I swear, I always find myself procrastinating starting these off.
I’ll know the day I’m writing and think about it, but instead of starting, I’ll work on other things I don’t need to be doing.
It’s productive things, but not the thing I need to be starting.
I find it always takes me around 15-20 minutes in to writing a post before I figure out where the hell it’s going.
I never know where my words will take me when I start, but I know they’ll figure it out along the way.
Even this introduction feels like a distraction to what I’m actually going to write about.
I will say though, it has been a week.
One of those weeks where you don’t end up sleeping much and being at work for way too many hours.
It’s strange though.
I’ve been enjoying it. I look forward to getting up and not knowing what I’m going to get in to.
I know the outline and destination of my days, but everything in between is up for grabs.
Work has been picking up lately with the seasons changing. The rate of vaccinations in Maryland has been coasting for the past month so with newly-vaxxed people and nice weather, restaurants are thriving.
When I lost my old serving job last year, I really didn’t think I’d go back into the industry. It felt nice to have a job with hourly again and being able to predict my checks. It felt secure.
I had fun with my old co-workers but in my mind, I’d never be able to match that energy again. Half of the reason I enjoyed my old job so much was the people. I didn’t want to get to know a whole new group of people and do a job I had already done.
It’s been so fucking fun though.
I’m at a place with my new serving job where I love where I am and the people are some of the best people I’ve met in this area. I feel corny as hell saying that, but it’s true. We always think some of the best years of our life are over and then, without us even realizing it, we’re in a new phase of life we enjoy.
Life sneaks up on you that way.
You never really know where the decisions you make along the way lead you. We’re acting on chance and what we think will improve our lives.
We always hope for a certain outcome, but you can’t predict it all.
Sometimes the decisions we make lead us to an outcome we didn’t see coming at all.
The past two months have changed me in a lot of ways. I didn’t really see it unfolding at the time, but sitting here now, I see where the little choices I made led to where I am now.
The people I’ve interacted with, the shifts I’ve picked up, etc.
It’s all little things at the time, but end up changing the course of your life.
You end up being somewhere you weren’t supposed to be that day and suddenly, a life event occurs from that experience and you’re on a totally different wavelength.
I know this all sounds so vague, but I truly don’t know how else to explain it to a public blog.
Sometimes I can only say so much without laying out all of my business for the world to read.
It’s been a fine line over the years of knowing when to share and when not to.
It used to be easier when I only had myself. I was in a new town and I didn’t have anyone to vent to. Writing became my little safe haven where I felt like I had people in my corner. It felt like talking things out with a group of friends.
So, the more people enter my life, the harder it becomes to decipher what is appropriate to speak about. I never want to tread on others toe’s or be the person who can’t keep a single thing to herself.
I know this about myself though. I’m a born over-sharer.
It’s funny.
I’ll go through something where I tell myself I can’t tell a soul. I need to keep it just for me. I tell myself there’s no reason to share this piece of information on my life.
It’s my own business so it’s not that I can’t share it, but I tell myself that not everyone needs to know everything about me.
Then, I’ll share it. I have this undying urge to tell someone. I’ll keep the secret all day and be proud, but then I convince myself it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. I let it out anyway.
When it is other people’s shit, I can keep it until the end of time. It’s not my story.
I think this is why I started writing. I had so much inside of me that I didn’t know where to put.
I had things to share with no one to hear them. I used this blog as my outlet.
So, it’s weird now when I do have people to share things with. The blog feels like more of an update/life lesson chat rather than a diary.
Sometimes I forget just how public my writings are. Any soul could read them at any time.
It makes it fun though. I’ve received so many random messages over the years from people I would’ve never expected to read it.
I spent a lot of this week looking through old childhood totes.
From elementary school work to random notes I passed my friends in high school, so much lived in those boxes. I even found my old iPods.
Moments like that put you in a different perspective.
I took them all out of my room today and looking around to where I am now hits different.
I was such a shy kid who didn’t know how to express herself. Now, I look around my room full of the things I love and I’m sitting here writing a public blog post to whoever may read it.
I’ve come so far since that little girl and it only makes me more excited to see where I am years down the line.
I’ve been having nights recently where I get down on myself.
I’ll get in my head over the choices I’m making or judging myself for having late nights out. I’ll tell myself I used to be such a put together, healthy 21 year old. Sounds like a weird statement since that’s when people tend to let loose, but I spent so much of my late teens and early twenties on self-improvement.
I never used to drink, wrote often, and read a shit ton of books. I was fully engulfed in my own growth.
Now, I’ll be out with friends until early hours of the morning. I’ll sleep late. I eat a lot more processed food.
Thing is though, these are memories I’m going to look back on.
Just like those childhood totes, I’ll look back on my twenties through photos. I’ll look back through random souvenirs I collect. I’ll look back on the friendships I created. I’m building my life up by living it now, not trying to do everything perfectly.
In 2017, I used to wake up at 3am and not get home until 8pm that night. I’d do my journal and meditate in the mornings before work and go to a spin class after work. It was all very scheduled and put together. I thought I was doing everything right when I wasn’t.
I spent so much time focused on myself that I completely blocked out the outside world. I wasn’t making plans with others. My phone was dry daily.
I used all of my time to be the perfect person without letting the world see it.
Now, I’ll think I’m being too social or not taking enough time for me.
It only shows me that I’m never going to be satisfied with either extreme, so I might as well just live my life.
I can be someone who likes to go out whilst also being someone who uses a day off to write and read. The two can co-exist with each other without me thinking I’m doing both wrong.
We’re always going to believe we can be better or do better. It’s a great thing to want to improve your life.
However, we can’t live for improvement. We can’t live every single day thinking the person we were yesterday was worse off.
We’re here to live and experience all of what life offers us. We’re not here to perfect the experience.
Some nights you may think you’re not taking care of yourself by drinking or being up late. This is totally fine – the next day you hydrate and work on some things just for you.
The real question is, did you have fun the night before?
If you had a good time, all of the little things about missing some sleep or feeling hungover make it worth it. We never have the same day twice.
I have to remind myself that in life, balance exists.
You can order takeout or drink one night whilst also meditating and eating clean the next day.
It’s when we think we have to pick a side that we end up in a never-ending shame spiral. We judge ourselves for not ‘doing the right things’ when we always have a reason for the choices we make.
Last weekend, I had a late night before a double shift the next day. I knew going in to this night that I would be sacrificing sleep.
It ended up being such a fun night though.
I struggled a bit the next day, sure, but I had such a great night that I didn’t care.
It’s remembering when you shame yourself that you had very real reasons behind the choices you made.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself recently.
I swear, when life is going good, we always try to find a reason to hate it. It doesn’t feel right for some reason to just be enjoying your time.
There’s probably a whole tangent I could go in to there, but long story short, enjoy the good times while you have them.
There’s plenty of times in life where we’ll believe everything is going wrong so when the universe gives you good things, now is the time to cherish.
The world will always be in motion and things will change over time.
Don’t let your head get in the way of where you are right now.
Whether we realize it or not, there’s at least one thing in our lives we’re going to miss years down the line.
Don’t let the moment pass through you without seeing it.
❤️❤️