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

Last Week #29 | Italics Fran is an A**hole

 I am drained. I haven’t had a second to check in with myself since I moved in to my new place. Well, maybe that’s not true. I have, but I haven’t been able to do anything about it. So it looks something like this, 

“Check in: Fran to Fran. Yes, Fran here, we are running at about 15%. Thrusters in critical condition. Pilot recommends rest and reading. And maybe a bath bomb.” 

“Fran to Fran. Fran here, yeah, we can’t do that. You’re just gonna have to work with what you got.” 

“Fran to Fran. Fran here, that’s bullshit. We’re at 7% now. We can’t hold on much longer.” 

“Fran to Fran. I have to go to work. You’re on your own. Bye.”

And now I’m at about 5%, I have no idea how to get it back up to working condition, and it just keeps getting worse. As you can see, italics Fran is a total asshole, and doesn't care about what bold Fran needs. Italics Fran is my brain with anxiety. She's very difficult to shut up. So in a nutshell, here's what happened this past week. 

1. I didn't write a blog post. It was a hard choice, but I ultimately decided I had too much going on in my brain to form into words that made sense. 

2. I had a bit of a meltdown and didn't recognize myself in the mirror. That was scary. Then I watched Gilmore Girls and tried to be okay. I wasn't.

3. I had another meltdown when trying to tell Eli about the first meltdown. I.e.: I cried a lot, he told me he thinks I need a break, and then he made me chicken. 

4. Bold Fran tried really hard to convince italics Fran that taking breaks would be okay, and not result in failing classes and losing her job. Italics Fran wasn't convinced.

5. I went to therapy on Friday night, and my therapist told me the exact same thing. In fact, he told me that taking breaks was part of it. That I'd be more productive if I slowed down. That was news to me, but then I tried it. And it went well?

I'm not going to be perfect, or even good at it right away. But I'll tell you something: this weekend I did a lot of relaxing, a lot of cuddling, and a lot of TV/movie watching. I also finished an entire graphic novel (the first book I've finished all month!) and completed a drawing for one of my classes. I'm trying to convince myself that slowing down will actually work, and will actually allow me to accomplish more. Even though the evidence is there, and even though I've read it about a million times in blog posts and self-help books, it's really hard to do. I have this thing where I want to be really good at everything I do. Otherwise, what is the point in doing it?! I'm convinced that if I'm not good at everything I do, and I don't do everything I could possibly be good at, I'm a failure. Because that's giving up, right? Listen, I'm writing this post and I'm asking all these questions like this is going to have a resolution at the end. The truth is, I don't know the answers. All I know is, Eli and my therapist and my mentor and probably loads of other people have told me that's not true. So I'm going to try to do another thing that my therapist recommended and trust them. 

I'm sad because this means I probably won't do NaNoWriMo this year.  Something I've participated in every year since I was a senior in high school. (Or at least not to the extent that I have in the past.) I'm sad because this means I might take a break from school. And by that I literally mean, one semester off. Or one less class. And sure, that means I might get my degree one semester later. But at this point, who the f*ck cares?! At the end of the day, I logically know that life isn't a race. But this anxiety that has been ingrained in me says differently. And it's really hard sometimes to fight it, and ignore the person in your head telling you you aren't moving fast enough. I literally do not have a pretty, soothing conclusion for this. All I can say is, I am happy. When I allow myself to slow down, I love so many things about my life. I love my apartment. I love my boyfriend. I love my friends, and how they continuously inspire me and thrill me. I love my creativity. I love my commute. I love my coworkers. I really like a lot of things about this new job. (We aren't at love yet. I don't want to move too fast.) I love the lazy Sundays I'm so privileged to have now. Right now, in this season of stress and excitement, I'm simply trying to keep the love at the forefront of my mind, and not the anxiety.

 -Fran

Last Week #26 | Channel It

 Last week, Eli was gone. For five days…plus an extra Delta day. But I had a plan. I was going to WERK. “Channel it. Into your work. Into work.” That was my plan, and then I burned out. 

At the beginning of the week I was like- I am a queen. By Wednesday I was like- I am dying. On that day, my “day off,” I tried to do too much. To be fair, I did it all, but by the end of the day my thumbs had checked things off the to-do list, but my poor brain hadn't caught up yet. I found myself wishing I had a Pensieve to empty my mind.

I discovered that it's extraordinarily hard to “channel it” when your outlet is gone. Usually I can channel anything into art. Deep sadness? Art. Anger? Art. Hunger? Art. This week though, my loneliness did not get turned into art, because my loneliness meant my overwhelmed-ness was compounded and I could barely do anything. I found it hard to channel my feelings into my work, because the channels were all blocked. Blocked by loneliness, blocked by anger, blocked by annoyance, blocked by stress. I didn't have my vent, so it built up and up and up until... I got a pounding headache. And then I was able to do even less. I watched The Mindy Project and packed books and tried to do the most I possibly could with each day. But the most you possibly can do isn't always the best idea. It's better to do the majority of what you can and leave some room for rest, so the next day you can do more, instead of burning out on day 1. I’m not really good at that. I’m good at burning myself out. 

Here's the thing about being on your own. Fortunately, there's no one there to tell you what to do. There's no one there to say, "you shouldn't watch The Mindy Project and do art on your lunch break!" (Good. Cause that was a dope idea.) There's no one there to say, "Don't get drunk in your kitchen and dance to Beyoncé.” (GOOD. BECAUSE THAT WAS A GREAT IDEA.) And unfortunately, there's no one there to tell you what to do. No one to tell you what to do when your head starts pounding and your heart follows suit and you don't know what to prioritize first because it all seems important so it's all too much. 

What worries me is, I did do a lot this week. I worked my typical 35 hour schedule (9:30-5 5 days a week), while also packing a significant portion of my room into boxes, bringing those boxes to a storage unit (and getting the storage unit OPEN on my own), starting and completing an art project in like 3 days, watching 26 episodes of The Mindy Project in 6 (Come on. That is an accomplishment!), having two school-related meetings, getting essays done, writing outlines, making videos and blog posts for myself, and sleeping. And I completed all that under the stress of only being able to talk to my significant other for ten minutes a day. (Usually at the end of the day, when I was so worn out and moody and sleepy I wasn’t really capable of being nice to myself, let alone him.) I did all that, and I couldn’t see it, so it therefore wasn’t enough for me. I felt like I had failed to take advantage of my week to WERK.

At the end of it all, when Eli finally got home, I was so worn out and strung out and wired and exhausted that I pretty much just crashed. We had a great reunion, don’t get me wrong, but I definitely fell asleep, hard, for a portion of it. Let me make this make sense to you— I do not ever fall asleep watching TV. That is blasphemous to me. This weekend, I did it two days in a row. Full on passed OUT in front of Bojack Horseman. Eli tried to act like he wasn’t disappointed, but I think he was a little bit. I mean, we had plans, and I snored and drooled all over them. But I guess that’s what I mean. I’m not very good to myself sometimes. I don’t forgive myself for falling asleep when I need to be doing other things. Actually, it doesn’t even get that far. I don’t even let myself fall asleep when I need to be doing other things. The reason Eli is so important to me, so important to my life, is not because I am some needy girl who can't do anything without her boyfriend. I can do it all on my own, but my brain likes to trick me into thinking that I've done nothing. He helps me see it. He is patient and kind and forgiving with me. And when we are together, we are a little better to ourselves, because all either of us wants is to be good to each other.

This week I thought a lot about a particular quote from a Conor Oberst song I’ve been listening to on repeat. "And if you don't collide with the traffic in your mind / I think you'll find your way out of this / I hope you find your way out of this." Every time I heard it, it stopped me in my tracks. Holy shit, I thought. How does he know about the traffic in my mind? How did he word it so perfectly? F***, has Conor Oberst bugged my brain? Anyway, I’m working on it, Conor. I’m working on being better to myself. I’m learning how from a really great human being. And I hope one day to find my way out of the maze of traffic in my mind.

 -Fran

Last Week #23 | Act Your Age

 Since I didn’t write a blog post last week, I am going to write a little about both two weeks ago, and this past week. Between last week and this week, a weekend existed. A glorious, perfect, amazing three day weekend. (For the first time in my life, I understand why Labor Day exists.) Eli and I went to my family’s lake house in the finger lakes, because I had only been there once all summer and decided this was probably my last chance, before school and work and creative business overtook me and my precious schedule. So we went, and spent time with my cousins, who were also there. 

During the first evening’s dinner, talking to my cousin who is precisely my age and also still in college, I was telling her everything I do with my time. (I’m a talker.) 

At the end of it, she looked astounded. 

"You're doing so much!" She said.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"You're doing so many things that you're passionate about!"

I was confused. Wasn't that the point? Sure, you probably have to get a 9-5 to survive, preferably in something that you don't hate, but that doesn’t mean you should then spend the rest of your precious time bemoaning the fact that you don't have any time to do what you love. Use that precious little time to DO WHAT YOU LOVE. I get up early and do those things, or use that time to do things that are good for me. Then I go to work, and try to put myself into it. And then I come home, and I try to love others. My boyfriend, my friends, myself. I do some fun things, but mainly deliberately unproductive things. And that's it. That's all I do. That's all we can do. 

Since my birthday is nigh, I’ve been thinking a lot about age. And for some reason, that old adage keeps fluttering back into my head. “Act your age.” And I hate that adage. What even is age? As one of the books that always sat on my mother’s kitchen shelf read, “Age is just a number.” So I don’t get how I can act it. When you’re a young person, people tell you to do this a lot. And it confuses me. Because, how the hell do I act 21? Do I drink? And therefore perpetuate stereotypes about my generation? Or do I work really hard, just so they’ll say that I’m the exception? Is there a way to act your age without stereotyping yourself? I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. Right now I’m nearly 21, I have a full time job and I’m a part-time student. I’m a full time girlfriend and best friend and creator. And I’m also a full-time Fran. I might be young, I feel really old. I hate that just because I haven’t lived 47 years, I’m considered less. I wish that when people said “act your age” they didn’t mean, “Act the age I wish you still were.” It seems that many people are confused by young people if they don’t fit in to a box they can understand. So they say "act your age" but they mean, “Act a different way so I can make sense of you.” I’m 21, I have a full time job, I’m a student, I’m in love, and I’m creative and logical and practical and impractical and stupid and senseless and naive and wise beyond my years. 

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't want to be known for, and judged by, my age. I want to be known for my personality, or writing, or purple hair, or art, or how hard I work, or my heart. And maybe I am. This weekend, I babysat for a family I've been watching for years. (About 6, to be exact.) 

I was telling them about my job, and the mom said, "You're working full time and still doing school?!" She seemed taken aback, like she couldn't believe it. I sighed and moaned about how yes, I was crazy enough to be doing that (because to be honest it was almost 1 am and I was half asleep and freaking moody), but in the back of my head I was thinking, "Dude. Come on. I have a very delicate balance going on here. Don't make me question how in the hell I'm doing this. If I think about it too hard, it'll all come crumbling down."  But the next day, in talking to one of my good friends, she said, "It's because you're an organizational queen. That's how." Essentially telling me to never question or doubt myself. And that's what I mean. I want to be known for who I am, not for my age, not for how much I do. As one of my favorite astrologers once said, "You're a human being, not a human doing." I'm trying to remember that in this stressful time, this age of the rat race, this season of my life. 

-Fran

Last Week #20 | I Got Lost in the Woods and All I Got Were These Lame Cliches

Disclaimer: This blog post is about to be really really real. 

On Monday of this past week, I had my first day at a brand new job. Granted, it's just a different library job (it's not like I changed careers) but it was one hell of an adjustment nonetheless. I'm not going to sugar coat it. On days one and two, I was overwhelmed as hell. To put it in culturally relevant terms, I felt like Eilis at the beginning of Brooklyn. I walked out the doors at the end of my shifts the first two days, sat down in my car and promptly burst into tears, soaking Eli through with my worries and fears and doubts. 

This library is simply different. The vibe is different, and the job I'm working is just MORE. It's a definite step up in terms of hours and workload. There's a much more serious tone. Which is absolutely fine, professionalism is great, but at 20 and 7/8ths years old, it's a little overwhelming. I'm used to wearing whatever I want and not having to worry about what will happen if I get a tattoo one day. I'm used to making jokes and showing off what I like to call my "trash youth interior" while also still being professional and doing my job. So the first two days, when I was getting oriented and didn't really get to talk to anyone, I was drowning. And I find that really interesting, because I always thought I didn't like people. But on day 4, when I got to do more of what I'll be doing every day-- sitting behind the desk and interacting with patrons, I was happy. Which was mind blowing to me. I like people?! I thought. My whole life is a lie! 

Another challenging aspect of this week was filming. As you may know, I'm working on my second short film of the summer (but my 4th overall project). Once again, we had limited time to get it done-- basically Friday was all we had. So we ventured back out into the woods at around 6 pm, with storm clouds looming ominously over our heads. We got the shots, we got the shots, we had fun, blah blah blah. It started to get dark, and we still had a few shots left and increasingly limited time, so we powered through. But then, in the wake of the excitement of getting the shot, reality settled back over us-- in the forms of darkness, fog, and thunder. 

I won't say we got lost, because that would be an insult to Eli's navigating skills. But we did get a little... disoriented and eventually realized that instead of taking the long way back (which would lead us to the water bottles and other supplies we had left behind while the daylight still lingered), it was smarter to take a shortcut, because our ever-anxious director was freaking out a little bit. This turned out to be a very muddy, mucky, messy and sharp shortcut. I hated it. But afterwards, lying in the safety of my bed in borrowed sweatpants while my white shorts that I stupidly wore soaked in a bucket in the bathroom, I looked over the shots I got and I realized two significant things. 

1. It was worth it. Even though I knew that behind the shots where the camera movement was glorious were the oozing scratches on my legs now covered in Neosporin, they were so worth the blood, sweat, and tears.
2. And 2, and this relates to my post last week, I really love filmmaking. Because even though it is sometimes a perfect recipe for stress, anxiety, and occasional pain, everything else pales in comparison.

So I guess if I were to try to connect these two topics somehow, I'd say this. When I was hemming and hawing over whether or not to even apply for this new job, my brilliant and wise mentor Yvonne said something that stuck with me. She said, "There's really no such thing as wrong choice.  It's all just experience and whether it's awesome or not so awesome, we learn what we need to learn and adjust and go forward and look forward to the next things. Enjoy the in between-ness, if you can." When I was lost in the woods, I thought I had made the worst choice in the world. On day 1, I questioned whether I had made a mistake. But sitting here, on the morning of day 5, I'm realizing that she's right. It's all just experience. And for better or worse, we're going to get lost in the muddy woods sometimes, but hopefully in the end we can sit on our beds and realize it was worth it. 

That was so cliche, I think I need to take another shower. 

-Fran

Last Week #11 | The Disconnect

 At the end of this week, following the glory of last, my boyfriend was called away on family business and I had to deal with being away from him after a weekend of being so close to him and my friends. Since I am not very good at coping and rather skilled at escapism, my sister and I decided to go to “the lake” (our family’s lake house in the Finger Lakes). This was our first trip as adult people, going on our own without our parents to a place we’d been a million times before. And it went surprisingly well. If you have a sister, you'll understand that the previous statement is really not an insult, but actually quite generous. 

What I learned from this weekend is this: the days are long when you're in control of them, and longer still when you aren't, and when you're without the people you love most. While my days were long and breezy, others' were not so much. I tried to do what I could to enjoy my time, and make theirs better where I could. 

And I succeeded. I laid out in the sun and flicked the ants of worry and anxiety and even sadness away. Though, my anxieties are persistent, so time after time they kept crawling back. But instead of focusing on them, I read. I wrote. I went for a walk and listened to my favorite music. I made my grandparents happy by visiting with them for an hour. I continued watching Seinfeld and dreamed. I didn't worry. 

As a young person, I hear a lot about how we are “always immersed in our screens” and how we “need to unplug more.” It’s kind of an incessant criticism. But the criticizers don’t ever stop to ask if we want it too. They might be surprised by the answer. This weekend, my sister and I both had the same goal— disconnecting. For her, it is because she is a senior in high school and being connected to the world through her phone means crazy amounts of stress pouring in at every turn— emails, reminders, tasks, more and more things she has to do at the so called “best time in her life.” For me, I wanted to escape for many of the same reasons. If I can’t connect to email, I can’t be reminded of all the things I’m not doing. Of all the time I’m wasting. And if I’m not connected, and instead have a glorious nature getaway in front of me, I also can’t focus on missing the person I love so much. I think we young people are always so connected to our "screens" nowadays for a multitude of complex reasons. Sure, we do engage socially there, but that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. They help us stay organized, keep on task, and it’s basically the nature of the job market nowadays. If you aren’t easily contactable, you aren’t getting the job. I think older generations fail to see that the screens we seem to love so much are also our worst enemies, and as difficult to extract ourselves from as X-Men-like wings on our backs. It's not that we don't want to put the "screens" down. It's that we can't rationalize disconnecting from so many opportunities, tasks, and emails that might get us somewhere in the world. 

Nevertheless, disconnecting was as good for me as it was for my sister, and just as necessary. To do nothing is an enormous task, especially for two "overachievers" such as ourselves. We talked about how when you wake up at 8 am with the whole day ahead of you, at 1 pm you are amazed at how seemingly little time has passed. I’m quite familiar with the feeling of— the day is already half over, and I haven’t done nearly as much as I planned! But this weekend, the feeling was more like: The day isn’t even half over, and we’ve already done all the nothing we could ever imagine with it! In my day to day life, the hours run screaming by me, ignorant and indifferent to my desperate attempts to catch them. So I don't know if the lake is magic or something, but this weekend I made time my bitch. 

 -Fran

This Week [#4: Coming Together]

 Though not technically the fourth week in this series, it's my fourth week of making this style of blog post. Sometimes the weeks get away from you, which is why I'm trying to make the effort to work on this each day of the week, which ensures the mindfulness I'm after.

 Monday: Treating yourself to a self-love day. Starting the day with a bath, writing some essays, and taking a long walk that takes you both to where you've been and where you are. It's a weird, metaphorical day.

 Tuesday: The day when you breathe a sigh of relief at all of the "FINALLY"'s coming your way. FINALLY finding the perfect Christmas presents for the people in your life who deserve it so much. FINALLY painting again, even if it's something small, after close to a year of not picking up a brush. FINALLY seeing the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer, after two years of eagerly anticipating the Eddie Redmayne led return to the Wizarding World you've loved your whole life. FINALLY working on that essay you said you'd start all day.  Finally, finally, finally.

 Wednesday: Tackling huge problems that feel like the end of the world, and realizing the people that validate and support you most aren't necessarily the people you'd expect.

 Thursday: Crushing it. Accomplishing all of the things you put off, then having a miniature Star Wars re-watch and deciding you love Han Solo (among others).

 Friday: To grandmother's house we go. Nearly freezing to death taking pictures by a lake you've loved your whole life, with someone who you've just begun to love. Realizing that it doesn't take much to make certain people happy, but what matters is that you choose to do it.

 Saturday: Finally feeling useful and watching your friends' business grow and thrive in front of your eyes. Then watching the person you love geek the hell out over Star Wars, and loving it because of how much you love him.

  Sunday: Having hard conversations, watching an iconic Diane Keaton movie, and correctly guessing the writer of said movie. (Nancy Meyers for the win.)

 It's fascinating to me how easily stressful things can become fun and beautiful when you're with the right people. I used to dread trips to see extended family. But Friday I had the best time I've ever had at my grandparent's house. Maybe it's that I've grown up, and maybe it's because of who I was with, and maybe it's both. Ordinarily, I would be horrified by a movie theater packed with overly excited nerds. Saturday, it wasn't at all scary. It was beautiful and fun and light and full of giddy happiness. This week I realized something I've suspected for a while: people are the difference.

 -Fran

This Week [#1: This Life]

 Since I've been doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month in the month of November-- in which brave writers across the world attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month), and have been daily vlogging the experience, I haven't been doing my Weekly Vlogs on my YouTube channel. And while I know I will get back to doing them in December, I miss the experience. I miss the routine of capturing the little, beautiful, happy moments throughout my week, and choosing how to put them together at the end of the week. I miss telling stories with those few images. So in an attempt to continue to do this during NaNoWriMo, I've been taking snapshots everyday. Just quick pictures of what my day consisted of, in lieu of taking footage every day.

 Mondays are for binge-watching whole seasons of awesome, inspiring TV shows on your boyfriend's Netflix.

 Tuesdays are for falling asleep in your bed at 4:30 watching How To Get Away With Murder because it was rainy and windy and your lights and the Medicare commercials lulled you to sleep.

 Wednesdays are for getting up too early, accomplishing nothing, and then giving up at 2:30 pm and taking a Lush bath.

 Thursdays are for accomplishing all of the things you didn't do Wednesday, like writing 1,000 words in your favorite coffee shop, listening to music, Pinterest-ing and eating too much chocolate.

 Fridays are for running about like a crazy person, scrambling to get web series minisodes ready for upload, and cupping coffees that taste like teas.

 Saturdays are for stressful but ultimately lovely meetings of parents, and impromptu road trips to middle of nowhere places, where all there is is a sign and a general feeling.

Finally, Sunday is the day on which you feel the luckiest-- where you get to spend the day taking photos in the woods for your best friend's coffee shop, then eating Sunday dinner with those same friends and watching The Walking Dead with them. Sunday is the day to spend with family. And this week, I got to do that.

I hope you guys enjoyed this collective look at my week. It was really fun and grounding to make this blog post, as it forced me to keep track of the moments that would otherwise slip away from me. As we get closer to the holiday season, it is so easy to fall into that mindset of "just getting things done." But when we do that, we get to the end of the week and can't see anything but the productivity (or lack thereof). The beautiful, lovely, fun moments get lost in the shuffle, and we forget them. We forget to be grateful for them. I don't want to forget them. I want to stay present, mindful, and grateful for the life I get to live. And I think this blog post format is a way for me to do that. So what I guess I'm saying is-- get used to this. Because I'm going to be doing it every week from now on.

 -Fran

Stress & Surprising Yourself

   I surprised myself this week. With everything that I've been through, all the ups and downs that life has thrown at me, I've been really careful with myself these past two years. Careful not to put too much on my plate or give myself more than I can handle. But I realized this week that I am more than capable, and I'm not as fragile as I used to be. I’m strong. 

 This week I: 

Spent my entire Monday with friends, cooking food and watching Wet Hot American Summer. 

Worked at the library, as per usual.

Babysat on Wednesday, which is usually my day off. (I will be doing this every Monday and Wednesday for the next month or so.)

Helped with some writing for Peaks Coffee Co.

Got my car inspected.

Made my birthday list. (At my mom's request)

Watched The X-Files with a friend.

Got a lot less sleep than usual.

 I don’t know why that all seems really significant to me, but for some reason it does. I mean, usually in any given week I’ll work, do a little writing, and then have nothing but spare time in between to overthink and overanalyze and generally be completely alone with my thoughts. For a long time I thought I needed that time. And I think I do, to some extent. But this week I proved to myself that I can get by without it, and I won’t become a total mess. I have this constant, nagging fear that one day I’ll slip up…and revert back to being the person I was in high school. A person that I hated. She was an anxiety machine, she was never happy, and she was never satisfied with herself. I don’t want to be that person ever again. So part of me probably thought that if I just didn’t do a lot, if I was never stressed, I wouldn’t become that again. But after this summer of stress and anxiety but also joy, I think it’s safe to say I’ve outgrown that person. I’m much more equipped to handle stress. It’s not the end of the world for me anymore. No longer does being stressed equal being unhappy. And if I do say so myself, that’s pretty significant. 

 -Fran