Sending all sortsa love and well wishes to all who need 'em.

Hi
I hope you're good
And already asleep
And proud of all that you accomplished
(even if it was just getting through it)
And feeling confident in getting through tomorrow, too
(even if there are breakdowns and miscommunications and tests of patience)
And I hope you remember that one funny time
And that other time, too
And and and
Sleep tight, my love.

Gotta remember this day.

• Straight-from-the-ground-rhubarb
• Mud squishing between toes
• Pokes from cacti and thistle and yucca 
• Being barreled over by a mastiff puppy covered in swamp water
• Persian/oolong/rose tea in a teacup made for mustaches
• Ladybugs that sit contentedly in your palm for miles and miles
• 20 minutes in Persian time equals roughly 2 hours, but no one gets mad.
• Hand holding/bird calling/dandelion blowing/puddle jumping
• Eyes lighting up with chocolate covered honeycomb
• Voice cracking shy singing
• Sitting between a banjo and a sitar

Haphapyhappy.

Today's List of Great, Wonderful, Happy Things

I keep a nightly journal of the good stuff that happens each day and I thought today's was good enough to share with the world.

1. Annie's gluten free, single-serving, microwavable mac n' cheese.
2. Recognizing the comical side of things when Annie's gluten free, single-serving, microwavable mac n' cheese blows up in the microwave. 
3. Diving into a pile of warm laundry.
4. The simple joy of getting to go outside during class to use a sound level meter for measuring traffic noise and leaf crunching.
5. Discovered a creepy basement meditation class full of old ladies and a monk who looks uncannily like an ex-boyfriend (it turned out to be AWESOME and I'm going back every Monday)
1. Tonight's lesson: staying alert to where our minds wander and setting intentions for the day.
6. Learned that buying soda at Zoe's Cafe includes UNLIMITED REFILLS. You know what that means? I can comfortably sit in that goddamn cafe all goddamn day for $2 and not feel guilty about it. 
7. Discovered the band Phox and cannot stop listening.

Today's list is shorter than usual, but each item packs a bigger punch than usual. Today was a great, happy day. Here's a toast to more great, happy days to come. *raises bowl of soggy, half-cooked mac n' cheese*

Loving-Kindness

I've been dabbling in the world of meditation on and off for a while, but I've recently gotten more serious about it. (And by serious, I mean I try to fit it in a few times a week and I still find myself either dropping off to sleep or completely unable to calm everything going on in my head. But. It's something.)

Within the past couple months, some intense anxiety became a more prominent thing in my life and I've found two things that best quell that monster: restorative yoga and mindful meditation.

Tonight, I tried out a kind of meditation someone strongly recommended for me: loving-kindness meditation, or metta meditation. Its purpose is to bring warmth and goodwill into your life by repeating mantras such as "may I be well, may I be loved" (etc) and directing them towards yourself, loved ones, strangers, and people you may not like so much. Before sending out warmth and well-wishes to others, you must first practice appreciating yourself.

...That's when things went unexpectedly wonky, right at the beginning. The guided meditation youtube video had me put my hands over my heart and tell myself, "May you be well. May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be loved." This immediately made me cry and the video seemed to know exactly what was going on because that random recorded voice encouraged me to feel whatever I happened to feel, even if it was unexpected.

I've been so intent on being gentle with myself and trying to be encouraging with myself, but I think I've been going about it wrong. I'm still not sure exactly the right way to go about it, but loving-kindness meditation is definitely a step in the right direction.

Workin' on it.

In case you wanted to try it out and maybe have yourself a little cry-fest, this is the video I used, and also the first one I clicked on. There are probably better ones, but this'll do fo' now.

Be Gentle with Yourself.

"Here are some things to remember when you are feeling like the world is going to explode: Take such gentle care of yourself, please. Listen to your body and not your brain as much as you can. Make yourself lots of tea and tuck yourself in at night like you are a tiny, fragile baby. Remember that you will not always feel like this and that you are not alone. I am here for you and there is lots of love for you in lots of places."

-Eliza Spalding (on overwhelming anxiety, grad school, and general shittiness)

...This resonated so deeply with me. Two weeks after receiving this bit of advice, I've made leaps and bounds of progress in learning to be gentle with myself and how to listen to what my body needs in the present moment. I'm so grateful to have a friend who has also been through the ringer and always has words of encouragement. Although these words were meant for me, I think they're important for everyone to read. Take what you will from it.  

OVERWHELMED

I haven't blogged in years. And by years, I mean it FEELS like years and is, in fact, an entirely different year since my last post. Hi, 2015. You have come in with a bang and here it is February and I'm still feeling the reverb. It's been a roller coaster of a month, both good and bad. But that's a whole 'notha blog post in itself.

So. I just finished week 4 of the new semester and week 5 is when things start blowing up. Two exams and a presentation. One of those exams is about electricity and alternating/direct signals and how voltage effects resistance effects current, etc etc etc i don't care etc etc. There's SO MUCH cramming to do this weekend and I'm overwhelmed with how little time I have to study. But then I started thinking about it and realized that I don't have time to study because of all the amazing things going on. One of my New Year's resolutions was to put self care at the top of the priority list, and that's exactly what I'm doing. But maybe I'm overdoing it? Nah.

A friend and I are making cookies tonight, there's birthday brunch to be had on Sunday, I wanna spend at least one of these weekend days hiking somewhere big and beautiful, there's the pink wine and trashy tv date that definitely cannot be given up for study time, I bought tickets to not one, but TWO concerts (Brett Dennen and St. Paul & the Broken Bones, two of my favorite artists), and there's a new Jodi Picoult novel in my backpack whispering at me to curl up in a coffee shop with a cappuccino and read until the morning light runs out.

THERE'S SO MUCH TO DO. I'M OVERWHELMED WITH WEEKEND AMBITION. 

So here's my plan: I'm gonna do everything. I'm going to enjoy the birthday weekend and fit study time in when I can. I have faith that what needs to get done will get done because I'm not one to let things go.

The rise and fall of the bikini confidence

Today was an anomaly and then a disaster.

Last night, I started packing to go home/packing for Thailand and I tried on my bathing suit from this past summer. It was tighter than I remembered (thank you so much, grad school stress!). I felt icky in it and, honestly, a bit devastated that in such a short time I had outgrown my suit.

This morning, I woke up, felt GREAT about my body and decided to run with it and go find a new bathing suit. I was instantly reminded of one of my favorite tweets by Paula Pell:

I headed straight to Target, the enchanting place that does not exist in Vermont and will therefore be forever exciting for me. Once there, I beelined for the bathing suits (blindsiding my peripherals so I didn't get distracted and buy the whole store like I usually do). Picked out a bunch, hit the dressing rooms, and BOOM. One trip to the fitting room and 15 minutes later, I FOUND A BATHING SUIT I LOVE. It's a dark purple two-piece that made me feel awesome. I spent $40 on it, which is almost a week's worth of groceries, but I can justify that if I'm going to feel like a beach goddess. And do y'all know how rare it is for me (and every other woman I know) to actually want to go bathing suit shopping? And do you know how rare it is to actually find a good bathing suit without having to store-hop to 5 different places? And do you know how many trips back and forth from the fitting rooms it takes before you finally find "the one?" Today was actually a miracle. A Christmas miracle.

But then this evening, a friend of mine posted a picture from her vacation and her abs made my jaw drop. My earlier self confidence plummeted and it felt like I was falling alllllll the way back to square one in my body acceptance journey.

And that's what it's like, folks. Body acceptance is hard. It's hard to look at someone else and not compare yourself to them. It's hard to maintain your self-love when your perceived flaws are sometimes what you see first. It's a constant battle to appreciate my body the way it is instead of hating it for what it is not.

I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow or the next day and be back to feeling like a beach goddess, so I'm not really at square one and I'm not worried about staying stuck here. It's an ebb and flow. But goddamn. I can't wait until the day I can desensitize to things like this.