HOW TO NOT BE A COMPLETE MESS

Honestly this is more of a little reminder for myself, I'm struggling more days than I am not but I also have learned how to handle myself...it just takes work and for someone who is unemployed some days it does just feel easier to curl back up in bed. But I have a tiny human who is relying on me, and I am relying on myself to get myself back up on my feet because there isn't anyone else to do that for me, welcome to adulthood right? I'm a little embarrassed at how much I've relied on others when it comes to life things but now I need to put on my big girl panties and push through.

one. Get out of bed
This one is seemingly the most straight forward but is still the hardest of the lot. Especially in winter when it's cold outside of the covers. I have to share my living space with a lot more people now so it is a lot easier to hide in my room and lie in bed while the Bean plays around me but I need to make a more concentrated effort to get out of bed in the morning and stay out until bedtime at night.

two. Eat well
Food has been super important to me, and feeding Bean good nutritious meals have been numero uno on my priority list, but when it comes to myself I've been slacking. I blame partially the Christmas season and the availability of chocolate and sweet but my low vegetable consumption has purely been due to my laziness and lack of desire to actually prepare and cook a meal when I could just eat toast and a cookie. I feel infinitely better when I am putting good food in my body, and keeping physically active

three. Stop overthinking
I am a relentless planner, I have to-do lists out the door, itineraries for each day and activity I plan but despite all of this I never get anything done, why? Because instead of doing anything I just think about it. I have this incessant need to try to go over every possible scenario mentally before I actually do something which is the easiest way to talk myself out everything. I cannot see the future, I cannot plan for everything and at a certain point I need to just dive in and go for whatever it is that I want to get done.

four. Stop feeling sorry for yourself
This is not where I imagined my life at this point, but when does anyone's life go exactly as planned? I've hit a lot of road blocks and gone down some twists and turns but I also have so much to be grateful for. I have a beautiful boy, amazingly supportive family, hilarious friends, a roof over my head and food in my belly. No matter how dire things may look for me, it's still not that bad. I need to be able to ask for help when I need it, but I also need figure things out myself and make my life work for me.

HELLO

"Oh man, it has been a while. I've been back in Canada for about a month now, it has been hectic physically and emotionally. Bean has been a trooper, I'm the one who has probably had more adjustment issues but I'm working on those. I thought that since I have just gone from a small town to a big cosmopolitan city that it would be a good time to address the internal conflict that comes from wanting to simplify your life but also living in a such a consumerist world."

That was the last thing I attempted to write for this blog, over two months ago. I have a million excuses, I moved to a new country, I moved back and forth across my new city, I was cleaning, I was studying,I was job hunting, I was hanging out with my friends, I was spending time with my family,  I was dealing with family drama, I was dating, I was taking care of myself...but really it all comes down to me not making the effort. Single parenthood has slammed me like a wall, I am extremely blessed to have an amazingly supportive network of friends and family here so despite my struggles my son and I are very well taken care of. 2015 was a year of just barely holding on to be completely honest, I've learned a lot about myself and my short comings but I still have no idea what I am doing in this world. I always make resolutions and goals for myself, but I don't usually achieve them, I am very much a starter but never a finisher this blog is probably a good indication of that. This year I want to learn how to finish things, even if the end result is not what I want. I need to learn failure in order to succeed,  I need to learn how to push through the tough times without giving up because it is too hard. I feel like people tend to treat me like this fragile breakable thing that is to susceptible to all the outside noise of world and that bothers me, but the worst part is that I think I started to believe it. I have things that hold me back in life but instead of accepting that I should be trying to push through it more, so I hope to learn to do that this year.

I don't know what will become of this space, I probably won't do anything huge with it. In theory I'd like to use it as some form of accountability but I don't think I can completely commit to that. However I still like it here, I like having a little space that I can talk about whatever I want and maybe I'll get inspired again but for now this is all I can do...I don't even have a nice picture to put here but oh well, I was never much of a photographer anyways.

SAYING GOODBYE

I started this blog a year and a half ago in preparation for my big move across the world to keep my little family together. It was supposed to be my place to be creative and not get too stir crazy as a stay-at-home mom. Surprisingly starting this blog, and reading other blogs, opened me up in more ways that I could have expected. Despite my lack of posting, and not feeling like part of the blogging community I really feel like having this blog has helped me grow and has pushed me to be better. I want to be get better at blogging, and maybe I will someday but considering the amount of changes that are occurring in my life now (I will elaborate shortly) I think at least for now my blog won't be my main priority.

This time of year is very special for people, it's back to school which is a new beginning and those of us not in school still feel nostalgic for the feeling back to school evokes, excitement and nervousness combined. It's time to say goodbye to the carefree relaxed attitude of summer and start tightening up and settling back into the real world, but it's definitely not necessarily a bad thing. Right now I'm finishing up packing my bags, emptying out my apartment and mentally preparing myself for life back in Canada as a single mom. Yes, the great German Experiment didn't work out, for a variety of reasons but none so glaring as the fact that I was completely isolated here. Right now I'm saying goodbye to the family that I have been apart of since arriving, I'm saying goodbye to  the man I spent the last three years with, and I'm saying goodbye to my last carefree summer before I step back into the real world. I can't say that I am going back home, because I'm not, yes I consider Canada as a country home but none of the individual cities in which I have lived are home, not even the one I grew up in. As someone who has never had much inclination to travel, I've done more than my fair share of packing my bags and starting life somewhere new, but now I need to maintain a level of stability, not for me but for the tiny human coming with me. We are going back to family, to a new "home" where I will have support and he will have plenty of love, but it still won't be easy. Perhaps I will use blogging again to document my new life, it may help me stay grounded after all, but no promises as my plate is already overloaded. Right now I can't make any plans, all I can do is pack and say goodbye and then just see what happens when we step back onto the airplane.

I'M NOT A MAKER

I read lots of blogs, probably too many and I so often find myself caught in that nasty cycle of comparison. I know I know, never compare your beginning with somebody else's middle or whatever that saying is but I still have trouble finding bloggers that relate with. Why you may ask, while blogging is probably considered a somewhat creative (and or entrepreneurial) endeavour, I myself am not a maker. I'm not a creator nor a "do-er" in the most literal explanations of the terms. I'm an art school quitter, university drop out, soon-to-be (officially) single mom. I don't ponder my aesthetic or attempt to retain my revelance in this world. I don't have big plans of marketing myself (personally not a fan of any marketing, but I do accept it as a necessary evil) or creating a brand. I feel like a lot of bloggers want to make something of their blogs which is awesome but they all seem to be reading the same advice on how to do it, so while their pictures are beautiful and posting is consistent they don't seem to have anything interesting to say. I know I'm probably just following the wrong blogs but I started blogging because I've heard there's a community that goes with it. I guess for you to be a part of a community you would need to make yourself known which is definitely something I struggle with (online and irl) but it would probably help if I knew about blogs which I felt I could connect with on a deeper level. I am not a maker, I'm someone who helps keeps things afloat, and I'm okay with that, I just wish I could find some more people like me because frankly all those super creative makers out there intimidate me but I need some people on my level so that I don't drown myself in my constant comparison.

BOOKS: THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING

Despite the fact that I used to read a lot, I didn't branch out into many genres. The idea of a non-fiction book about one woman's experience with grief likely would not have appealed to me much at all, and to be fair I actually was only introduced to this book through school. We were supposed to read this book in my medical anthropology course I took in my first year of university, and I vaguely remember skimming through it so I would be familiar with it for the exam but I didn't actually grasp anything specific from it. I picked this us right after finishing Marabou Stork Nightmares and yet it took me over six months to read its two hundred and twenty-seven pages but it was a heavy read so I felt like I needed to keep putting it down.

The story is told through a series of anecdotes about the past and present all surrounding the life and death of Joan Didion's husband and her process of understanding what happened the year following his death. I cried, and I smiled but what I really enjoyed about it was reading about how Didion was trying to explain the insane thoughts in her brain, while knowing they were irrational and being unable to stop them just the same. I really connected with that aspect of the book and of course it doesn't hurt the she is a wonderful writer with an incredible attention to detail.

Would recommnend? Absolutely

HOW TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE WORST

Sometimes the worst case scenario happens, and when it does sometimes it's better than you expected and other times it is way, way worse. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms for when life goes sideways but not all of us are so well adjusted that we can just take it all in stride. As someone who is familiar with the feeling of hopelessness I thought I would share some of the things I do to get myself through the rough patches.

one. Remember why you get up in the morning
If you are someone like me, you know how the first battle of the day is just making yourself stand up on your bedroom floor. For many people their bed is a place of security, of warmth and coziness on the physical side and psychologically it can feel like a safe place that exists outside of the rest of the world. But as we all know the world doesn't stop turning just because you are in bed so at some point you have to get up. For some it's a job, for other's its children and some also just look forward to their day. When the worst thing happens remember the reasons you get out of bed, even if you have lost one of those reasons now, there are still others to get you moving.

two. Remember the people counting on you
This is similar to the first one but more specific. You are not an isolated being, you have parents, maybe siblings, maybe extended family. If you don't have family you probably have friends, or acquaintances you interact with and whose lives you have impacted. Your job likely has people counting on it, and sure maybe anyone can brew a cup of coffee, but its your job and people are counting on you to do it. You are part of a web that connects you to the rest of the world so someone or something is going to notice if you just decide to drop out of it, you are not nobody.

three. Remember you have survived before
I am like ninety-nine percent sure that nobody makes it out of life unscathed. Everyone goes through hardships at one point or another, whether it's something small like getting a bad grade, or as big as traumatic life event you have to remember that you are still here. Even if this is worse than anything you could have imagined, look back at all the things you have overcome so far, and acknowledge that yes it's going to be hard but your life is worth fighting for until the end, if not for yourself but for the others around you (see point two).

Here's a bonus one, I hesitated to include it because I don't think that you should belittle anyone's problems, because the same situation for you could feel a million times more difficult for someone else but at the same time it can help to look at the bigger picture and put things into perspective.

four. Remember it could be worse
There are some really awful things that happen in the world, there are very beautiful things and awful things and everything in between. If people can survive in war-stricken lands, face disease, live without shelter and minimal food it makes many of my problems seem small in comparison, and when things look smaller they feel a lot easier to overcome. Again this tip might not be helpful for everyone because your problem is just as real as someone elses, this helps me regain my focus and look at things in a different light.

And one final note, if it feels like the world around you is falling apart it is absolutely okay for you to fall apart. Nobody should have to pretend that shitty things don't affect them, we are all only human. This post is for after you fall apart, to help you string yourself back together because sometimes (I know from experience) that can be the hardest part. 

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

Yesterday I had no idea where I was going.

Today I can look back at where I've been.

And tomorrow seems so so far away.