I’m getting tired of WIAW so I’m staging a protest. Peaceful protest. Not that I don’t want to see all your beautiful eats, but I’m just bored posting mine. How’s that for honesty?
Instead, let’s talk about music. I mentioned before that with the ups and downs of life, I turn to music. I know this isn’t an anomaly, but even though I tend to be very athletic on the surface, deep down I’m pretty darn artistic and I appreciate music on a whole other level. A song can make or break my day. It can make me cry on the spot. If a song I love comes on while I’m driving I’ll turn up the volume as loud as it will go and open the sunroof and windows, until it feels like I’m in a movie.
This song has been on repeat lately. Please listen to it. After keeping up with all of your lives I know that 99% of you can relate.
Which part of this song resonates with you the most?
Don’t be scared to walk alone. Don’t be scared to like it.
For as long as I can remember I was afraid to be by myself. I didn’t have a chance to get to know myself because I kept being propelled forward – the next grade in school, the next internship, the next job, the next weekend, the next plan. Today I’m living day to day. There are no weekends, there are no 9-5s, there are no Sunday night blues waiting for Monday morning to come. Every day I wake up, excited (seriously!), to get to know myself a little bit better. So even when it peeks its head into my life, as it always does, I love saying worry, why should I care, worry, get out of here.
Give your heart and change your mind – you’re allowed to do it
Not every life decision is final, and just because you change your mind doesn’t mean you failed. Wow do I think this notion isn’t promoted enough these days. I still have to put on 16 shirts before I know what I’m going to wear out – so how am I supposed to know my life plan today, my “identity” today? Aside from having no idea where my road is taking me, I know I’m being shaped by my everyday experiences. The Polish woman who I stop to help with her bags down the escalator at the train station, only to be trapped in a crazy ten-minute conversation with how she can see Jesus by the colors in the clouds. The barista at Starbucks who asked if I wanted to dance. The unexpected text from an old friend with no expectation, other than a little love. I love bonding with people,especially strangers. I’m giving my heart to my everyday experiences. I’m not trying to mold myself based on my job, my family, my relationship status, my looks, my religion, or any of that. I’m surrendering myself to those silly little moments and they are what I go to bed thinking about every night. It’s such a light way to live.
Know your fight is not with them
I came into this world alone and I’ll leave it alone. So my loyalty first and foremost needs to be myself. It’s not selfish. It took me awhile to realize this. It’s just the opposite – when I wake up each day ready to serve myself, I find myself acting in a more compassionate, empathetic, and friendly way. I’m kinder. Kindness is underrated.
I think I was getting to the point where I was actually seeing how long I could go without blogging. Over the past 1.5 weeks I’ve snapped photos of my meals, documented workouts, and thought “Oh, that’d be fun to write about!” But I never. actually. wrote. Little did I know I actually have some people who look forward to my posts so I got feedback just short of “do we need to call the police? Where’d you go?” That was pretty funny!
My life has done a complete 180 in the past week. Okay, that’s a tad dramatic. But I had a hard week. I’m going to choose not to elaborate, but it was one of those weeks where my character was tested. Like anyone else, I’m a human being. A human being who makes mistakes and has bad weeks. It took me almost seven whole days to forgive myself for mistakes I’ve made recently and to make the conscious decision to go back to the person who I really am, but I did it. Do you ever have that eye-opening moment where you realize you’ve been acting a certain way that you thought was just fine, but in that one moment your eyes are opened and you realize you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror? It was one of those weeks. A week of personal reflection.
Speaking of that, do you know what’s the worst? When you’re so upset that you feel like you’re going to be sick for days, and you keep asking yourself, when is this going to get better? What can I do to make this better? And you realize that you have no control. The only thing that can make certain situations better is time. That’s the worst. I’m the kind of person who, when I have a problem, in order to make the “uncomfortable”, the “sad”, the “anxiousness” end, I try to control the speed of recovery. Unfortunately life doesn’t work like a math equation. Sometimes you just have to let your emotions play out and then, when you least expect it, you move on.
It’s been a really long time since I’ve been that disappointed in myself. Usually I have it all together and I’m fairly proud of the person I am. I still am…I’m not sure what I’m saying. All I know is this time last week I was eating one meal a day, spending my free time curled up on the couch, and I didn’t work out once. I was just sad about where my life was at, how I’d gotten there, and where I was going.
Today I’m all back to normal. Like the snap of my fingers I forgave myself and moved on. I’m at my new job, the weather is in the 50s and 60s (holla!) and I’m still surrounded by everyone I love. And do you know what I did to fix everything that went wrong last week? Absolutely nothing. I just let time happen.
I’ll be back this weekend with a “normal” blog post. Let’s just pretend this little hiatus didn’t even happen 🙂
So catch me up on your lives, friends. And listen to this beautiful song. Because it’s Friday.
i had a big lunch 