{PROMPT} I used to take care of...
Everything and everyone. All of it. It was all somehow my responsibility.
I'm not saying that's logical. It never was and I always knew it. But I still never flipped the script.
I've been taking better care of myself as of late. It's been a conscious commitment. And it's been difficult. I've been nurturing my spirit and creative soul in ways that I haven't done in years. Maybe ever.
I've finally started owning what does and doesn't fulfill me. And acting on it.
I took a big step this week. I pulled out of a national publishing deal at work. The publication would've amazing for my resume. It would've been outstanding for my organization. It dovetailed with a number of other initiatives that are in motion and the politically savvy decision was to stick with it and grind it out.
But here's the thing...
I knew how much energy it would take from me. I knew I wanted that energy reserved for other projects. I also knew that my resume is already incredible and my organization is already strong. I will create the political cache in other ways. This wasn't the way.
I sent a short, polite email to the publishers and it was done. I instantly felt lighter.
If you told me even six months ago that I would do something like this, I would've blown you off and insisted you didn't know me very well.
So, I guess, meet the new me.
Love,
me
This post is part of The Blog Dare series.
All true stories | The Blog Dare Day 3
{PROMPT} I lived...
In an attic apartment with a roof so short and slanted my boyfriend had to sit to pee and he hit his head on the ceiling fan no less than 83 times.
In an apartment with a mysterious hole in the linen closet that eventually started spewing baby rats.
In a house in Mission Viejo, California with a gorgeous pool in the backyard and a neighbor who frequently watched Top Gun at full volume with their front door open.
In an four-plex built over an old pioneer / sister wife graveyard.
In a co-ed freshman dorm with a douche named Trigger, a lech who offered to pay me in meal points for sex, and a roommate with a Japan-shaped birthmark on her cheek whose last words to me were, "Enjoy your sad, weird life."
In an apartment with one parking spot for five roommates. Do the math. Get home first.
In a duplex with a roommate who attempted suicide in my bedroom.
In Yakima, Washington, but I don't remember it.
In a picturesque 1901 cottage with a circular red front door.
In a second-story apartment that had stairs so narrow we moved in through a door on a fire escape patio thing that opened to the backyard.
In a house in Orem, Utah at the tippy top of a cul-de-sac where we played foursquare in the street until the wee hours of warm summer nights.
In a condo with walls painted to match my wanderlust: Grand Canal, Gold Coast, and Bordeaux Rouge.
In an on-campus apartment suite with a cutter roommate who did nothing but play Sims online and chase diet pills with vodka.
In an apartment with aslum landlord who let the leak in my bathroom get so bad my toilet fell through the floor. He kept my cleaning deposit when I left two days later.
Home Sweet Home. Right here...right now.
Love,
me
This post is part of The Blog Dare series
In an attic apartment with a roof so short and slanted my boyfriend had to sit to pee and he hit his head on the ceiling fan no less than 83 times.
In an apartment with a mysterious hole in the linen closet that eventually started spewing baby rats.
In a house in Mission Viejo, California with a gorgeous pool in the backyard and a neighbor who frequently watched Top Gun at full volume with their front door open.
In an four-plex built over an old pioneer / sister wife graveyard.
In a co-ed freshman dorm with a douche named Trigger, a lech who offered to pay me in meal points for sex, and a roommate with a Japan-shaped birthmark on her cheek whose last words to me were, "Enjoy your sad, weird life."
In an apartment with one parking spot for five roommates. Do the math. Get home first.
In a duplex with a roommate who attempted suicide in my bedroom.
In Yakima, Washington, but I don't remember it.
In a picturesque 1901 cottage with a circular red front door.
In a second-story apartment that had stairs so narrow we moved in through a door on a fire escape patio thing that opened to the backyard.
In a house in Orem, Utah at the tippy top of a cul-de-sac where we played foursquare in the street until the wee hours of warm summer nights.
In a condo with walls painted to match my wanderlust: Grand Canal, Gold Coast, and Bordeaux Rouge.
In an on-campus apartment suite with a cutter roommate who did nothing but play Sims online and chase diet pills with vodka.
In an apartment with a
Home Sweet Home. Right here...right now.
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| downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. |
Love,
me
This post is part of The Blog Dare series
My Declaration: Enthusiasm
Alright folks, git yer game face on. It's starting. Remember my post about the Declaration of You blog/book tour I'm participating in? Well. Here we go. The theme for the first week of the tour is...drumroll, please...
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| illustration by the talented Jessica Swift |
Enthusiasm is a word that actually makes me uncomfortable. (So, I guess this is off to a great start). I automatically picture bouncing cheerleaders and hoards of extroverts and lots of woohooing and tomfoolery. The whole situation makes me very tired. However, if I rework the semantics and sit down to blog about my passions in life...oh, child. I'll be blogging for days. Proust style, never ever leave the room, in the zone. I thought about drafting a mega list of my Big Likes (a'la Jessica Swift); however, based on some work* I've been doing lately, it's actually an important exercise for me to cluster and theme and get all meta with it.
At this very moment in my life I'm enthusiastic about enthusiasm; or rather, I am passionate about my passions. In other words, Captain Redundant, I'm recommitting to their importance in my every day life. Oh, and when I say *work I've been doing lately, I mean to say getting my shit together. And by that I mean to say reclaiming my creative spirit. I've been slowly working on that reconstruction for about a year and a half now. Grad school was more or less an abusive relationship that left me pretty high and dry in the enthusiasm department. Leaving my program coordinator position at work and moving up in the ranks of administration is both a blessing and a curse. There are other factors, but I can sum it all up by saying I've been going through a lot of motions, as it were, these past few years. It's been a slow process since grad school ended in August 2011; but since January 2013, I've been at warp speed. Warp, I'm tellin' ya. Nothing has propelled this getting together of the shit more so than My Happiness Project. Even more than the book itself, the mere fact that I forced myself to be conscious about happiness and to finally check in to my life again has had a massively significant impact. Like attracts like and as I've been tuning in, an entirely new and huge world of creative adventures has been tuning into me. Funny how that works. Like, every time.
In terms of focusing that new and huge world of creative adventures, I've sorted it out to this: The name of my giant enthusiasm umbrella? Creativity. I don't (only) mean DIY blog posts and crafternoons full of fruit trays and girlfriends. I mean creativity in the most literal and expansive sense of the word, to participate in acts of creation.
{Writing}
I never stopped loving and missing this blog, even in the darkest days of grad school when I only touched it once every few months when I resurfaced from another semester. I made a Happiness Project goal to blog once a week, but I've upped the ante. I'm now participating in The Blog Dare.
{Photography}
This is such a part of me and who I am that I cannot imagine a single day in which I don't create at least one (and sometimes hundreds) of photographs.
{Travel}
The deal breaker question when you're talking about your life's passions seems to be: "If money were no object and you could wake up tomorrow to do one thing for the rest of your life..." It's travel, folks. I am never ever more creative than when I'm out of my routine and on the road.
{Community}
I'm an organizer. I mean that in every way, from a radical political sense to a brunch hostess. I'm a Libra who needs partnerships and I thrive in a like-minded community of people who share my energy and passion(s).
Looking back on it, I've actually made all sorts of investments in my creativity over the past few months -- everything from attending Alt for Everyone to purchasing eBooks from Kelly Rae Roberts, Gala Darling, and Jessica Swift, to enrolling in an online photography class to downloading a bunch of Deepak / Oprah mediations. Whatever works, man. I am also ripping through Jen Sincero's book: You are a Badass. It's particularly entertaining to read it on planes and peripherally watch people's faces as they try to accept that they did just see what they thought they saw. In fact, reading it in public is a pretty enthusiastically badass thing to do.
Love,
me
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| follow my Instagram photos at @fourthirtyam |
The Fine Print: The Declaration of You will be published by North Light Craft Books this summer, giving readers the permission they’ve craved to step passionately into their lives, to discover how they and their gifts are unique, and to uncover what they are meant to do!
I'm painting now. Because why not? | The Blog Dare Day 2
{PROMPT} They try to make it sound...
....as though you need to have it all together before you can begin. You need to conduct your research, prepare your data, be ready for every contingency. You must somehow become an expert and then you can share what needs to be shared.
And by "they" I mean the voice in my head.
This past weekend, I told that perfectionist to take a hike. I painted. I painted for the first time ever. I mean, minus water colors in pre-school and perhaps a project in a junior high art class that I've long since forgotten. I completely lost myself and hours later I realized I was pretty damn happy.
I'm painting. I'm painting! I paint! I'm a painter. Isn't this a breakthrough? I'm a painter. I paint now. With paint, in the sunlight, way far away from the perfectionist in my head? I painted. That happened.
....as though you need to have it all together before you can begin. You need to conduct your research, prepare your data, be ready for every contingency. You must somehow become an expert and then you can share what needs to be shared.
And by "they" I mean the voice in my head.
This past weekend, I told that perfectionist to take a hike. I painted. I painted for the first time ever. I mean, minus water colors in pre-school and perhaps a project in a junior high art class that I've long since forgotten. I completely lost myself and hours later I realized I was pretty damn happy.
I'm painting. I'm painting! I paint! I'm a painter. Isn't this a breakthrough? I'm a painter. I paint now. With paint, in the sunlight, way far away from the perfectionist in my head? I painted. That happened.
The Blog Dare begins...
So I attended a Blog Brunch event this past weekend...and somewhere in the shuffle of 10,482 cascading tweets, I found The Blog Dare. Or they found me. Or something. Who knows, it was all such a flurry. Anyway, they create a series of daily prompts that move you through an entire year of blogging. Also, you don't have to be a mom to participate in the Dare (which you may assume, as I first did, from their website and marketing).
I'm going to use today's prompt as a way to make a commitment to this crazy notion of blogging daily. I want to try this project on for size and this is why:
{PROMPT} Now, if you'll excuse me...
Love,
me
I'm going to use today's prompt as a way to make a commitment to this crazy notion of blogging daily. I want to try this project on for size and this is why:
{PROMPT} Now, if you'll excuse me...
I'm putting aside my expectations and self-imposed limitations and compulsive manifestations of perfection // I'm getting out of my head and forcing myself into my fingers, going with my gut, speaking from the heart, doing anything but over thinking it // I'm practicing and practicing because even the things we love to do take some doing and it's not going to do it itself // I will stop telling you how much I love blogging only to contradict my passion with a once every not so often post sandwiched between business trips and deadlines and commitments and look at that, Passion, it's been months // Now, if you'll excuse me, they might be sloppy, brilliant, hilarious beyond belief, sad, or total shit, but they will be. And that's the point.
Love,
me
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