This Liz

I have a love/hate relationship with resolutions.

Doesn’t everyone?

It’s similar to how I feel about routines. I understand they can be good good, if done right. But I also struggle to toe the line between structure and suffocation. I go too hard, too fast. I get too restrictive. And then, I blow it all up.

That being said, I value exercises in reflection and goal setting. I find them helpful in keeping myself focused…or, at the very least, in making sure that I am consciously unfocused and not just wandering aimlessly because I have no idea what I could be focusing on.

These rituals have manifested in different ways over the years. Sometimes I set intentions at the beginning of the year, sometimes I do them on my birthday. Sometimes I come up with tangible goals, sometimes I just give myself an overall theme word.

In 2022, I did a full on, day-long reflection and goal setting marathon. Last year, I did nothing. This year, I’m somewhere in between.

I meant to sit down and reflect in December. I didn’t. Instead, my plans for 2024 have come in fits and starts over the last two weeks.

I’ll wake up thinking about something and jot it down.

I’ll sit staring at my tarot deck, not wanting to pull a card because I know what it’s going to tell me and I feel overwhelmed by it, then finally pull a card and it will tell me that I’m overwhelmed.

I’ll write three pages about how I need to sit down and make a plan then my alarm to start work will go off right as I am about to dig in.

I’ll spend an hour brain dumping everything I think will make me a better person into a massive, daunting list and come back later to cull it into something more attainable.

Through all of that, I made what one could potentially consider to be 2024 resolutions:

1. Feel better
2. Get rich
3. Make stuff

Obviously, there is more detail to each of these:

FEEL BETTER

The short and sweet of it is that I have felt like shit for about 2 years now and it’s gotten worse in the last 6ish months. This year, I’d like to figure out how to make it better.

By that I mean physically and mentally.

Here’s the thing…2022 was the unhappiest year of my life and I mostly blame work for that. I could write a whole essay on why I think that is but the tl;dr is that being tied to my desk on hours of Zoom meetings with nobody to actually become in-person besties with did not suite me.

So the way I see it, 2022 broke me and 2023 was my cocoon. When I found myself suddenly much less employed, I was actually pretty jazzed about it. I had been wanting more free time. I figured I would fill it with all the wonderful things I had been daydreaming about. Painting! Photography! Learning a language! Redecorating my house! Coffees with friends!

Instead, I filled all of that empty space with anxiety.

Oh, and depression. My god, the depression! Everything felt like a chore. I knew the things I should do to make myself feel better but I was just so tired. And it felt unfair that I had to do all of this work just to…exist.

So, I didn’t do the things. I spent a lot of time on the couch. I ate whatever I wanted because denying myself the joy of food felt unfair when so few things felt good. I told friends when I didn’t have the energy to socialize (and, importantly, they all understood and supported me…I am so endlessly thankful).

It all added up to a very bad time. I gained a lot of weight. My life-long digestive issues have gone from annoying to full-on burdensome. I get headaches, I feel tired, I feel foggy.

Therapy helps. Exercise helps. Getting out of the house helps. Drinking water helps. Etcetera, etcetera.

BUT, it’s been hard to make a lasting change. And, while I’m fine with the whole, “take it day by day” approach, I would like to put some more intention and structure to the things I am doing to actually get better. Right now, I will have days where I feel pretty ok but it’s like I am floating just under the surface of the water and can’t break it. Or, I’ll just wake up and feel like the light has been sucked out of me. Or, I’ll get a stomach ache, seemingly out of nowhere, and have to cancel plans at the last minute.

The thing that bugs me most is I don’t know why these things happen when they do. All I have is reactivity. “How am I feeling right now? What do I do to counterbalance that?” I would like to be able to more proactively influence my state of being in a positive way.

So that is my MAIN FOCUS this year. My health. Everything else is going to have to be secondary because everything else suffers anyway if I feel like shit all the time. I’ll save the “how” of it all for another post otherwise this one will be unbearably long (…more so than it already is).

GET RICH

I have not had a full-time job since March 17th, 2023.

That was a choice I made. I am (thankfully) not one of the many, many, many people who have been applying to jobs for months to no avail. I was let go from my last full-time position and decided to just…chill that way.

I had a job though. I was working on the side for Women Talk Design and Danielle was able to bring me on for more hours pretty much as soon as I was fired. And then, a couple months later, I got another contract. So I have been paying my bills.

And I haven’t done much other than coast on the opportunities that fell in my lap because for months, I simply could not.

Just like I talked about above, I did not feel good. I set goals and then let them slide. I felt shitty and unproductive and then told myself it was ok to not be productive for a while. I put away all of my motivational books (lookin at you, Atomic Habits), and instead read about how to disengage and reset and rest and escape.

There was kind of a glaring problem though: I had become accustomed to a high-paid lifestyle. Not like, “Here, look at my new Birken bag” high-paid. More like, “I don’t have to look at the prices of things in the grocery store and if I want to randomly drop $500 on stuff I don’t need, I know there will be more money in a week” kind of high-paid. And, while I was so so lucky to have them, two part-time contracts do not a six-figure salary make.

I was able to tame my spending to a degree. But, when faced with the choice, I would prefer to figure out how to make more money vs. work on cutting my expenses. (I don’t like to tell myself no, remember?)

The good news is that I am finally feeling excited to do things again. Remember what I said about every little thing feeling like a chore? And, feeling like it was unfair that I have to work so hard? Well, I can’t pinpoint exactly when the switch happened but lately I have been excited to set goals and work on things again. It feels more like I get to do things than I have to do things. So I’m running with that.

This year, I’m launching my business.

(Technically, I launched in June when I signed my second clients but…be cool.)

For a while, I have wanted to see what I can do on my own and no I finally feel like I have the strength to climb higher.

My business will support my other financial goals, like getting my savings back on track (I haven’t contributed in 9 months) and being able to afford my whims again.

Once again, more on that later. So, so much more.

MAKE STUFF

And for my last trick, something I’ve been saying I’ll do for years.

I love photography. And, I have to twist my own arm to actually make photos.

While I am going to try to strike a balance in my business between following the dollar signs and doing things that align with my values, I’m also setting goals that are dedicated to sparking a fire. I want to find the magic again, baby.

Making things will support my other two goals too. I want to make more of my own food to feel better. I want to make more work that excites me so I can attract more work that excites me.

This extends beyond all of that though. It encompasses building this blog and getting my house to feel more homey and creating a garden and sewing my own clothes and sitting down with my mom to make a family history.

I have always felt like I have something to say but I have shied away from saying anything because I felt like I’d do it in a sloppy way. I have wanted to try new things but I have been terrified of being a beginner

But the only way over all of that is through is.

Make stuff.

….

That’s it…that’s my year. My plan is to write things here more consistently (weekly?), mostly for myself (because who is reading this?). But I am going for better, not perfect, so who knows what that will actually end up looking like.

See ya when I see ya.

“I can be afraid and I can do it anyway.”

That’s the last thing I wrote in my journal this morning.

I have felt like shit lately. My morning pages for the last two weeks are full of fears and doubts and insecurities. It’s a nagging loop of “anti-affirmations” and the more I’ve allowed myself to spiral, the deeper in I have felt.

I think it’s because the end of the year stresses me out. As much as I try to rebel against the cliché of “New Year, New Me” and the idea that you have to have things wrapped up in a shiny bow by December 31st, it gets to me.

I don’t feel like I’m where I should be. And, even with my 2024 plan laid out all nice and neat in Google Sheets, I’m not sure I can get to where I want to be.

I used to wake up in the middle of the night and panic about all of the work I needed to get done the next day, worried my boss would call me out for not doing enough. Now, I wake up in the middle of the night and panic about the void…the “is this all there will ever be?” of it.

I’ll talk to someone about my goals, then they’ll offer support, then I’ll panic that I can’t live up to the hype (even though there is no hype), then I’ll crawl back toward the old familiar places. I just don’t feel good enough.

…I’m still dancing around the thing I’m afraid of though. So here it is:

I want to start a business. I want to work with small business (all businesses?) and individuals in creative ways.

Not just marketing. I want to do some creative storytelling.

At the heart of it, I want to make money off of nothing but my own blood, sweat, and ideas. And, I want it to be a lot of money. As much money as I was making at my last job. More.

You may think, “What are you afraid of? You’ve got nearly a decade of Marketing experience! You’ve been nursing a photography hobby for twice that! You got this!”

I’m afraid that I’m not that good.
I’m afraid that if I try to charge what I need to charge, someone’s gonna laugh. Or get mad.
I’m afraid that I’m delusional.

Honestly, I’m not where I need to be to make what I want to make with my photography. I’m a lot closer with Marketing but still…

I have been so scared of failing that I haven’t really done much outside of tasks that I was explicitly told to do by people who knew more than me at the time (or at least had higher titles).

I’ve been on a team. I’ve had a boss. I’ve had research and how-tos and to-do lists I could point to and say, “See! I checked the boxes!”

In this new shit, I just have me. Me and my ideas and my brain and my creativity and my technical skills.

Before, if someone didn’t like something I did, it’s possible they didn’t like the idea my boss had come up with. Or, they didn’t like the product or the company.

If someone doesn’t like something I do now, they don’t like me.

Terrifying.

…deep breath…

Rationally speaking, somebody can not like your art or feel their business aligns with your services without it being a personal annihilation of your very being. I know that

BUT we are talking about fears here. It’s hard to have a rational conversation with your own psychological boogey men. Which is why I hadn’t been holding them off for a while. I let them in and I let them scream.

This morning, when I decided to try to quiet them, the only answer that came to me is that I have to do it scared.

“I can be afraid and I can do it anyway.”

I can work on recognizing my own capabilities. I can even seek approval from external sources and “looking at the evidence” in analyzing my past work. I can employ various tactics to beat back the fear.

But, ultimately, even in times when I can’t beat it, I also can’t let it hold me where I am anymore.

(One comforting thought is that I’m not alone. As I’ve learned writing recaps of all 32 Speaker Stories sessions (for Women Talk Design), everyone’s had to wrestle with their own fears and anxieties. Overwhelmingly, their advice is also to just do the thing anyway.)

So yeah…do it scared. That’s what I’ve got for you today.

I am considering this my first step. Admitting what I want to do, on the internet, for all to see. I also told some people at a party this weekend.

I don’t have to be great to start but I do have to start (and keep going) to become great. (Or, good enough…my therapist feels I need to stop seeking glory and recognize I can be happy with a “simple life”. We’ll see.)

This is me starting.

Today, I am 34.

And, like any person who is facing a birthday, I believe myself to be overflowing with acquired wisdom.

I am simply bursting at the seams with knowledge.

…or, at the very least, I’m bursting at the seams with thoughts.

So here are 34 thoughts, written mostly stream of consciousness…

1. Nobody really knows what they’re doing.
2. There is no “right” answer to a lot of questions (this is going to be a recurring theme).
3. Almost everyone is ultimately doing things with good intentions. Impact matters, but so do intentions.
4. Creativity is a skill that requires practice–it’s not just something some people have and others don’t.
5. All jobs (and all companies) have their shit. And, most of the time, it’s that nobody ever documents anything in the right place.
6. Fish rot from the head. If you look up the ladder from where you are and don’t like what you see, get on a different ladder because those problems won’t change.
7. You don’t have to do one thing. You don’t have to be one thing.
8. Changing your mind (hourly, daily, weekly, annually, with the seasons) doesn’t make you fickle. There isn’t inherent virtue in stick-to-it-ness for the sake of it.
9. Yes, exercise and eating nutritious foods will make you feel better.
10. If you’re also in your thirties, look up mobility exercises. Do them.
11. Always have more umbrellas than you think you need.
12. Knowing the things you need to do to feel like a happy, healthy, productive human being is much easier than doing the things.
13. It’s ok to not do the things you feel like you should. The important part is making a choice–don’t just slide into oblivion. Choose to rest or to not rest. Choose to cook or order in. Choose for yourself and don’t assign morality to the choices.
14. Copying other people when you’re starting something new is a good way to learn. And everybody does it.
15. It is hard to come up with 34 things all at once.
16. Disliking something just because it’s popular or liking something just because it’s not is not the same as having a personality.
17. It’s easier to complain, finding little cracks to poke at in the world around you. But, it’s rewarding to do the work of thinking positively.
18. Not everything has to be an enriching, thought-provoking, active experience–sometimes a rom-com can just be a rom-com and you can enjoy the lack of depth.
19. If something interests you, go for it, even if 1,000 other people have already done it. You can add to the conversation.
20. We are all the same and we are all different. You can find examples of other people going through whatever you’re going through and you can bring a unique perspective.
21. Parents are just human beings who are also doing their best (most of the time).
22. Most of the people, out there in the world, are nice and looking for connection. They are rooting for you. And they are too busy thinking about their own flaws to dissect yours.
23. If someone is the type of person who is going to hone in your flaws and be mean, it’s because they are hurting in some way. But, it’s not your job to fix them or abide their shit. Kick them out of your life.
24. We are not each other’s competition. As you rise, lift others.
25. You can find numbers or “facts” on the internet to support whatever argument you are trying to make. Step outside of your bubble.
26. It’s incredibly easy to relate to (and befriend) people with different beliefs when you are standing face to face, looking them in the eye.
27. It’s incredibly easy to vilify (and dehumanize) people with different beliefs when you are separated by the internet.
28. Depression can manifest in surprising ways. Routine is a buffer.
29. Do things that are just for you–not for your friends, lovers, colleagues, the world, etc. Something that you enjoy just because you enjoy it.
30. Wash your face for a full 60 seconds. Your fancy face wash doesn’t work if you don’t fully count to 60 seconds.
31. There really aren’t stupid questions. Just mean people who will make you feel stupid (but remember, we don’t need those people). Ask whatever you want to ask.
32. You don’t get what you don’t ask for. Ask your boss for more money. Ask the person you fancy to go out. Ask the bartender if you can taste the beer first.
33. Time is your biggest asset. Start taking care of your body and your finances now so you don’t have to panic about it later.
34. If you just start writing, eventually you will finish the thing you’re trying to write, even if it’s crap.

Go. Live your life. Start your anti-aging regiment. Make lists. Force them upon your loved ones.

I started running in 2017.

I had just moved across the street from a good friend of mine. She was a runner and asked if I wanted to join her a few times a week.

I could not run. Well, I believed I couldn’t run. I had started and stopped a few times in high school and college, never making it over 2 miles.

She said we could go slow. And we did. We started with laps around a pond by my apartment. Three laps to start. First, we ran the short parts and walked the long parts. Then, we switched it. Then, just walked one short part.

Once I could make it 4 laps without walking, we started running to the W&OD. We’d run a mile there, a mile down, then turn around.

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, we’d run a 3 mile out and back around the neighborhood. Every Saturday, we’d get a bit further down the W&OD.

Soon, our long runs were 7 miles. Soon, I could go on a long run by myself and I wouldn’t give up 2 miles in. Soon, I was training to run a half marathon. Soon, I was running 10 miles without stopping.

But, I wasn’t a Runner.

When my friend told me she was pregnant and wasn’t feeling well enough to go on our longer runs, I looked up running groups. I never joined one though.

Those were for Runners.

I wasn’t a Runner.

I just ran three times a week. I could just run 10 miles. I just ran a half marathon.

But, I wasn’t a Runner.

Now, looking back, I know I was a Runner. I didn’t call myself one because I was scared that if I did, someone else (someone better than me) would laugh.

There’s weight in calling yourself the thing you want to be (and the thing you already are). It becomes real.

You can fail at it. Other people can comment on it.

There’s also weight in not calling yourself the thing. You can only grow so much in the safe shadows.

I wouldn’t call myself a runner so I never connected with other runners. I wouldn’t call myself a runner so it was easy to just…stop.

Call yourself the thing. See yourself as who you want to be and name it out so others can see it too. So they can help you. So you can feel the accomplishment of it.

Now, of course there are some limitations. You can’t just start calling yourself a doctor or a rocket scientist.

But you can call yourself an artist.
A writer.
A speaker.
An entrepreneur.
A traveler.

You can call yourself a runner.

I don’t want another full time job.
(I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.)

I’ve talked to so many friends, loved ones, and acquaintances over the last couple of months about work and the fact that I’m not doing it full time right now.

The thing I keep repeating about my last jobs is, “I never want to do that again.”

What do I mean by “that”?

Feeling tied to my desk.
The anxiety of constantly checking my email or Slack.
Someone dismissing and rewriting my work.
Doing a good job on unimportant things to be “productive”.
Studying psychological manipulation to help sell things.
Waking up in the middle of night panicking about my to-do list.
Keeping a running list of my accomplishments so that I can justify my employment every six months to the same people who watched me accomplish those things every day.

I also want to feel connection. I’ve been working in B2B marketing for so long. The goal of my previous jobs can be boiled down to one thing: show them how we make them more money.

I want to work with people who are trying to accomplish more human things. I want to help someone feel happier or understand themselves and the world a little better.

But, I keep having this one nagging doubt…

It’s going to be hard.

That’s what we’re always told about creative work, isn’t it? Entrepreneurship, artistry…pretty much anything that isn’t going to work in an office for someone else’s established company. It’s hard.

You know what else is hard? “Traditional” jobs.

Waking up every day to do the same thing over and over because other people required me to was hard.
Keeping my mouth shut when I knew that thing I was being told to do wasn’t going to work was hard.
Advocating for myself when I couldn’t keep my mouth shut was hard.
Fitting the rest of my into two days and a few nights because work was top priority during the week was hard.

Getting a job is hard.
Keeping a job is hard.

Working in marketing feels like the easier path because I have done it for 10 years. And, to be fair, people have collectively decided it’s worth paying a lot of money for and it’s expected that you’ll start off not knowing much then work for someone who knows more and you’ll grow.

Building something from nothing is harder. But, in 10 years, after I’ve spent time talking to and working with people who know more than I do, will it feel easier?

(It will probably still feel harder because we live in a society where the things we need are not always the things we put a high value on. The world doesn’t need more sales and marketing drones, it needs more art and curiosity and connection. But that’s another rant.)

We can choose what kind of hard we want to tackle.

For now, I have my basic life necessities met. I can take on some extra difficulty. I choose a happier, harder path.

“Routine is a buffer against depression.”

That’s what my therapist told me (again) last week.

I’d been explaining (again) how I still feel stressed. How I had these grand ideas of all of the things I would want to do once I had more time. How, now that I do have time, I don’t seem to want to do anything. How not doing anything also makes me feel like shit.

Turns out, we as human being actually like structure. A complete lack of it is just as bad as too much of it.

The problem is, I don’t know how to find balance.

My hope was that I would fill my days with the things I want to do. That I could see a stretch of time and let my whims fill it.

But, I spent so long laser-focused on “work” (including housework because that is “productive”) that I don’t know how to focus on something else. When I find myself with a free minute, I default to work. Those neuropathways are dug deep.

“It’s like hunger,” a friend told me. “You have to relearn how to listen to it.”

That’s where the structure comes in. If I can build a routine, I won’t just be bobbing around in the sea possibilities with nothing to grab onto and I won’t just grab onto the old default.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

It’s quite a cycle.

I crave a routine, I make a routine, I rebel against my own self-imposed routine.

I tell myself I will wake up at a certain time, I’ll work at certain times, I’ll exercise, I’ll use this window for creative work, etc. etc.

But…

I don’t want to have to wake up at the same time every day.
I don’t want to have to sit down to write or work at the same time every day.
I don’t want to have to go to the gym at the same time every day.
I don’t want to do the same thing every day.

I want to want to do something. I want to feel that hunger, listen to it, and act on it.

Does anyone actually do this?

I haven’t given up yet. Instead, I’ve made a lot of lists.

A small to-do list of things for the day–things that have to get done (because life) and a few things that will make me feel good.

A list of creative ideas that I keep on a ring of colorful notecards.

A list of things I want to read, things I want to write, things I want to do.

I even made a routine plan for my days based on which days I want to do more work and which days I want to do more other stuff. I haven’t stuck to it yet.

But it’s all helping. The daily to-do list is my favorite. If you ever feel untethered, give it a try.

I can feel my hunger coming back little by little.

It’s been 7 weeks since my firing.

I’ve started to write about it a few times–on LinkedIn or Instagram, on drafts for this blog. But, I haven’t come up with anything.

Mostly, I’ve written about it in my journal. There, I can ramble and change my mind about how it felt 100 times.

The truth is it felt bad. Obviously. Nobody wants to be fired.

The flip side is that I didn’t want to work there anymore. I hadn’t wanted to work there for a long time. I’d been doing mental gymnastics for months, convincing myself to stay for one reason or another, giving myself a finish line and then pushing it just another couple of weeks.

I can’t go before so-and-so comes back from leave.
Now, I have to give her time to get caught up.
Well, it’s almost time for annual reviews.
Ok, I’ll go once we’re through the next product launch.

I’d say that started around August of last year. It was a vicious cycle of giving up, deciding it wasn’t so bad, trying to get excited, feeling dejected, and starting over, day after day, week after week.

Then, I got fired.

It wasn’t so bad because I already kind of had an exit strategy. I just needed to move up my timeline. Things would be a little bit tighter financially but it wasn’t a disaster.

(Considering the mass quantities of people who have been laid off in recent months, I can’t imagine what it must feel like to end up unemployed without having gone through months of planning to be unemployed).

I had already decided that I would take time away from full-time work. I had already decided I would focus on things other than Marketing for a while. I had already decided that it was time for a change.

So, why did it hurt so much?

Immediately after it happened, I went to meet a friend at our favorite garden center (I know) because I suddenly had nothing else to do with my day.

“It’s like when you want to break up with someone but they break up with you first.”

Exactly.

I have talked myself into staying with you for months and now YOU don’t want ME?

(I have been in this situation before. Maybe the lesson is I need to stop talking myself into staying because once I want to leave, it’s likely the other party also wants me to. Or will.)

It also stung because I hadn’t actually stopped trying. I still gave what I could to that job over and over and over again. I felt like shit every day. But I got my work done.

And then they told me my work–the work I had to pep talk myself into for months–was fireably bad.

(I’m not going to get into the analysis of whether my work was actually lacking. I’ve already stared down into those particular depths and all I have is what little they said and what I feel.)

In every other job I have ever had (including the one I am currently working), I have been the Person. I took on whatever needed doing and I got it done. I have never failed before.

It sucks.
I hate it.
I hope I don’t have to do it again.
I know I probably will.

So that’s it. Now I have failed. I’ve gone through a kind of grief cycle at this point. I was angry, I was depressed, I was elated, I was confused. And now, I’m pretty much ok.

What I’m struggling with most is a new uncertainty that started brewing last year and has reached a rapid boil. About halfway through my time at that place, I realized, “Maybe this isn’t it.”

By “this”, I mean a few things. Marketing. Functioning within a at a mid-size (large to me) company and all it’s inherent bureaucracy. 9-5 jobs in general. Working remote.

This is the path I have been on for over a decade. Longer if you consider how my entire educational tenure was shooting me straight into corporate life.

If I am not climbing the ladder up to the C-suite, what am I doing? If I don’t want to work for companies like the one I just came from, where will I go? If not Marketing, what?

My identity (and sense of self-worth) has been so tied up in what I do. And, as much as I know this comes from a place of privilege, the corporate ladder feels like the easy path. I know how to do it. I have been training for it my entire life.

On top of that, this world we live in doesn’t look too kindly on change. Somehow, the idea of “stick to it” and grit and focus have become idols. Signals of success. If you don’t do something forever, you failed at it. If you change your mind, it’s taken as evidence that you never knew what you were talking about in the first place.

Or, at least, that’s how it feels.

I feel fickle. I feel unproductive. I feel less valuable. I feel embarrassed.

I also feel like I have closed a stress cycle for the first time in 6 or so years.

I don’t know what I want to be doing for work in 5 years. Or 2 years. Or even 6 months. And that is absolutely terrifying to a Enneagram 3 like me.

For now, I am working part time for a company I adore (shout out, Women Talk Design!) and spending the rest of my time on whatever I feel like it. This will be the rest of 2023 for me.

We’re taking it a step at a time. Sharing this counts as my step for today.

I miss a time before this one.
I miss when blogs were open and rambling.
I miss when Instagram was a random assortment of unedited photos.
I miss not having to worry about clicks and likes and shares and conversions.
I miss my inbox that wasn’t full of Medium articles on “10 ways to make $1,000 a week that nobody knows about” (we know about them).

Let’s go back to that.

I don’t have a plan for this blog post. I just told myself I would start writing. This is me keeping a silent promise.

Do you ever feel like you want to say something but you have no idea what? I have felt that way for a while now. I tried so hard to find the shape of it through–journaling and research and starting and stopping.

Do I want to talk about marketing? Photography? Personal finance? Psychology? Books? Travel?

Somewhere in the depths of my Google drive, I have a content calendar I made well over a year ago. The theme was marketing for small businesses/individuals. Because that’s what I know. That’s how I’ve made money for the last 10 years. It felt safely in my lane.

I have not written a single one of those posts.

Now, I am accepting that the thing I want to say has no shape right now. It has same vague themes that pull me in 100 different directions.

I want to talk about photography.
And travel.
And books.
And psychology.
And politics.
And whatever else pops into my head.

I want to explore how it feels to be a person who has to work for money to survive and keep their meat-sack body healthy when all you want to do is sit in a field with friends and think your thoughts.

I want to talk about how we can live as individuals, feeding our own need, while balancing our responsibility to the societies we are a part of, not letting one consume the other.

I want to talk about the ways that someone goes about building who they are.

Mostly, I want to talk about the little experiments I am doing to figure out what I have to say.

So that’s what I’m going to do. It will be disjointed. It will be inconsistent. It will be bad writing (until it turns into better writing).

It will be growth. Or, it won’t. (I’m trying not to focus on the “productivity” of it all).

I hope I’ll eventually find something in the actual doing of it that leads to more clarity. Even if I don’t, I will have done something. I will have spoken. And my therapist and I are figuring out how I can view that as enough.

This is rambling thoughts post #1 of (hopefully) many.

Now, go do something for the sake of doing it.