A Lighthearted Life Update
Y'all, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I've been going through the wringer lately, and it doesn't appear that my ass-beating will be over anytime soon. Maybe 2027 will be my year, but 2026 has not been pulling any punches.
But I'm not here to talk about all the hardship again. I'm not here to say how my worldview has shifted or how I've made progress on my creative projects (because there definitely hasn't been enough to update about). I'm just here to say hey.
Hope y'all have been having a better go of it than I have, and I hope everything gets a lot better for all of us in the near future. Until then, though, here's some of the things I've been thinking about:
My Food Journal
I finally started a food journal that notes what things hurt me and what things are safe. I think eventually I'll do something more granular, but for now I've been pretty good about trying to stay within the known okays before branching out for testing.
I'm actually hoping to write a little cookbook that I can share here one of these days. It was a request from a friend a bit ago. He was hoping our trial and error could help him better accommodate when cooking for friends with limiting diets similar to mine. If any bit of knowledge I've gained through the struggles can be of benefit to someone more than me, I'm happy to share what I've learned.
It's an incredibly sweet thought, and one I want to support. I know my friends have been similarly eager to cook for me, but it's hard when I don't even know what's bad yet. Once I figure out a bit more of my own shit, I'll be happy to put something more formal together. For now I'll just say that homemade chipotle mayo has been a godsend.
Art
The first art thing I've really done an okay job following through on, the gesture drawing course, is almost over. I have two more practice reels and that's it. I already purchased my next lesson from the same instructor (on one of the more basic concepts that I should've taken first) and I'm planning to start it once this one's completed.
Well, in true me fashion, I'm now dragging my feet three steps from the finish line. I hope to wrap up the last few practices this month, but if not, I will complete the lesson in November and start the new one in December. Fingers crossed I stick to that timeline.
The Future
As a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up was always changing. Maybe I would be a singer. Or an actress. A mermaid. An interior designer. Soccer player. Musician. Astronaut. Artist.
The list goes on. Shit, it's still expanding to this day. It probably always will be.
Here's the thing, though: I never really think past the initial "wouldn't this be so cool" fantasy of what life could be like having already made it in whatever respective field. I don't think about the work. The years of grinding and practicing and working. Hours and hours of spending time doing things I don't want to as stepping stones to an end goal that's distant and not guaranteed.
What can I say? I'm more of an "ideas" guy when it comes to future planning beyond the immediate and necessary. But there is one thing that I've been thinking about pretty consistently in terms of future planning:
Personal Growth
I've been thinking about investing in myself as a means of treating myself now that income isn't quite as tight. I can afford to follow through on some of the ideas that aren't just free or dirt cheap. I'm not looking to go crazy or anything, but there's a lot of experiences I want to have that I've been putting on the back burner while we got finances in a better spot.
I'm not sure what I'll do next, but here were some of the ideas I'd been kicking around:
- A gym membership for a personal trainer
- Workouts in lessons (i.e. kickboxing, martial arts, etc.)
- Continuing education classes
- Cooking/nutrition classes
I'm pretty sure I've floated more options than that to my husband in real life, but I can only think of those at the moment to list out. I just know that I want to make a change. I want to improve. I need to move. I need something novel and fresh to sink my teeth into.
I'm stagnating, and there's nothing more torturous. Hopefully I'll have a new, fun challenge to figure out and share in the near future.