This blog post is the equivalent of walking into a dormant office that has had much of its furniture carted away. What remains is sort of scattered haphazardly around and there’s a pretty definite layer of dust over everything. Also probably some stains on the linoleum and that weird brown splotch on the ceiling panel that kinda looks like South America if you squint right.

Anyway. I’ve never really professed to have this blog be about anything in particular or professed to any sort of schedule. I mean, obviously. I do want to endeavor to be more regular about it, though, for my own sake. The key to that is consistency, which I have had a historically hard time maintaining in most arenas of my life. Sustained accountability is difficult for me and something I have to constantly work at. When an idea burns hot, it’s easy. This is fun! This is great! I’m gonna do this new thing and it’s going to be great forever! This is my personality now, I’ll never be looking back! All well and good until interest drops off and no one is there to hold me accountable. Then reading past posts with similar declarations and professions becomes an exercise in cringing repeatedly.

The temptation to delete these starry-eyed false starts is very very strong. No one need know of my shame, no one need see how easily I fell off the wagon of this or that. Scrape it under the rug and start anew because this time it will stick and you’ll do it forever! Nah, I can’t do that. Part of internal accountability is owning your past, even the parts that make you uncomfortable. And these parts of my past (read: my old blog posts and their declarations of fidelity to things I let fall into disrepair) definitely make me very uncomfortable. That of course means they will stay up forever, as a monument to a desire for pushing forward and a friendly reminder of mindsets past. Everything can get a little messy, after all.

Things I am doing currently that I am going to endeavor to keep up:

-Cutting out chocolate entirely because it is A Problem for me, as soda was a problem. It has to go entirely because once it starts creeping into my life, it takes over my life. Even if I try to do the whole “use really really dark chocolate, like 80% and up for that fix!” it will still creep right back on in like a sneaky sneak. So, trying to go no chocolate. As of this writing it has been three days since the last consumption of said substance.

-Going to exercise classes at my local YMCA. Currently doing Aquasize and Zumba, with some freestyle swimming thrown in here and there. I enjoy swimming so much and wish that I could solve my inner ear issues so that I could take full advantage of it (read: put my head under water and dive down) without worrying or having ear pain. To mitigate ear and water interactions, I’m going to get another pair of earplugs and one of those neoprene headbands. Gonna see where that takes me. For now, Aquasize keeps my head and shoulders quite dry minus the occasional splash from lifting the lil styrofoam weights into the air from the water.

-Writing every day. I have a fiction project I really want to finish and it means picking at it a little every day even if the impetus to write didn’t show up for the day. There have been a few days I’ve missed, but I try to at least jot notes once a day, if nothing else. My goal is to finish this project.


Things I would like to build back up to and strengthen as habits:

-Measuring and recording my food. I’m trying to be mindful about what I eat and how much I eat, but the real truth teller is weighing and recording what I have put in my maw.

-Eating and preparing meals at home. Even if it’s as simple as just making a quick salad, I want to eat at home more. I’m not doing drive through or fast food every day any more, but I do eat out quite often. I want to apply myself to getting more veggies and fruit in and learn how to actually make things. This is one goal I have struggled with often for various reasons.

-Meditating. I’ve been leaning a little more into the metaphysical side of life, in part due to the nature of my aforementioned fiction project. I don’t completely go “all in”, but the power of intention and the emphasis on connectivity speak to me. Meditation for clarity and mental wellbeing is undeniable, and when I have carved out time to do it in the past, it has helped improve so very much.

The state of the me:

Last July I sustained a back injury that knocked me not only out of working a job but out of my routine and habits. All the weight I had worked to take off, all the conditioning I had put into my body through walking, it seemed to just re-materialize all at once. I’m almost a year out from the injury and I haven’t gone back to work in any capacity, though I am looking for jobs. In the meantime, I’m using the time to work on creative projects and rebuilding my fitness.

At the end of February my boyfriend and I moved to Connecticut from New York. It is absolutely stunning here in our little house by the river. We are surrounded by nature and forestry, every day is a banquet of birdsong and trees. This move has kind of kickstarted my interest in the metaphysical and how wonderfully connected I feel to the world around me. Finding a job here has been difficult. I still have some trauma from my dog attack five years ago whose ripples I still feel to this day. There are so many jobs that I have to miss out on because the possibility for interacting with large dogs of a certain type is just too damaging to my mental wellbeing. Even something like being a delivery driver or mail carrier is out of the question because of the possibility of unleashed/dangerous dogs on some property. However, I do firmly have faith that if I keep applying and looking, I will find the right fit.

I’ve gotten really into tea in the last year or so. I now have a drawer full of various different types and brands, and it is shaping up to be a good alternative to chocolate and other less than ideal foodstuffs. There are so many fun flavors of tea to try, and though tea purists will recoil in horror, I love adding honey to most kinds of tea.

So that’s what’s happening for now. I will endeavor to write in this space more regularly, probably with a bent toward keeping my accountability in the health sphere. This seems the best place to do it. I can’t let my imaginary audience down, after all!

Farewell for now but not for long, everyone!