My (New and Improved) Morning Routine

 You see bloggers talk a lot about their "morning routine." Spend five seconds on Pinterest and a thousand of those posts and articles will crop up. I know this because I've pinned about 500 of them. But my morning routine has never consisted of tea and a face mask, or whatever the heck they always recommend. Maybe it used to, but when you have to leave for work at 8:50 to get there by 9:30, you'd have to get up pretty dang early to accomplish more than the basics. Or so I thought. I already get up pretty dang early-- 6:30, to be exact. (And since 8:30 used to be early for me, I consider the fact that I now get up at 6:30 a miracle.) 

I used to think that, even with getting up at 6:30, I only had time for the basics before work. Get up, shower, eat, make my lunch, do some school work, kiss Eli goodbye, leave. There isn't time for yoga, I'd say. But tell me this-- if there isn't time for it in the morning and in the evening there's only time for dinner and two episodes of a show before I inevitably fall asleep, when the hell am I going to do the things that actually take care of me? When am I going to do all the things the Pinterest articles talk about? 

This disparity produced something of an existential crisis of balance, which you've witnessed first-hand through these blog posts the past few months. But then came the new year, and those three days off. I started doing yoga not once a week, not twice a week, but Every. Damn. Day. I made it my habit every morning to wake up, roll over, and roll out my mat. Then I added meditation. I tacked on a three to five minute self-affirming meditation at the end of my yoga practice. Then I bought a deck of tarot cards, and in an effort to become familiar with the deck and the practice, I started doing a daily one card reading every morning after my yoga. This entire process-- yoga, mini-meditation, and tarot reading takes about twenty to twenty five minutes. Since I wake up at 6:30 and am on the mat by 6:40, this means by 7:05 I am in the shower. It used to be that between 6:30 and 7 I would scroll endlessly through social media in order to get quote unquote wake up. Now, I've replaced those thirty minutes of scrolling with thirty minutes of self-improvement, and I am feeling the difference. I feel better, stronger, calmer and more centered. I feel CLEAR. And I don't miss those thirty minutes of scrolling. I still scroll throughout the day, and I'm never going to be one of those people who vilifies social media. Because it's not the social media that's bad, it's the way we use it.

And then, after all that, I still have time to read. Having dressed, done yoga, and nourished myself, I curl up in my bed and read for anywhere from 30-50 minutes. And I feel whole again. That's right-- now, with the addition of yoga and self-reflection to my morning, I have even more time to READ. Who knew that the advice my therapist gave me exactly FIVE TRILLION YEARS AGO was actually true? You can do less and actually feel like you've done more! Who knew?! Everyone, it turns out.

So that's my new and improved morning routine. I'd recommend trying to implement one for yourself, but don't just do what I do. What I do works for me. Don't measure your success at self-care by whether or not you drink tea and do face masks, or whatever it is everyone else does. (I realize I've shit on tea and face masks a lot in this blog post. I don't hate them, they're simply the first typical "self-care" things I thought of.) I did for a while, and it only made me feel worse, because those things feel useless to me. I was desperately trying to make this persona of calm fit me, and feeling more desperate and anxious over the fact that those things didn't make me calm. Simply put, what I now do every morning works for me because it makes me feel like I'm improving myself. That I'm actually doing something good for myself. Self-awareness and analyzation are very important to me. Reflection and time alone with my thoughts help me to understand who I am underneath everything that I am a part of. Underneath my relationship, my job, and my education. Time away from that routine is what I think has made me feel so untethered these past few months. I've been untethered from myself. 

This morning routine has been a 20 minute daily way for me to get to know myself again. A 20 minute check-in. So that's what I'm recommending to you. Whether that's yoga, taking a walk, reading, journaling, or doing a damn face mask-- find a way to check in with yourself every day. But don't torture yourself by doing what others think is the right method of relaxation. Do the things that actually relax you. 

Just a little bit of self-care common sense from the girl who took 4 months to realize all this. 

 -Fran

Three More Days

Last week I had three magical days off in a row. I don't think I've had more than two days off in a row since I started this new job. After four months of nonstop, this was so different I almost didn't know how to do it. 

On my first day off: I recharged. I did yoga, cleaned, and then got back into bed. Watched A Series of Unfortunate Events, drank tea. The boy came over, and we watched Westworld, then took a dang nap. I plotted two more days of rest.

On my second day off: I figured out which of my chakras is blocked. (Sacral. Obviously.) Did yoga, meditated, got hot chocolate from Peaks, and watched more A Series of Unfortunate Events. Finished a book I've been reading since September, then finished a short story that has been sitting half-finished on my hard drive for two weeks. 

On my third day off: I began it once again with yoga. Then, a walk through the art park and a trip to the store, accompanied by a podcast featuring Brene Brown, who in just one hour helped me realize some huge things about myself and my relationships. When I got home, I had an email about work. Which, all through my shower, totally wigged me out. I should just do that, I told myself, tension headache already forming. I started to feel myself getting back into that mindset of "getting things done" and I hated it. I tried to fight it off. I sat down in bed, and told myself I would only work on this thing for an hour at most, and then I would move on. In that hour, I made huge edits, found the perfect music, and was able to honestly say in my email reply that things were going well with the project. Then, I actually did as I promised myself I would-- I moved on. I watched more Netflix, and then settled in to read. At which point- another headache, which plagued me for the rest of the day. 

The moral of the story is: whenever possible, rearrange your schedule in your favor. Ahead of my three days, I desperately scrolled through Pinterest, trying to figure out what I would “do” with my time. By the end of night one, I thought to myself, “What in the world am I going to do with two more days off?” But the thing is, we need it. We need that time, that empty space, to fill with creativity. Otherwise it’s like trying to fill a shot glass with creativity. I think creativity is a lot like a gas, or a cat. It will fill the space you give it. If you are only able to give it a little bit of space, it will be small. But if you’re able to give it a whole room, it will be vast. 

I think it was absolutely vital for me to learn how to have a successful day off. I can't tell you how many times Eli has innocently and sweetly entered my apartment on a Wednesday or Sunday, only for me to snap at him after he's done LITERALLY NOTHING WRONG, while sweating and holding a vacuum in one hand, yoga mat in the other, Netflix playing in the background. Since I started working full time I've been so desperately trying to do all of my down time in those single days off, that I've failed completely, and only stressed myself out more. I needed these three days to learn that-- I accomplished all of the relaxing on day one. And again on day two, with a little more creative productivity thrown in. And again on day three. I needed three days off with literally nothing planned to learn how to relax again. 

So I think part of the reason why I feel so good right now is because I had time to simply be at home. Nowhere to be, nothing to do, except feel safe and relaxed and comfortable in my (still relatively new) space, and make it even more of a home. Even doing something as small as just finding a box to put my crystals in, to make them feel special. This made my room feel like a zen space, and I've felt it's power because I've been able to spend time feeling zen in there. As I said to my therapist about yoga this week, "it doesn't matter if you 'know yoga will help' if you don't actually do it! It can't help you if you don't do it!" Making the commitment to yoga and making the commitment to being chill and doing absolutely nothing on those three days transformed my apartment from something that "could be chill if I had time" to something that "is chill because I spent three days being lazy as heck in it." 

I feel better at the end of this three day retreat than I did when I began. I relaxed, I read, I weeded the books and ideas and pressures from my life that I no longer have space or time for. I got organized, and planned the things I've been avoiding in an effort to make them less negative. And I got clear. Maybe not on what I want to do with my entire life. Because,  f*ck. That's a big thing to figure out in three days, and the kind of bullshit only I would expect that from myself. But I do know what I want to do with this year. I want to tell my truth. I want to write it, film it, document it in drawings and pictures and letters and Instagram captions and short stories and blog posts. I want to write through and write out the shit that is hardest for me to say. Because one thing I have learned from my family in the past twenty years of ups and downs and emotional bullshit is-- it does way more harm than good to hide it. To not say it. So I'm going to be honest. I'm going to speak the f*cking truth, my f*cking truth-- the things that make me cry and make me feel ashamed and make me feel happy and scared. Because that is the only way I am going to remain grounded and human and real, and not a shell of a person who is host only to depression and anxiety. I want to be host to creativity and love and life and abundance. Not that other shit. 

And that is a tall order, I know. But I'm going to do it one piece at a time. The other day, I was working on a short story, and it was so hard for me to write the final sentences of the story that would actually make it good. Because it made me feel vulnerable to write those words, and vulnerable to even think them. But once I went there, even though thinking them inflicted tiny cuts on my heart, the second I wrote them they started to heal. 

My third day off, on my morning walk at the art park, I listened to an episode of Krista Tippet's podcast On Being, featuring Brene Brown. She talked about vulnerability, because that is her jam. I've only scratched the surface of what I think vulnerability's importance is in my life, but I have a suspicion that it holds the key to everything. I think when I dare not go there, when I dare not be vulnerable, when I dare not look at the things I know will hurt me, I hurt myself more. I think my creativity is tied to my vulnerability. So when I hid from my vulnerability, I hid from my creativity. Maybe I needed to hide for a minute to see that that was the case. To see what I was hiding from.

But I think I'm done hiding now.

-Fran 

Hi(atus)

Hi.

I've been taking a break for a minute here. I knew it was coming, and I knew it was necessary. I got through the holidays, came out the other side on New Years, and have started to feel this urge for minimalism in my life. Ready to simplify at every turn. Anything can go. I'm like Emily Gilmore in the new season of Gilmore Girls, getting rid of everything that no longer serves me. 

But I'm finding it hard to take my foot off the break and get started again. This happened a few years ago. Granted, I was traumatized and depressed, which is part of why I didn't go anywhere, and spent all my time in coffee shops, waiting for life to happen to me. Right now feels a lot like that, except I'm spending all my time at this new job. I feel like I'm on the brink of another creative and personal renaissance. I'm almost at the end of this down cycle, and when I come out of it everything will be clearer. I'll have a better idea of what I want to do, what I want my freaking hair to look like, and who I want to be. And I'll be ready to be that person. But right now I feel like I'm on this train that I have no control of, and we're traveling through mountainous terrain in a fog, so I can't even see where we're going. 

So for now, I'm doing yoga. I'm trying to sit with this feeling somehow, and yoga is helping. I've always had a relationship with yoga. With stretching. When I was younger and played soccer, stretching afterwards was always my favorite part. Which is probably why I stopped playing soccer. I didn't really like the "playing soccer" part of it.

I have done it on and off since high school, but since starting this new job it has been more off than on. I just haven't found time for it. So during this creative and mental break, I decided to replace everything with yoga. I have done it every day since the first of January, which I know isn't the most incredible feat of all time, but I'm proud of it and I feel good. I'm proud of the fact that I did it even on morning 1 of my period, even though it was pretty much just me groaning on the mat, I am proud of the fact that I got on the mat. And I feel good. I don't think about it. Every morning, I just get up, (pee) and do yoga. Then I shower and go on with my day, knowing that I have already done something positive for myself. My body feels better, and my mind does too. I legitimately feel like I am learning something from being able to breathe through the pain of the poses. I am able to sit with my anxiety longer, and let it pass. I don't freak out as quickly, because I am more able to tolerate my discomfort, and then work through it. 

So that's where I am right now. Still working hard at managing my anxiety and my self. Wishing you the best of luck with your goals for 2017.

Happy New Year,

Fran

Last Week #33 | My House Will Have a Roof

 I don't have a typical weekly vlog for you today. Instead I have something much more substantial for you. A portrait of the last three years of my life, with an emphasis on 2015 and 2016. 2016 took a lot out of me (it took a lot out of all of us). But I'm glad, in the end, that it got this short film out of me. 

I don't know if I'm that person anymore. The one who documents all the time. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. But I am certainly grateful for the fact that I was that way, and got to document so much of this transformative time in my life, for myself, my friends, and my future self. I am struggling with whether or not to continue with this, because I do believe that you have a sort of responsibility to be the documentarian of your own life. Obviously I'm glad these moments were made, and recorded. Say what you will about the technological age and all its "good and bad" parts, but I will forever be a firm believer in the fact that there's more good than bad here. And if it is ever bad, it's the people that make it bad, not the technology itself. 

I love that Eli and I will be able to look back one day and see footage of us- 18, 19, 20, 21, young and angsty and falling in love. I love that I have been able to document my friends lives, their business success, the risks they've taken, the adventures they've embarked on, their peaks and valleys. 

This "overdocumented lifestyle" is mine, and I'm not going to apologize for it. Even if that makes me a "millennial," it also made something beautiful. So, no ragrets. I hope you like it. 

 -Fran

Last Week #32 | Strong Independent Woman™

 Sorry for the brief absence. The week after Thanksgiving, I had a bit of a meltdown. I realized that a lot of things were bothering me that I hadn't thought would be, and then criticized myself for letting them get to me. For instance, I realized that it did actually bother me that when I went home for Thanksgiving (literally less than two months after I'd left) my room that I'd lived in for more than half of my life was getting a complete overhaul. It did actually bother me that I felt like I had no place in my home anymore, even though I made the choice to leave. And despite these huge revelations, I still had school projects to finish, and I still had to go to work. I had too much to do, and no time to figure any of it out, or give any of it the time and attention it deserved.

 I felt like nothing was the same. Not my home or my job or my school or even my freaking hair. And then, Eli and I were just not communicating well. It's been a long time coming, this bout of us figuring it out. For a week straight, we had the same arguments. The same conversations over and over again. By Thursday, I was sick of it. I lost it. I stopped replying to texts, and I fled to the Art Park by my apartment to work on a project, because even in crisis mode I can't help but do my freaking school work. He met me there, and we hashed it out. We said everything we felt like we couldn't say, for fear of hurting the other person's feelings-- everything we'd never explored because up until three months ago we didn't have a place to have these conversations. Have them in the basement of my house when we only have two hours to watch a movie? Nope. Have them in his bedroom, with a million people walking by at all times? Nope. Have them in a car at 11 pm on a Tuesday night, when I have to be home by 11:30 and one of us has to drive 30 minutes to get home? Nope. We put it off until now, when for the first time in the timeline of our relationship we finally have a space to discuss, explore, and say what's on our minds. And we got it all out on the table. 

 When all of this change began a few months ago, I told him that I would need him. That when it feels like things aren't good with us, it feels like I have nothing, because literally everything else in my life is in transit. I'm trying to fight the feeling that that is unhealthy. Because it doesn't matter. It's just what it is right now. But I have hope, and faith, that it will change. After a bout of bad, we are good. We are communicating better, listening better, and expressing our emotions better. 

 I still feel stupid for getting upset in the first place. Because you see, if I get emotional over my mom painting my room immediately after I move out, I'm no longer a Strong Independent Woman™. How will I fight the patriarchy if I cry over such juvenile things? And while I will forever be an advocate for every woman believing that she is strong and capable, I realized in these last few weeks that that ideology can sometimes go too far, and become negative. Sure, we're capable of anything and everything. But do we have to be? Can it be okay for us to fall, to cry, to be mean and irrational and illogical sometimes? Can we simply have too much on our plates without being told, "See, this is why women CAN'T have it all." 

I am a Strong Independent Woman ™. But I am also flawed and fragile and f*cking human, in need of a support system. I need someone to sit next to me while I scream and cry and yell and call people who piss me off terrible names. I need someone to be patient with me when I make a grumpy face after they make me laugh, because I'm in a Bad Mood ™ and I don't want to laugh. That's what I need. And Eli gives that to me. I don't think that makes me less strong, or less independent, or less of a woman. (It probably makes me "more" of that last one.) I'm a little afraid to post this, because I don't want you all to see my ugly side and judge me. But at the same time, I think that's kind of the point of this post. Not for you to judge me, but for me to accept myself enough to share it. 

 -Fran

Last Week # 31 | Snow Day

For the past few months, ever since I started my new job at the library, I’ve been working on this thing called “self-care.” Self-care is the completely insane idea that when you feel like you have no time to do anything, let alone all of the billion jillion things you need to get done in addition to the things you want to get done, you do even less. That’s right— instead of tackling your to-do list right away, you take a breath, watch a movie, drink a cup of tea, or write in a journal, and you feel better after. As you can probably see from the last few blog posts, this has been my main area of focus lately. I’ve been doing okay at it. But this week I was put to the test. 

This week was actually way more low-key than the previous ones. I didn’t have appointments, didn’t really have commitments. Just a whole lot of PMS and a few movies to see. This means that when there were opportunities to do more, and there were, it was a challenge to say no, because I technically had no reason for it. On Saturday it felt like I was playing hooky when I hung out at Peaks in the morning, as I didn’t have to work until 1:30. But on Sunday, when Eli and I laid in bed doing absolutely nothing but sleeping, eating soup, and watching Gilmore Girls, I didn’t feel guilty. And when, later that day, my sister came over to visit my apartment for the first time, and we also did nothing but make food and lounge around, I was glad I had kept my day clear for her. The thing I realized is: my time is my own. And as Newt Scamander said in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (one of the two movies I saw this week), “worrying means you suffer twice.” 

Damn, J.K. Rowling serving some wisdom to my court once AGAIN. Now, here I sit, Monday morning after  a pretty low-key week, and it feels like the universe is rewarding me for chilling the f*ck out, as it is what we Upstate New Yorkers would call “a f*cking blizzard” out there. The library is closed, which means my day has opened up even more, and I now have time to pack for my pretty exciting week, write, do yoga, and drink more tea. It’s really freaking hard for me not to feel guilty about taking time for myself. I don’t know why, but I think I was programmed to believe that if I wasn’t being productive every second, I wasn’t a good person. We’ve been over this, I think. But now I’m revising what the word productive even means, and realizing that it can mean writing, or napping, or just sweeping the floor and laying with a cat. Productivity is a word that was created to make hardworking people feel guilty for not doing even more. We do plenty. So if you can today, chill the fuck out, drink some tea, and take a nap. That's what I'm about to do. 

 -Fran

Last Week #30 | Here Comes the (Love) Anxiety

 So this week I discovered that I am actually capable of what my therapist told me to try last week. Which was: take the pressure off yourself to get so much done, and see if it all still gets done anyway. This should have been a no-brainer for me. Of COURSE it will still get done! I should have thought. I didn’t. It was so hard for me to let go of the worry and anxiety this week, and trust that it would still get done in the end. But you know what? It DID. I realized that worrying in my down time doesn’t make the work get done any faster, it only makes me more exhausted by the time I have time to work. So I can’t do work. So, in essence, worrying about being productive makes me LESS productive. And I know what you might be thinking: But Fran, duh! Worrying gets you nowhere. Just relax and chill out! And to that I would say: HA. Because sure, I learned a valuable lesson about behavioral tricks this week. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still have anxiety. Anxiety means that all of my efforts are just that— efforts. Sure, they can help to rewire my brain and combat the negativity up there, but in the end, my anxiety is still gonna do what it wants to do sometimes. 

With anxiety, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Sure, I got a lot of work done this week. I made progress on my projects for my drawing class, and felt good about the other work I am doing. But I still feel bad and guilty and anxious about not being a better friend this week, sometimes, all the time. But the difference is, I now know that worrying about it isn’t going to change anything. That doesn’t mean I don’t still worry. This kind of ingrained behavior doesn’t go away overnight. But I now have a little voice in the back of my head telling me to relax, it’s okay, it’ll all be fine.

Yoga this week taught me just as much. As I stretched and twisted my body, and felt the pain that comes with not doing yoga for a while, I realized that this pain so obviously symbolizes life. You feel the pain, but it will pass. And learning that fact (“it will pass”) is one of the most valuable lessons, and something that will get you through both yoga and life. The thing is, when I feel pain my brain is like “UUUUUM bitch you are gonna die if you don’t end this right now.” So I panic and stop whatever I’m doing that’s causing me pain instead of working, pushing, breathing through it. I was afraid I was going to do that with Eli, with this job, with my apartment. But I haven’t, and my life is so much better, so much more as a result. 

Full disclosure, I still freaked out a little bit this week too. (You win some and you lose some.) Long story short, I watched my favorite movie (Amelie), and wigged out about the fact that I was nostalgic for her lost-ness, for her alone-ness. I worried that my wanting alone-ness meant I no longer loved Eli, and then my brain got out of control. It went haywire. I quite literally pushed Eli away, had a total meltdown, cried myself to sleep, woke up and cried some more. Then I sent him a lengthy, completely insane message that was full of my fear and anxiety and sadness. To which he replied, “Ok Fran.. you can do whatever you need to and I will understand- go see your mom, just lay there alone for today, go drive by yourself, idk whatever you need.  But all I can say / all I know is this:

I love you, I love coming home to you, I love when you come home to me, I love "seeing the world" with YOU, I *love when we figure out an argument and solve the problem together and it's all 100% ok, I love being with you.” 

Yeah. I f*cking know. He’s a goddamn unicorn. Always has been, always will be. Another thing my therapist recommended last week was composed of two simple words. “Trust. Eli.” Which is admittedly hard for me, despite the fact that he’s wonderful, because I am hard-wired to believe that I am the only one who can (and should) fix my problems. I’m the only one who will have the right solution. That, my friends, is called a control freak. I am one. But the difference now is, I’m trying not to be. 

Finally, before and after all this learning, I had a breakthrough. I realized on Tuesday that the reason I've felt unhappy, unfulfilled, and like I haven't been taking care of myself, is that I haven't been doing creative things for me. If you don't know, that's an enormous part of my personality. I'm the kind of person who's always doing a lot. That's just how I work. But lately, my time has been not-so-equally split between: work, schoolwork, and time with Eli and friends. Let me put this plainly: I HAVE NOT BEEN WRITING. I have not been CREATING. That's like...Beyonce not working on an album. It's just not good for anyone involved. So in a crazy leap of faith, I joined NaNoWriMo at the last second. Let me be clear: I'm not doing NaNoWriMo as it is usually done. I'm not writing 50,000 words and striving for 1,667 per day. But I've made it a priority to work on my in-progress novel, and give it the time, energy, and thought it deserves. Because not working on it has made me feel worse than the effort of finding time for it has. Another thing: Eli and I discovered that we like to read together. I think the problem I've been having is that the past year of our relationship has been so environmentally rocky. By that I mean, we've never known when we would see each other next, or if we were able to: where we would even spend time together. Now, knowing that we always have a place to come home to and relax and be together is so relieving, we almost don't know what to do with it. It's going to take us some time to get used to this. To relax, and realize that we have all the time in the world. This week, we tried that. We laid on my bed and he listened to an audiobook while I read The Walking Dead. And it was amazing! Uncovering this new element of our relationship, discovering that we can want to be together all the time, but that doesn't mean we have to talk or really even engage with each other the whole time. We can just sit next to each other and READ. What a freaking revelation. 

I know this blog post probably isn't perfect. But I'm trying to let go of the need for perfection. I'm trying to sink into the feeling that "it will pass." All of it. The bad, and the good. It will pass, and my challenge is to remain present and here through it all.

-Fran