talk to myself harsher than I would ever speak to my friends. I criticize myself more than I’d ever criticize my friends. And that’s what it all boils down to, I have to become my own friend so that I can treat myself like a friend. I should be the absolute love of my own life. I should be kind and gentle with myself, allow error and encourage growth. It’s all part of the journey and it’s all dependent on the other parts. In order to achieve self-love, I have to nurture the body I’m in and the soul I hold. I have to live a healthy life and find passions in life. Only after I have achieved self-love will I be able to experience outward love. How can I spread something that I lack?

This journey isn’t a quick, Tinder fix. It’s going to take some time and I won’t be able to comfortably and successfully be with anyone until I can comfortably and successfully be with myself.

What does healthy look like?

Let me begin this post with a little back story.

I have ALWAYS hated my body. I have absolutely no memory of ever loving or even liking my body. I remember being chunky in elementary school and wishing I looked like other girls. I remember comparing myself to my two best friends in middle school and joking about how “fat” we were. I remember crying in my room alone in high school because I wasn’t skinny like the popular girls. Here’s the kicker though, I was never actually overweight.

Now I am freshly out of college, working my first real job and guess what. I STILL hate my body. Only, now I actually am overweight.

The problem isn’t my weight though. It’s my mindset. It’s always been my mindset. Surrounded by magazine covers, and TV specials, and Instagram posts of impossible standards like Kylie Jenner and Gigi Hadid, I have always felt like I cannot possibly amount to beautiful. How can I, with my squishy tummy and stretch marks, be beautiful like these women? And that is where the problem lies. Beauty is not one size. It is not one color, it is not one gender, it is not one person over another. Beauty truly does not discriminate. It’s we who do that.

It takes a lot to retrain a brain that has been hellbent on hating its body for a whole lifetime, but I sure can try. It is realizing that MY healthy might not be a size 2 with lip injections and a fat ass. It is realizing that MY healthy will not look like my best friend’s. It is no longer comparing myself to and hating every beautiful woman that I pass. It is celebrating differences in body type, despite what society has trained me to do my entire life.

So, today I strive to be healthy. I will work harder to love the body I have, while putting good things into it. I will work hard to reach my goals and I will do what makes me happy. If that results in weight loss, great. If it results in me finally being happy, even better.