Permission Granted

For many year I have stifled myself. I know I am not alone in this. The worst part, I (we) don't realize we are doing it. It's a curse of perfectionism, of living up to this movie screen montage of what life is "suppose" to look like. Well, I'm tired, and I want to feel joy instead of make sure it looks like I'm feeling joy. I'm giving myself permission to let go of perfectionism, and it looks just a little like this:

I hereby proclaim permission granted for the following:

To do what I feel I need to do in order to create a beautiful and fulfilling life. If that means saving one quarter and racking up a little bit of debt (on worthwhile, long term things) the next or vice versa then so be it. If it means leaving a decent man to chase an idea of something, fine.

To be exactly who I am... Apologize when it comes out a little too rough, but also know that grace is real and it happens to the best of us.

Leave a relationship that just isn't working. Work, friend, love, business deals, hair length (it can totally be a relationship), fashion trend...

Wear what I want to wear.

Leave a job if it feels really stifling (as long as I've done my part to communicate my needs and try to make it work).

Take a nap when my body is feeling tired, when the sun is shining in just right and my bed looks like a wonderland.

Speak up.

Eff up. It's going to happen. Push past my dear.

Love the crap out of shows like Pretty Little Liars and Hart of Dixie. Justify it by telling myself "at least it's not Desperate Housewives of ________________." Who cares.

Get excited, about anything. Chipmunks, they are exciting and cute and wonderful and we don't see them in Southern California, get excited about them. Get excited about caftans because Gala Darling looked like she had an awesome vacation in them and they look so airy and wonderful for the warmer months. Get excited about glitter or all black or Carmex chapstick in a tube instead of in a pot. I don't care. Permission granted, get excited.

Like trendy shit. Don't like trendy shit. Hate it and eventually be that b who comes around and likes it months and months later because she couldn't stand that everyone was talking about it at first. Be "wrong", change my mind, change it back. Love it, hate it... respect others ability to do the same.

Stop liking things I loved before if it just isn't feeling good anymore. Times change. It's okay.

Believe that the life I want is absolutely and totally possible. The pay I want is achievable and more than reasonable. The experiences I want to have are not unheard of. The places I want to go are easy to reach. The people that I want to meet exist. So on and so forth...

Believe that life is an ultimately positive experience.

Waste hours perusing beautiful blog posts and pinterest boards. If my work is done and I'm inspired (not envious) then have at it.

+++

Access Denied:
Self loathing, nit picking, unrealistic expectations. None of that is fun and even worse, none of that gets anything done. Nothing and everything in life is super serious. Keep going, you don't suck even when you do sucky things... do your best at what you want to do your best at.

xoxo

Grocery Cart

This morning I opened bloglovin before journaling gratitude. Normally that is a misstep, normally (or what I want to be normally) I drink water right after I wake (that really don't happen yet, but it's my new intention) and I either get dressed for the gym (mon, wed, fri) or I get some breakfast and sit down with my journal. I'm having a bit of a time figuring out the details exactly, balancing the variables and the expectations. I'm quick to jump in and demand the world of myself, but it doesn't stick. So I'm working on reasonable, small steps paired with routines to get me where I want to go.

That being said, this morning I did grab my breakfast, but not my water... hold on a sec, I need to drink some of that... and I opened bloglovin to quickly click "mark as read" on a post selling beautiful things (I am not in a place to think about wanting more) and then I was able to feast my mind upon Design For Mankind's post titled The Apple Slice. In, the Apple Slice DfM wrote (quite beautifully) about how sometimes we go to the grocery store hungry, or we show up to twitter, instagram, Facebook and Bloglovin when we are mentally fatigued, frustrated or filling unfulfilled. And similar to when we are at groceries stores with hungry bellies, we fill up our cart (or our mind) with slices of others lives that we want to have.

And your sunlit corner loft, the one by the fiddle leaf fig tree and the sheer curtains, book on lap, bustling city below? That looks pretty nice right now. I want that instead. I want to trade the truth I’ve arrived at ... for a single slice of your life that looks appealing when my eyes are glazed over and my heart is tired.
We know we’re not supposed to grocery shop when hungry. We know the result – a cart full of empty choices that make us salivate but will not nourish. And yet, we do this every day, right here. We blink at the screen, our thumbs scrolling down, down, down. Another sunset. Another macaroon. Another fiddle leaf fig tree.
We are starving, our hunger insatiable. And we mindlessly, accidentally, subconsciously fill our grocery carts – these beautiful minds – with empty choices that make us salivate but will not nourish.

It would be hard for me to say it better than she already did. So I thanked her. I thanked her because she put words to something I didn't fully realize I had been doing. She put words to what happens when we (I) look at these snapshots of other peoples' lives wondering how ours (mine) just doesn't match up or even seem to compete. Sometimes I look at my own feeds, mostly this space and instagram and wonder if others are scrolling through, wishing for my shared slice.

The truth is, and I'm sure many of us now know, everyone has their own problems, they have their own demons they are fighting, and if I were being more fair, there are so many instagram feeds I don't follow of peoples' lives I obviously don't want to trade. I set my grocery store up with only the finest of sweets and treats, and then go shopping hungry.

I'm not writing this to say that I'm going to delete instagram or take a hiatus for x number of days, weeks, months. I'm writing this to say that I want to start showing up to my instagram feed a little more full, and with more intention. As I scroll through feel gratitude for the pretty pictures, the snapshots and know that their context, while beautiful, is not nearly as easy as it seems. Know that the house behind the camera in the shot of a perfectly designed room could be in disarray, or it could not. Either would be fine. Because no matter how much I want and wish for those other slices of good, the not so awful and often times wonderful reality is that I'm here, in my own life.

Here's to showing up a little more full on the good things, or at the very least, a little more intentional. If I find myself on instagram feeling hungry and unfulfilled I want to remember to take a step back, to realize it's just a small slice, and to appreciate it for entertainment value. Then go back to filling up my own cart.

xoxo

The Slogging

While there are so many different reasons I have neglected this space is the past, lately it looks a little like this: my life doesn't feel that pretty and I don't want future/current employers/lovers/friends to know that I don't have it all figured out.

It was easier to post when I first got here and Nashville was new, things were exciting, the week to week routines hadn't set in. Nashville was playing it's best Prince Charming and I was along for the horse drawn carriage ride. I found two jobs that would hopefully pay the bills, keep me social and even have me doing a little of what I possibly wanted to be doing.

Here's the deal, horse drawn carriage rides are not smooth. In the beginning you don't notice because Prince Charming is right.there. and there are gorgeous horses in front of you and "look out the window!" (this is a fancy carriage) But soon your body starts to give little hints, and after a little while longer you wonder how long you're going to last on this ride. Prince Charming/Nashville is still right there, and we're still moving along (paying bills, meeting some people) but the bumps of rocks and pot holes in the road are taking a bit of a toll and now it's time to find a new ride.

What I mean by all that is: I'm constantly job hunting, job exploring, job perusing. I'm examining what roles and skills I've used before (secretarial, entry level customer service, administrative and personal assisting) and searching for bits and pieces of other skills that I have used that are just waiting to be realized and expanded upon. I'm wondering about how to get jobs that aren't what I've done before.

While I love the blogs I follow now, I would really love to read some in-the-middle, slogging it out, hard (but not bad) times before good stories. The ones that aren't pessimistic and woe is me, but are saying, hey, is anyone else feeling crushed and elated and confused and useless but sometimes powerful by the career contemplation? This is what I'm doing, this is how it's feeling... is anyone else out there also wading through this too?

Here's my truth future employers/lovers/friends. I'm slogging through some muddy, muddy mental waters and job descriptions. I'm facing some snakes (they one's saying "I can't possibly do _____"), my feet are trying to slip out from under me and my nose sometimes wrinkles at the smell (metaphorical... I take showers). The sun is shining, I'm not depressed, but sometimes my muscles become fatigued and I get shaky. Other times I find a bit of extra energy and I make a squelchy path forward. I'm wading through the "I don't want to apply for what I use to apply for, so what the heck now?" mud bogs.

It's slow. I don't know how I got to from the bumpy carriage to traipsing through the mud. Maybe I had to leave the carriage and wade through the mud to get to the car and the smoother road. I'm not really sure at this point. That's definitely what I'm hoping. Maybe it's even what I'm planning on.

All I know is that I'm slogging through, and it's tough and I'm not a victim, I'm quite strong, and brave. But this isn't just for a job, this is some serious slogging to find a good path, for now, to grow on. It's why future lovers and friends are also addressed. It's not just what office I want to spend the majority of my week in, this isn't a choice between two titles, it's a process, it's a gathering, questioning, trying hard to find tiny but wonderful answers in the midst of so. much.mud. It's messy... and I'm not sure I'll ever be fully clean.

So that's where I am. In the mud pit, hoping all this mess is going to do great things for my complexion.

Now where did the carriage go?

xoxo