Once more I found myself uncertain of what I wanted to write about this week, and I still don’t think I have a full grasp on it yet, but we’ll try it out and see how far we go. I’ve been thinking a lot about self-worth and self-image and before you tune me out and say “this ain’t a self-help blog,” I know. And I know I’ve talked about this kind of stuff before on this blog, but I gotta just put my thoughts down here.
It’s an interesting thing nowadays, where we have the socialization on the internet. Complete strangers read what I write and sometimes click a button showing they enjoyed what I had to say. “Back in my day,” I say like I’m wise enough to, we didn’t have the luxury of tucking ourselves behind a digital screen to consider ourselves social. It might be a leap to call social media “socializing,” but I’ve witnessed friends end friendships on Facebook over something someone said, and that’s just as real life as anything else. Sure, it may not be fisticuffs in the parking lot after work or anything, but the way people take certain things seriously online these days is wild to me.
I guess that’s where I question why I do this blog. I appreciate that I have a goal to maintain it and keep it going because it’s very much for me more than it is for anything else. I do appreciate those of you who read this and continue to read it, but I don’t know. I’m not quitting, just pondering the efficacy of such a life. Where validation has become external and internalizing that sounds like a foreign concept.
I’ve always thought I had a deep self hatred–which I do–but it’s not every day that I think I’m garbage. It’s only when something I perceive as significant happens that I tend to spiral into a thought loop of hate and “you’re not worth the effort.” Now, let me clarify by what I mean when I say something I perceive as significant, because there have been times where I’ve felt something pretty powerful about the way I’ve been treated, and the person (or persons) who did the thing to me don’t see it the way I do. A wise friend of mine once told me to make sure I was telling the right story to myself to see if how I was reacting was accurate or if it was what I thought I should be feeling. Because of that, I’ve grown a lot in my perception of how I respond to things.
But what I’m talking about, the significant thing, I mean something like a personal failure. I’ve been trying to get in the habit of regularly walking/jogging with one of my best friends after work (our parking lot allows for such a side quest), and my gut reaction most of the time is “another day,” or “next week will be better.” I posted about the book The Power of Habit on here recently, and one of the things the author brings up as a key force in changing habit is the power of belief in that change. I go into full panic mode when change happens. I don’t do well with it, not even slightly. Even if it’s positive. The reason being is I don’t have the core belief that I am capable of being who I want to be.
Do you know how heartbreaking that is to realize? My niece, who’s 2 1/2 ish years old, adores me and she knows I am so full of love for her. She doesn’t know how little I care about myself. Mainly because that part of me doesn’t exist when I’m around her. She deserves the best the world can give her.
But so do I. I’m not good at this. Where I confront myself and try to see a way around the problem until I can fix it properly. Because it bubbles up and turns into days where my throat hurts because I’ve been holding back tears. Self pity is one thing, but knowing the way you feel about yourself isn’t good is a completely different thing. It gets tricky when you try to change that because if you’re like me, you have almost two decades of practice throwing yourself to the proverbial wolves and hoping you make it out the other side. I know I’ve said this before, but I don’t tell people that mental illness gets better, because it doesn’t really. You find ways to carry it differently, so your neural patterns go a different way when certain things happen. The change bit there is almost subconsciously done because we tend to shy away from discomfort.
I’m not sure if this all makes sense, or even if it flows well. I don’t think I’ve said all I wanted to, but I don’t know how to express that at the moment. This weekend I’m being gentle with myself and telling myself it’s okay to skip mowing the lawn because the bees need the clover. I hope you’re well, and I hope you have a pleasant weekend. You are worthy of good things, and it’s not a problem if you take time for yourself.
This week we’re doing something a bit scary for me. I don’t often share my writing publicly because it’s often something I consider too personal. Good approach if I want to get published one day, huh? Anyway, this is a piece I’ve worked on off and on for a little while. It’s about death and the afterlife, so if that is something you find troublesome, please skip this post. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy it.
A dry hacking sound tore through the house. From under the covers on a crumbling bed, a papery hand reached for the glass on the table, fingers trembling on its smooth, cool surface. Empty. Frederic knew it was, but with everything, he’d forgotten. He coughed again. A fit overtook him and if he could have crawled to the bathroom to spit the blood, he would have. Sunken with age, his chest heaved as he tried to get a full breath of air. The coughing died to a steady wheeze with each shallow pass.
Something clattered on the stairs. Fear froze his stomach. He cried out, a pathetic, weak sound, and covered his face.
Someone burst into the room, shattering the warped wood of the frame. A woman with matted and tangled black hair staggered in. Paler than a sun bleached mouse skull. Her coat, an army green thing, shredded to her elbows with strips of mangy fabric dangling as she searched the room. She dug into the pocket of her khaki colored trousers, a small notebook in her hand. She flipped through it as she studied the room, nodding to herself. Her eyes landed on the lump on the bed.
At first, Frederic thought she was there to rob him. She certainly looked the part. No shoes. Tear stains left salt crusted trails down her cheeks through the dried muck smeared on her skin. He watched her as closely as his tired eyes would let him. A quiet beep made her check her wrist. She looked at him, her eyes suddenly clear, a bright green piercing him with kindness. She smiled and the fear left him.
“Will you open the curtains?” Frederic gestured to the window. His voice cracked like dry leaves on a sidewalk. “The curtains.”
She shook her head. When she spoke in English, his shoulders seemed to sink into the mattress further. Her eyes closed and she tipped her head back, as though trying to remember.
“Je suis desole,” she said, her accent marring the fluidity of his language.
He nodded and pointed, the weight of his arm almost crushing his chest. “Please.”
She went to the window and waved at the heavy fabric. “Oui?”
He nodded once more. She pulled one side over, and then the other. A sigh deflated him.
“It has been three days since I’ve seen them, the stars.” He tucked his hand under his cheek and smiled, his watery blue eyes bright. Tears slipped over his nose, but he didn’t bother to wipe them. “I have not seen–“
She sat on the bed by his knees as he wept what was left of his tears. The sound of his dying filled the silence. No death rattle, simply weary breathing. The woman remained on the edge of the bed for a while after he inhaled one last time.
She wasn’t ready for the next part. She never was. With a shuddering sigh, she shook herself from her head to her toes and cracked her knuckles. The soul was in there, waiting. She could feel it radiating from just below his ribs. Not quite the stomach, but just above it.
“Let’s get you home,” she whispered and stroked his cheek.
Her body trembled as she looked into the ceiling, her eyes going completely white. Offering a quick word of what could have been a prayer, her form shifted into an ethereal translucence, making her look almost dead herself. She plunged her fist into his chest. If she’d been solid, she’d have snapped his ribs. But she didn’t need a body for this.
One more deep breath and a hard yank. She held his soul, its tendrils spilling over the palm of her hand, trying to fill the body below once more. She gently folded it together and eased it into her satchel. She touched his forehead, a sad smile on her cheeks. His eyes remained open. He’d been without the stars long enough.
—
The woman, Gabriel, clambered down the stairs, her form solid again. She made sure to leave the door open, something she always did for those like Frederic. Pausing, she looked back up at the bedroom window. She blew him a kiss as she backed out of the front gate, past the delphinium and hyacinths, the tall wild grass choking the fence. She sent one more kiss his way, and waited, her hand at her throat, as though she could stop the weeping behind her teeth. She wiped her nose on her dirty sleeve and stepped off the curb in front of the bus speeding toward the city.
It caught her as it always did and she swung herself up onto the roof. Flattening against the cold metal, she let herself become translucent once more, part of the heat emanating from the warm bus inside. A shimmer passing by. She held her satchel closer, remembering the man she held. Hoping they’d find him soon.
Fifteen minutes later, she let herself slip from the rooftop and land on her feet beside a bus stop. She plopped herself down on the bench and sighed as she rubbed her eyes. Getting back to the underworld wasn’t the difficult part, but she always hated the sensation of leaving behind part of herself every time. A few deep breaths later, she clenched her fists and gave over to the pull all souls feel from the beyond.
It dropped her at the entrance, similar to the way grand hotels looked from the inside, the afterlife’s way of giving the departed a peaceful sendoff. She pushed open the door and stepped onto the street. The hazy gray light bounced off of empty, dilapidated buildings. Her feet knew the way, and she let herself get lost in her thoughts as she made her way to her final destination.
She loved them, those creatures she carried. They represented the good of the world she’d left behind all those years ago. Her task to give the souls their last bit of love before they rejoined the stars in the underworld sky made it less challenging. Often she’d be whisked from place to place, though. Too many died alone, and she couldn’t let that happen.
But she found them. All the same. She found them at each and every bedside, each broken bridge, the crumbled stairs in buildings long abandoned. They wandered without someone to hold them in, those souls, never straying too far, however, from their bodies. Just in case.
Gabriel knew she had the job no one else wanted. It was most difficult on a day with suicides, car accidents, and stillborns. But she treasured those souls a little more. Carried them in special paper she’d designed from the sea kelp to keep them from getting crushed by the others in her bag. Some of the gatherers didn’t like souls. Found them too alien. Smoke monsters, she’d heard them called. But there was nothing monstrous about them.
They all mattered. Every single one of them. Who else would show them a final act of kindness before they left? Certainly, she was lonely. No one talked to her much after they learned how long she’d been assigned to this task, how she asked to be left on it. The veterans accused her of enjoying the death. The loss of life.
It was quite the contrary, of course. Gabriel felt the life in each soul she emancipated from its husk. The joy. The sorrow. The anguish, the moments of love—all of it. Purer than the way a baby smiled at her mother for the first time.
The smell of salt made her lift her head. She turned down a side street and kept going even past the brick wall blocking off what lay beyond it. Special privilege for gatherers and all. She pushed through a heavy gate, the rusted hinge finally cracking off—salt water made short work of that. No one came here. Not anymore. The monocrhome waves of the TV static left bitter aftertastes in their mouths.
She sat slowly at the edge of the water, a grimace smudging her face as she scooted closer to the sea. It hurled itself at her.
It knew of her prize.
“I know, I know,” she said, petting it like a cat. She opened her satchel and pulled out the soul. Shaped like a dome, it wobbled in her palms, going dull in the black and white of the shore. All souls did. She blew on it a little, the tendrils floating when she stopped.
The sea waited. She lowered her cupped hands into it. As soon as Frederic’s soul touched the static, millions of others lit up the sea all the way to the horizon. A low hum resonated in her chest as he drifted away, the water like seltzer on her toes. She smiled.
If your bones be heavy things, lay yourself down at my feet. I will bring you safely home, wherever it may be.
Click-bait title aside, this week I feel like talking about something a bit different. I love music at the same level I love reading, and while I don’t have the time (and you probably don’t have the desire) to go into every single song or piece that’s influenced me, I’m going to give a small rundown of some of the music that’s made a difference in my life. These are in no particular order, and a link to the full album will be given at the end of the post if I can find a playlist on YouTube.
Phobia by Breaking Benjamin
This album was my main writing music back when I was first working on Fulcrum and for a while the song “Breath” was one of the main character’s theme, but that’s since changed to “King Rat” by Modest Mouse. One of the big reasons I love this album is how each song can be applied to some memory I have of a feeling during some of the harder parts of my life. My favorite song is a tie between “Had Enough,” “Dance with the Devil,” and “Unknown Soldier.”
This Time Around by Hanson
Of course, whenever I say I’m a fan of Hanson, everyone always goes, “ohhh, the Mmmbop boys!” And yes, them, but the rest of their music is ridiculously fantastic. They’ve never once broken up or taken a hiatus. They make music constantly and have one of the biggest fan bases ever. I’ve been to a few of their concerts and each were some good times. They know how to play to the crowd, and they are talented musicians as well as singers. I have Zac Hanson’s autograph on my wall, and it’s one of my prized possessions. I love this album because while Middle of Nowhere showcased their lyrical talent (shut up, listen to them and tell me those are solid lyrics), This Time Around is where they really start to get into the harmonies that don’t sound sort of tinny. They are all incredible singers, with Taylor and Zac usually taking the lead vocals. Zac’s my favorite. (Side note, there’s a video of me at a concert where Zac took his hair down and you can hear me in the background going, “oh my god, Zac took his hair down. Zac took his hair down!” I was not a teenager…)
Hail to the Thief by Radiohead
I don’t remember how long ago it was I first heard Radiohead, but this album was the beginning of my “I’ll binge an album for several days” obsession with music. It’s my favorite of the albums, and it has some really smooth sounds on it. When I get into music, I tend to listen to the sound first and then the lyrics, which is a big factor for one of the later collections on this list. I found myself drawn to the weird sound Radiohead produced. Thom Yorke has a distinctive voice, and their songs all tend to have a “well that’s different” quality to them. None of that is a bad thing to me. My favorite songs are “Sail to the Moon,” “There, There,” and “A Wolf at the Door.”
Radiohead is the first band I really listened to when I wanted to branch out of my standard, more conservative stuff. I say that, and the next album is definitely not conservative, but here it is.
Meteora by Linkin Park
I always feel cheap and cheesy when I get emotional over a celebrity’s passing, but with Chester, it was really hard. This album got me through some of my roughest times. I felt like someone understood what I was going through (and I know that sounds like all the angst ridden teenager stuff it is). When you’re in the thick of it, hearing someone say out loud in words you never could what your head is like 24/7 is pretty powerful. I feel like people shit on Linkin Park for the way their sound changed, but as someone who’s been a fan since their first album, personally I loved hearing their growth. Each album was something new, which is a rarity I feel these days because most of the music sounds the same. I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy, but there’s a reason why I have no idea who most of the major artists of the 2010s are. When I hear songs like “Breaking the Habit,” or “From the Inside,” or “Nobody’s Listening,” I get that feeling of safety I had when I listened to the album on my Walkman on the bus ride home, full volume so people knew I was that mysterious girl who had intense feelings (I’ve always been self aware, don’t worry). And then “Session” is just fantastic in its sound production.
Leaders of the Free World by Elbow
If you want to talk about hearing the sound and then feeling the lyrics later, this album 100% is that for me. All of the songs on this sound so good, and then you listen to the lyrics and suddenly you’re transported to feelings you weren’t sure you knew how to feel. I first heard of Elbow after coming across a playlist by an author (I won’t mention names, but if you were ever a teenage girl who thought you needed love from a sparkly vampire, you know where I’m coming from and we can all move on), and I decided the whole album sounded fairly decent. I listened to it for years before I paid attention to what they were singing, and while that may sound ridiculous, I still can’t hear the right words to Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” (Few times I’ve been around that track so it’s after school to have a midnight snack). So yes, the lyrics are spectacular. My favorites are “Forget Myself,” “Everthere,” and “Great Expectations.”
Hilary Hahn Plays Bach by… Hilary Hahn
The amount of times I’ve listened to this album in particular is immeasurable. I am not a fan of Bach normally, but the way Ms. Hahn infuses emotion into her playing turns this otherwise dull (to me!) composer into someone worth listening to. I met her once, and cried in front of her because I can’t deal with social situations with goddesses, but she signed my copy of her CD and it’s now something I listen to most Saturdays when I need to feel at peace. I don’t have a favorite from this album because the whole thing is such a wonderful experience.
Ofnir by Heilung
Talk about out of left field, huh? This is a recent listen for me. The album itself has been around since 2015, but I didn’t hear it until earlier this year while I was stuck on Fulcrum. This is 100% a favorite because of the sounds. Heilung is described as “sounds from the northern European Iron Age and Viking period.” (from their bandcamp page) I don’t remember what song I heard first, but I ended up buying this and their other album Futha the next paycheck I got. Since then, I’ve listened to them both on repeat nonstop for most of my work days and it’s been motivating as well as centering. Such an odd feeling that chants and guttural droning can get me grounded. But I fully recommend them if you’d like something new.
These Four Walls by We Were Promised Jetpacks
Another one chosen for sound first, lyrics later, this band is raucous but stupidly pleasant. They have a lot of repetitious lines and that normally gets annoying to me, but they make it work. I don’t remember where I first heard them, but it was probably on a Pandora radio station back in the day. I have most of their discography, and they keep producing seriously good music. Their name is also one of the best band names out there. I’d say more, but really it deserves a listen. My favorite songs are “Conductor,” “Quiet Little Voices,” and “An Almighty Thud.” Go listen. You might like it.
Noah Gundersen
This is the part of the post where we dive into categories because I can’t just give one album. Starting this off is Noah Gundersen. I’d say I’m in love with him, but I’m not really. I just appreciate his work and his sound is what my head feels like most days. I love what he creates. I’ve been listening to him since some of his earlier albums like Ledges and Family, but he has a whole wealth of fantastic music to listen to. His very early work is more of a folk/indie sound, and his later sound is heavier with more drum and electric sounds. The evolution of his style has been delightful to witness. He works very hard to promote local music and he’s very much a socially conscious artist, part of why I appreciate what he does. He is humble, and he is so appreciative of his fans. I went to a concert of his for the first time a few years ago and it was on the same emotional level as the day my niece was born. I am still speechless to this day about it and it was in 2019. He hugged me after I gushed about how much I loved his work and also babbled about the book I was reading (because I am incapable of being normal), and then during the concert I forgot how to breathe a few times because he is just incredible. Some of my favorite songs of his are “The Sound,” “Little Cup,” “The Ocean,” “The Difference,” “Time Moves Quickly,” “The First Defeat,” and the last one I’ll give for now is “Oh, Death.”
And this brings us to the final category: Classical. This is already a super long post so I’ll try to keep this part short, but bear with me. I grew up getting the best of both music worlds because my dad was more into the rock ‘n roll and my mom was more classically inclined. I got stuff like the Beatles, the Who, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, all the classic rock from my dad. And from my mom I got Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and so on. I wasn’t too big on the earlier eras, like baroque, but once the Romantic composers kicked in, well. There is something indescribable about the way it feels to hear swells of an orchestra during an emotional moment in a piece. Cello solos where you feel like you’re being swept into a river of sound, violin piercing the parts of you that don’t want to remember things, but now you must. It’s enough to make me feel ridiculous, clearly. My first love is the piano, and one of my goals this year is to be better about practicing. It’s hard to focus, but habits can change. So for this category, I’m leaving a YouTube playlist of my favorites. Notable mentions: Elgar’s Nimrod variation, Liszt’s Un Sospiro, and La Campanella, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (Movements 1-3 in particular, also the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky but that’s not on the playlist), Debussy’s Clair de Lune (absolutely a classic), and a few others.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I hope you’ve been able to relax and that maybe you’ve found some new music to listen to. Below are YouTube links to the albums above, and a playlist of my favorite classical pieces (links open in a new tab). Until next time, friends!
I don’t know how to begin this. I did have an opening that was pretty funny and clever, but honestly, I don’t feel like being funny right now. I feel like being real. Something that is lacking in today’s world a lot. With all the pressure to be on trend, be good at TikTok or whatever social media is poppin’ at the moment, and be more than what we are, I would like to be who I am and say I don’t know how to say what I want to. So, I’m going to type and see if something good comes of it.
For a while I was avoiding the Netflix show Bridgerton, because while I do find myself enjoying those types of period dramas, it looked like it was too bubblegum for me. Too pastel. I base my standard of enjoyment on the 2005 Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley, if that tells you anything about me. I judged myself hardcore for watching all of the first season in a night (I had insomnia, might as well, right?). But then I watched it again because I was captivated by Rege-Jean Page’s performance as the Duke of Hastings. Not because he’s visually stunning (well, yes, that) but because his acting was remarkable. The way he conveyed subtlety is something I don’t think can ever be taught in an acting class, and each time it took my breath away. I truly believed he loved Daphne.
I did not have the same childhood Simon did, but I do know the weight of pressure, and the weight of personal promises. I won’t go into it too far because I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s a scene that kind of stuck me right in the middle of my biggest insecurity. I didn’t even know it existed until I saw it so plainly on his face. After a confusing moment with Daphne where she says some pretty intense and rather hurtful things, Simon reaches out to her and says:
“You said I was enough!”
The desperation and pleading in his face, the absolute betrayal of what he thought was love was like a lightning bolt from my head to my toes. I wanted to throw up when I realized. I actually had a small breakdown because it hit me so hard, and I was so embarrassed that it was such a “bubblegum” show that caused me to have this incredibly powerful realization about myself.
I’ve always said my biggest fear is losing my family. And it’s still pretty high up there on the list, along with snakes and spiders, but in terms of metaphysical fear, I am afraid of not being good enough at love to keep it if I have it. When I have feelings for someone, and I mean real feelings with intent (not my ridiculous attraction to Henry Cavill), I tend to become obsessive about it. I throw myself into being the best me I can be and watch the other person to make sure I’m doing what they like and I either tone it down or raise the level depending. It’s not the same as changing myself, because I’m still me, just reducing or elevating the qualities the person of my affection seems to approve of, or disapprove. I never realized it was a fear of losing them.
But there seems to be a bit in all of us, a bit that hides behind the curtains of jokes and trending videos. The part we reach for when we’re drunk with self-pity–for good reason because here we are on a Saturday night talking to the internet. Life is so full, and yet so empty all the same.
I don’t define myself by a relationship. But should the day come, I want to be exactly what someone needs. As Simon puts it, “From the mornings you ease, to the evenings you quiet, to the dreams you inhabit, my thoughts of you never end.” I’m not interested in being someone’s everything, which might seem like a contradiction to what I’ve said above, but hear me out. I’ve been very good at being alone for a very long time, and I’d need time to be away, but I want to be home for someone. I want to be the smile that catches someone off guard. The reason for inappropriate laughter. The distraction in a work meeting because of an intense conversation the night before about something in a book we’ve both read.
I can be the most compassionate, the brightest, creative, kind, generous, whatever positive label you want to put on me, but if I do not feel it in my bones, I will never agree that I am worth it. I never want to see doubt in another person’s face, a person I’ve trusted to love me. I think that would shatter me. It’s a lot to take in, and this has been very personal. Some might wonder why I’m being so open and personal on the internet where everything is forever, but it’s because feeling like this is not new. And it is not limited to me. We should be able to talk about our deepest insecurities and not feel judged for them.
So, where does that leave us for today? I don’t know. I don’t know why I chose the title of this piece to be what it is, but the phrase stuck with me, so I’m keeping it. I guess my final thought would be don’t get so caught up in thinking you’re the worst when really you could be the best to someone. Hiding behind our self-doubt and loathing only sharpens that knife of self-betrayal, and one day will leave us bitter and empty. The emptiness I feel now is nothing to the emptiness I know exists within bitterness, and I do my best to stay above that.
This isn’t a happy blog post, and I won’t apologize for it. If you do have someone you love, I wish you joy and contentment in your love. I wish for you to soar with each other and be the brightness the other needs in the weird, wild world we have these days.
Keep smiling. Keep loving. You are, as always, enough.
I had every intention of making this post about why I haven’t been blogging, but I mean come on. There’s a pandemic and it’s thrown everyone into a tailspin and we’re all just doing our best. I don’t know if I can say I’m doing my best, but I’m certainly trying to.
So, what are we going to talk about? I don’t really know. I wanted to be all poetic and beautifully worded, but I’m tired. I’m very tired. Maybe more tired than I’ve been before, and I know it’s deeper than because the world has felt like it’s been ending. My depression manifests itself with unwashed dishes and unfolded laundry. I finally got my kitchen cleaned and organized this weekend and it felt impossible the entire time.
It’s not a lack of motivation. It’s more an attempt to pull an elephant out of a watermelon and you only have dental floss. We hear so many times of people losing their battles with depression and anxiety and all kind of other mental illness, but what about the people fighting? Daily striving to feel something other than a crushing weight of indescribable heft just hanging from our teeth. Our chests are tight from holding in ourselves. We can’t be too emotional, we can’t show we feel, so we hold it in, and we hold it tight because no one wants to know we’re struggling.
A lot of people are saying it’s okay not to be okay, and that’s true, but the caveat is you do something about it once you realize you’re not. Self care isn’t always soft and gentle like those romanticized posts making the rounds on Instagram and Tumblr make it out to be. Yeah, it can be those small moments, but real self care, the deeper self care is ugly. It’s having moments where you tell yourself that enough is enough and you wash your dishes. You take a shower. You brush your teeth. The smallest things have the biggest significance. You fight back for yourself. You fight hard to beat back the voice that tells you you’re a failure. Because you’re not. You’re doing your best and that’s enough. You are enough.
We are stronger than what our demons call us. We can make it through this and more. I shouldn’t be here, but I am because there is some part of me that is determined to prove myself wrong. I don’t ever tell people it gets better, because it hasn’t so far for me, but it gets easier to hoist on my shoulders and carry it.
You are worth it. You are valued and you are loved most fiercely. Hold on to those words until they fit into the bits of you that are broken because you are beautiful and the world needs you.
All righty. So, it’s now February. If you participated in Veganuary, I hope you feel successful! If you had some slip ups, that’s okay. You’re doing great! I know it’s hard to feel successful after a slip up, believe me. But the important thing to remember is to keep going. Persistence creates the habit.
My version of Veganuary inspired me to continue the decision to go plant based through the month of February. As I participated in this month, I discovered a few things about myself. I might repeat a few things from previous posts, so please bear with me.
Plant based eating is expensive if you purchase prepackaged, highly processed foods.
This one is kind of a no-brainer. Prices per ounce on whole food ingredients when they’re fresh, frozen, or canned is significantly cheaper than the overly processed, prepackaged foods. Not only are they cheaper, you also pay for your sodium intake as a lot of those products up the salt content to make it more “flavorful.”
It’s up to the individual consumer what compromises are to be made because if you’re like me and appreciate convenience, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying these products.
One of my favorite things about purchasing fresh, whole ingredients is being able to take the time and make them taste good with my personal preferences. I might not like the way a macaroni and “cheese” tastes out of a box, but if I can recreate a facsimile of it with whole ingredients, then I’d much rather do that.
I think going forward, my goal will be to definitely stick to more whole foods as much as I can. I rediscovered a love of lentils, and my adorable mother (who went a little upset when I told her I wasn’t eating dairy anymore) went through her cookbooks and recipe collections to find me recipes to help out in a way she knew how.
Making mistakes during a goal is not the end of a goal. It’s the middle of your progress.
Over the course of the month, I did end up eating some dairy products, if by accident or on purpose, but I never once felt bad about it. It’s incredibly important to keep a positive mindset when trying to change a part of your life, because negativity is so easy to fall back into.
I used to be on Instagram, and I followed a fitness person there, which was a different thing for me as I’m not into fitness at all, but she had a day where she discussed what she ate over the weekend. She mentioned that she’d gone to a party for a friend’s birthday and made the choice to eat a cupcake. It was her reaction to eating it that stuck with me, because it wasn’t a positive experience for her. She took it as a slip up, a poor choice.
I’m not saying there aren’t bad choices, because I don’t need to eat macaroni and cheese all the time, but I do. I know, what is it with me and macaroni and cheese? Well, I couldn’t tell you, hah. The point is don’t get caught up on the days you don’t meet your goals. It’s all in how you react to the situation.
I decided I wasn’t giving up dairy and eggs, but I was choosing not to eat them any more. The difference in those statements is one is a loss, and the other is exactly what I said, a choice. Losing makes it harder to accept, choosing is a step forward. The times I ate dairy — at a friend’s birthday party, as part of my partner’s Taco Bell, or inadvertently in a batch of hash browns at a restaurant — didn’t mean I’d completely failed myself. It meant I could just keep going the next day toward the goal I set out to achieve.
People will always have their own opinion on what you’re eating. It’s up to you to ignore it and do what works best for you.
I think the biggest problem I have with veganism is how judgmental some of the community is. For something that seems so wholesome and inviting for everyone, there’s quite a few people who make little comments to those around them that just doesn’t make it a friendly environment. It’s an important thing to me to remember that not everyone has the privilege I do to go plant based, whether for family reasons, for religious reasons, or whatever. It’s not my place to judge someone for how much plastic they use, or how much “insert generic criticism” happens.
We don’t know everyone’s story. We only know our own. It’s up to us to make sure we continue to improve the goodness in the world not by aggressively going after those not like us, but by making changes in ourselves first so that maybe others see it and feel inspired.
I don’t know. I’m not an expert. This is all just a ramble, really, while I watch Forensic Files on Netflix. I was going to include a recipe in this blog post, but it’s really long, so I’m going to link to one of my favorite YouTube channels instead.
Pick Up Limes is a channel run by Sadia. She is an actual dietitian who happens to be plant based, and her channel is incredible. The amount of work she puts into her videos is impressive. She gives reasons for why foods work the way they do, and she provides recipes and printable pdf sheets on her blog to help you on your food journey. I love her professionalism and her ability to make learning about food interesting.
I hope you’re well, and I wish you well on your food way.
Today is my birthday. I love having an autumn birthday because I get to see the world at its finest, getting dressed for winter. As a present to myself, I usually like to go hiking in one of the state parks here in Indiana where I live, but this year I decided to do something different. I went camping by myself. I arrived in the park on Wednesday, the 24th, and left on Saturday, the 27th. Wednesday and Thursday were positively lovely. I spent most of the night I arrived setting up my camp and getting my dinner sorted. I made a tinfoil dinner, I dropped right on the embers of my fire. I had roasted potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and some seitan sausage I made the night before. I also added in some salt and pepper, and a seasoning blend of nutritional yeast, onion and garlic powder, and smoked paprika. It was quite delicious.
I usually like to go on these excursions with my brother and sister, but this time I felt the need to go by myself. There is something incredibly freeing in wandering by yourself in nature. It’s almost a spiritual act, but more for me it’s deeply centering. It brings me back to a place in myself I very rarely can find. I don’t work in a particularly straining job physically, but mentally it can be very debilitating at times. I’ve dealt with mental illness most of my life, so having added stress can make me feel kind of hollow and like I’m floating through my interactions with people I care about, as well as not giving my best effort at a job I’m really quite good at.
What I liked most about Clifty Falls was the depth of the canyons, and the sound of the wind in the trees. Obviously, the canyons here are not nearly as enormous as say, the Grand Canyon, but living in a mostly flat, cornfield-filled state is sort of discouraging. So, it was nice to be reminded that there are beautiful parts of my state. I think it’s important to find those beautiful things about where you live. My hometown is not exactly good for natural beauty, but there are some elements in it that are rather stunning. Sunsets can be quite remarkable during certain parts of the year.
Clifty Falls is certainly beautiful. I will say I prefer Turkey Run State Park, but I don’t regret going where I did. I went hiking on Thursday, and I was not disappointed. Well, I was about one thing, but I’ll go into that later. It was challenging. There was a moment where I had to stop to catch my breath–something more to do with how out of shape I am than anything–and I found myself staring out at an impressive vista of color, rock, and trees. The sun was peeking through the clouds at just the right moment, and I felt peace for the first time in almost a year.
One of the reasons I wanted to go by myself was so I could do a lot of thinking. Most of it pertained to the death of my friend, Henry. Henry died last September, and so it’d been about a year or so since he’d gone, and I hadn’t really confronted my grief about it. It’s hard to explain how much he meant to me, because even though I didn’t ever really meet him, we wrote each other letters and spoke daily for almost ten years. His loss is something I can’t think about for too long because it still devastates me a year later. I know that grief is something that everyone deals with in their own way and own time, but this feels like too much for me sometimes.
Being in the fresh air certainly helped me as I approached my grief. I often thought about writing to Henry, especially when the moon was out Wednesday night. He was very fond of the moon, and his nickname on forums was Moon. I have a tattoo with a quote from one of his favorite books, Desolation Angels by Kerouac, on my left arm. “The moon is a piece of me.” In this way, I felt I was able to keep part of Henry with me at all times. I didn’t end up writing anything, mostly because I was too busy trying to start fires in incredibly windy campgrounds.
I didn’t end up eating much on Friday, as it rained all day and my plan for oatmeal and a fire cooked pizza didn’t end up happening. Next time, if I go camping, I’ll bring more ready to eat foods. Not only was it raining, it was windy. I remembered to pack extra socks, but I completely forgot my peanut butter. Starting a fire was impossible on Friday, so I ate my last premade pb&j sandwich I’d brought for hiking, some granola bars, and then for dinner, I had some bread and butter because I didn’t have much else. Frustrated by the day of rain, I went to bed and tried to sleep. By this time, more people had arrived to the campground, so it was much noisier than the past two nights. It made sense, as it was one of the last good camping weekends. However, when I woke up, I heard more rain on the rain fly of my tent and decided to just pack up and go.
I was, of course, disappointed with not being able to finish out my trip on a high note, but what I got out of this was beyond worth it. I saw a beaver on my trek through the trees, almost slipped into a ravine–which is why I don’t recommend hiking by yourself–and I spoke to strangers along the pathways like one does in the middle of nowhere where no one knows your name. I took several rolls of film photographs, and I fell in love again with a small part of myself that enjoys the little things in life. That was a success for me. The bitter part of me got slightly miffed at the small boys yelling at the top of their lungs as they explored, but I reminded myself that children should be allowed to enjoy themselves without the censure of adults. Within reason, of course.
All in all, I say this trip was incredibly wonderful. I hope to post some recipes soon. I’ll try to be more diligent about food talks and fitness talks. I threw in a little for this post so it wouldn’t be completely irrelevant, hah.
I hope you are well. If you are struggling, please know that I believe in you to accomplish what you need to do today.
salisbury.fake 