had you forgotten about these? me too (kind of.)
let’s see how much we remember and when we’re at with stuff… I’m hoping this is a new baseline and that I can start getting back on track with stuff next month (but something awful has gone down every month so far so I’m not suuuuuper hopeful).
create a writing routine. as is obvious by the fact that I didn’t exactly blog for, oh, two months, this is totally something I haven’t been doing. I particularly have struggled with starting my dissertation as my life’s been falling apart over the past almost eight weeks. BUT, better times are in sight—I actually worked on chapter one of my dissertation tonight and should have a draft of it sent to my chair by EOB tomorrow, and I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo next month with my student teacher and our students. I’ve also been a lot more active on here over the past week and I’m hoping to continue posting at least once a week moving forward… we’ll see!
be responsible with money. this has been… a total mess. the madness of the past eight weeks required some unexpected spending in the form of flights and a lawyer’s retainer—so, several thousand dollars later, I had to sort of rethink my financial goals for the year. that said, I’ve officially paid off another credit account, I’m current on everything, and I’ve been true to my work of rethinking my relationship with my possessions and going through my closet/drawers/bookshelves with some KonMari magic. spending time going through memories and choosing to cleanse my space has actually been really healing… and I’m looking forward to sharing some more information about The Unfuckening™️—aka my big apartment makeover—as soon as it’s done in a couple of weeks.
(recurring cw for the THIRD goal: mentions/discussions of mental health [specifically anxiety, bipolar depression, ADHD], psychotropic medications, weight loss, food/nutrient/calorie tracking. if any of these could be remotely upsetting, please take care of yourself and skip that whole section! to make it easier to know what’s where, I’ve tagged mental and physical health in bold italics.)
make better health choices. oh, man. my mental health feels like it’s being propped up by toothpicks half the time right now… and my coping skills are getting a hell of a workout. I’m wading through a lot of grief right now—sometimes with anger in the undertow—and trying not to get tangled in the anxiety. because of that, I’m working really hard on being patient with myself, being transparent about where I am, and taking it one day at a time. having The Unfuckening™️ and some writing projects to focus on is definitely helping! (and, of course, God bless Adderall and Zoom and my amazing therapist.)
as for my physical health… it would not be an exaggeration to say that it’s a bit of a clusterfuck right now. I recently had a neuro appointment where I was prescribed a hell of a regimen to deal with my constant migraines—medication, physical therapy, more tests, acupuncture, massage therapy, you name it!—and my rheumatologist also expressed some concern so we’re doing some more testing before diagnosis. I also had a COVID-19 scare due to potential tertiary contact, but my self-quarantine is over and I never presented any symptoms, so at least there’s that. and, of course, I haven’t been making the best food or workout decisions because things have been so awful that I’ve had no emotional energy to do it… but I’m hoping to turns things around next week so I can have a good birthday month!
unplug from social media on Shabbat. this is the one thing that I’ve actually been good about over the past few weeks… the AppBlocker definitely helps, but I’ve also been trying to do more stuff offline on Saturdays anyway (unless it’s a video game kind of day). my hope is that I’m going to keep focusing on doing offline things on Shabbat—reading, embroidering, playing board games, hanging out with the cat—so that I can really get an unplugged experience and keep resting.
start a nighttime routine to wind down (at 10PM). this has also been a mess on several different levels. I think one of the problems is that, in my bullet journal and in my mind, I bundled a bunch of important things into this nighttime routine idea—so, when I haven’t had enough emotional energy to do all of it, I haven’t done any of it. moving forward, I’m going to break this into its component parts in the bujo and set some boundaries around how to complete those tasks. part of The Unfuckening™️ is also about reclaiming my bedroom as a sanctuary for myself—and having a dedicated space to do my EOD reflection and journaling will help me feel centered in the space and keep up with that part of the routine. as it is, even when I update several days’ worth of information at a time, my bullet journal has been an invaluable source of information for my therapist and myself, so I really want to recommit to doing it properly.
whew, okay, how’s that for an update? here’s to hoping these get shorter so I can actually keep up with them. 🙂
until my next post!
elle's confessional 