My head hurts, my upper neck is aching, my mouth is somewhat dry, and I can barely hold my body up and keep my eyes open…, yet I am extremely satisfied.
I somewhat spontaneously called a friend of mine who lives in Australia, and we had a lovely nonsense hangout chat while he grocery shopped (until his phone battery practically died).
Turns out that he hasn’t been doing a great job on managing his physical fitness this past year-ish, and so we might just have become check-in buddies for one another’s fitness.
While I am still super fit, technically, I haven’t been working out lately, and I really want to get myself back into it.
Having someone else work together with me, in a way, could be a wonderful step for this for me.
I was just thinking today and yesterday how I missed having a gym buddy, and how I kind of wanted a new one somehow…, and, perhaps, here one might be.
And, as he said, it also would be helpful for us in terms of putting us in regular, frequent contact again.
Long-distance friendships take effort, but they especially require both parties to be at least somewhat aware of the time difference… when only one friend knows the time difference, it adds for lots of confusion and little actual talking. 😛
So, anyway, we might have weekly check-ins with one another now regarding fitness…, and I think it might be just what I need and want right now.
We hiked and frisbee-ed, and I photo-ed while they bouldered and swam.
There was intense thinking, visceral activity, and choo-choo breathing, along with a combination of utter terror and extreme, satisfied joy.
And I had a great time being photographer, climbing my own routes to get to the good and various photo angles.
I can hardly wait to share them, these photos… yes, this trip has been very good for me so far… 🙂
Thank you, God.
Please, continue to guide me as I release these restraints I have been carrying, and free myself of these painful fears and stresses in my life… I can do this, and I am grateful for the living opportunity that lies all around me with this present moment.
Thank you for it.
Amen.
Yeah…, today was absolutely exhausting and totally awesome… thank you… 🙂
It seems I am making men run these days… first my conversation exchange buddy, and then, perhaps only days later, a guy I know from high school… so, who’s next on the list, World??
And I haven’t even told them to start running or anything… they have simply determined for themselves that they want to start running for their own health and well-being…, in some way or other, because of me.
How odd… I make men run… and without telling them to do so… and they aren’t running away from me…
😛
And I don’t even really run anymore… haha
Though, if my belly hadn’t been hurting today, I likely would have done a semi-long run (just a few miles, probably) to get in steps for my Weekend Warrior Fitbit contest with a girlfriend from college this weekend…
Anyway…, it is almost 11pm, and I can barely see straight, I’m so sleepy… I need to sleep better at night…
I really do love my city. I spent most of the day today out riding my bicycle around it, and taking photos of things I like, so that I could send them to my buddy in Italy, so that he could see some of the everyday and the beloved that are part of my life in Houston.
(What a sentence!)
What’s funny to me right now, though, is that, though I did that and I exercised and I made delicious food and healthy and delicious juices afterward, and I sent the photos on, and I chatted a long while with a good friend while winding down just now…, though I did all of these things, and I was incredibly satisfied by and fulfilled by my day…., I suddenly am filled – in my intense sleepiness, as I prep as quickly as is possible for bed – with an experience of loss regarding that guy… I almost want to cry, yet I couldn’t say why specifically… but it has to do with him, I know.
It is much like the song I wrote the other day about loving my city, yet not wanting to be in it right now…, because I wanted to be with him, instead… I was just going through all of these awesome photos, and it was on my mind how much I love my city…, and then, bam… some utterly unknown tangent busts in this old topic.
I know it was a tiny affair on paper, but it wasn’t tiny for me, for many reasons… and I understand that it isn’t just going to go away – it is going in small steps, with every day involving less and less brainpower and attention occupied by thoughts of him and that whole situation, and also less intense emotions connected to all of it… but, even still, it doesn’t feel good when, after a whole day of being in great spirits about it, my guards of logic and consciousness begin to close down for the night, and I am whooshed by a sudden sad reminder of something I really wanted – something I expressed wanting – didn’t work out, despite my going for it.
I’m just going to sit with that for now… perhaps it is what will do me best, not to resist it or disappear it right away… perhaps it still just needs to be felt at times…
There are lots and lots of ‘Who’d’a thunk?!’ going on in my life these days.
I have been contemplating even more, since not having my main source of income the past few months, my life and my career direction.
Where, how, and on how much money I live is somewhat baffling, when one considers where I was with things five years ago.
My long-time dream job became available recently, and I had the jarring reality check of discovering that it was no longer my dream job – who I am now is not the person who wanted that job. So, it’s kind of scary to re-evaluate and ask what my active dreams are now and for the near future, since all my previous goals are now invalid. 😂
I absolutely love who and how I am as a person, and I am extremely grateful for everything that has led me to my current point and has me continuing along such a beautiful path of pursuit in my life. It is just not where I would have thought things would go. At all. 😂
What’s more, the utter uncertainty of it all can be frightening at times…., but, perhaps, that is what courage is: to stand in a terrifying scenario and to forge on nonetheless, aiming for and working toward success in the pursuit…
So, perhaps, I am not being assured – or not absurd only – but courageous right now.
Perhaps I am absurdly courageous, full stop.
I think I’ll try on that cal for a while, and see what glories it produces, both mentally and in the physical life around me… it is likely to be quite the bit of adventure, I dare say….
Yesterday, I was oxen the glorious opportunity of seeing a friend of mine complete an online challenge…
***Small tangent: You see, everyone has been – and by everyone, I mean a lot of people, not actually everyone – doing various challenges in their homes, and, upon completion, challenging someone else (often multiple someone elses) to complete the same challenge.
The ones I have seen have ranged all over the pace, including but not limited to juggling a toilet paper roll like a soccer ball, doing ten push-ups and nominating ten people to do them, doing 25 push-ups, singing a praise and worship song, chugging a beer, and doing specific hand motions to a fast song without being allowed to practice… to name one more than a few. ***End of small tangent
Today, I woke up focused and ready to complete my task, to complete this challenge with which my friend had presented me yesterday… hoping, at the very least, that I could complete it, for it was not an easy one…
Now, what was this challenge, you may wonder… I divulge:
The pants-less challenge: Either take off or put on a pair of pants, without using your hands, while holding a handstand.
Wow, right?
Of course, that’s the kind of challenge you get when you have acrobatic friends who find it funny that everyone is working from home in pajamas most days right now, and who imagine that a good chunk of everyone is at home with no pants on, since there is no one to see…
So, anyway, my friend did it with her onesie, which I found somehow hilarious, and so I elected to do the same with a onesie of my own.
Hers was a panda, and the one I selected for the task was a rainbow unicorn… equally suiting to our personalities, in a way…
It took many efforts – perhaps close to ten – for me to figure out how truly to make everything work and then actually to do what I had worked out to do… I can’t hold a handstand, – just pop up onto one and then come almost immediately back down – so I knew I would have to use a wall… behind that, though, all the rest of the strategy had to come from giving it a try and seeing what happened, finding out from trial and error a bit as to what works and what doesn’t.
Eventually, after lots of practice and a short break, I went all-out and got it(!!).
Woohoo.
Super silly, and I could hardly stop laughing, this challenge was so much fun.
I had been thinking at every challenge how unchallenging it really seemed to me to be, and how not-very-entertaining each one was…, ‘These are lame challenges,’ was a common thought from me… but not on this challenge – it was not only interesting, but kind of crazy, a tad scandalous, challenging, it made me think, and it was totally fun.
I loved it.
Feel free to give it a try in your own home – though no video is required, you might enjoy reminiscing immediately with what is likely to be some comical footage… and you might want to share it, anyway, even if you utterly fail… 😛
Wishing you loads of fun and silliness right now – laughter is, indeed, an amazing medicine. 😉
Let’s talk for a minute about how we live into the future…
You know, on any given weekend, Sunday is kind of the sucky day of the weekend, because we are acutely aware of having to go back to business Monday morning… and then, if we have a vacation coming up, we’re overjoyed and excited all the time, all throughout the day, even if it is Monday morning, and we have work to do…, because our vacation is soon(!)… The boring meeting right now has no power over our cruise that starts Saturday morning…
In that sense, we live into our future, right?
Right.
So, for me, I need to be around people – I need to have my solo time, but I also need to be with people, really be with them… a friend(?) recently mentioned the term “ambivert” to me, and I like it… it very well describes my situation with all of this being extroverted and introverted…, which people almost never seem to understand, by the way…
Anyway, I need people in my life.
For the past two weeks, I have been living with very few people in my daily life… it was enough to get me by last week and the start of this week, but then the working from home this week has crushed all interactions with people in my daily life now…
However, I had work to get me through the week, e-mails to exchange, interactions (though cyber) guaranteed to be had throughout the day…
But tomorrow is Saturday… I have no work, no e-mails, no semblance of human interaction…
And I am miserable… I almost – scratch the almost, I feel like weeping, I am filled with such an experience of stress and of being unloved…
There is that beautiful quote of, “I have called you by name; you are mine,” and, though it is used initially as defining a part of the relationship between God and humanity, I feel it applies to how we interact with all things and beings in our life… when I have called you by name, given you a name of my own, I have given you a place in my heart, and you are dear to me – in some way or other, you are mine.
When people interact with me, call me by name, I often am filled with the love that is present in our relationship, whatever that relationship may be… essentially, when people interact so directly with me, I feel and experience their love for me.
In contrast, when people do not interact with me directly…, I sometimes lose sight of that love…, I sometimes begin to convince myself that the love has faded, and that I am left to myself, to be loved by no one else…
And the experience of that always sucks.
Just saying, it does.
And I know that my love is enough, and I know that the pieces of God that reside within me are enough to sustain me and fill me in every way…
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to feel unloved by the rest of the world.
I know I will be okay… I will be far more than okay…
I’m just letting myself experience this overwhelming feeling of sick right now, so that, in acknowledging it, in allowing the intense, hiding yet ebbing emotions to express, I am able to let it all go, to release it all in a cathartic convulsing of body and searing tears…
It is already late tonight, but I know that I will go to bed in an intentionally much improved state…, and I will get out of bed in the morning and take care of myself – I will play music and make art and work my body as hard as it needs to release anything else that might remain in the morning… if I cannot focus my love on others, perhaps there is something missing in my love for myself, something on which I would do well to improve… I am worth loving, and I know that and experience that with my whole being… even when I stray to wonder at its being true…
Nonetheless, I will take care of myself… I will do what I wish others would do to show their love for me, because I love me, and I am worth being loved (and even lavished), and being all alone for so long and for so much foreseeable future is scary right now…
But perhaps it is this problem exactly that has me in this situation… perhaps I need to grow more comfortable with providing all the love on my own, so that I become fully clear and comfortable in the fact that I do not need the others’ love – I merely want it.
As I was thinking in a dreamed conversation just today, do you really want to be with someone who needs you?… Would you really choose that over being with someone who wants to be with you?
I have said it before, and it still holds true entirely, I want to be with someone – in all my relationships, really – who doesn’t need me, but who wants to be with me nonetheless… who wants not to be without me, and so chooses to be with me.
It is in times of these feelings of isolation that I wonder where the people in my life stand on this spectrum, to what degrees they want me in their lives…
I have yet to find the far edge of the spectrum of wanting me…, but perhaps it will come some day… soon…
Anyway, I’m off to clean up and get ready for bed, now that I’ve finished this whole cry fest… who would have thought that Friday night and an entirely open weekend ahead could be so upsetting??
Haha
Anyway, this was how I spent my evening: eating fancy stew straight from the pot, while watching the first half of one of my favorite films, which was just recently gifted to me for my birthday, all while detachedly wondering about something that won’t seem to leave me alone lately… (I mean, what are you gonna do, right?… it’s like when a song gets stuck in my head… just let it ride, and it eventually will be replaced by something [hopefully] better, you know?)
I don’t remember what I was going to share about as of an hour ago, because it is now far too late for me to be thinking straight…, So I will share about one of the few things that I am recalling to mind right now about today:
At the chiropractor and nutritionist appointment today, I had my electrode body scan for the month, and we determined that my weight has gone down, my fat has gone down, my muscles have gone up, my cellular water level has increased in a good way, and my body fat percentage is down an entire point…, And that is all from only just over a month ago that we did the previous scan.
Basically, it is all super awesome news… So there is something beautiful happening in my life right now: I am doing awesome things for my body.
There is certainly still plenty of room for improvement, and we are both clear that it would not be bad for me to lose a little bit more of the fats (though, it is by no means necessary), but that in no way negates how awesome it is that my body is doing so well right now, and it has the numbers to support the claim.
He even told me, when I asked what would be best for me to do moving forward, that I needed to keep doing what I was already doing (which I am doing by my own design, not by any special plan from him or anything).
The dentist and dental hygienist always tell me that – they laud my oral care.
Now, the nutritionist is telling me the same thing about my physical body care… It is quite nice to be told by the professionals that I am doing everything beautifully.
Okay, I think I need to get back on the “Hannah has a totally absurd and almost stupid diet” train again…
I’ve been kind of upset lately to varying degrees, ranging from slight annoyance to total disappointment, regarding my physical fitness.
I’ve found these gorgeously fit people, you see, and, while I love having them in my life, it has made me acutely aware of every thing I consume and of how far away I am from being anywhere near their level or the level at which I truly want to be with my own physical fitness.
Part of me just feels like it isn’t in the cards for me to be at the point I truly want… and more so in that it seems like it would take what I currently consider to be an unnatural and extreme degree of control and monitoring of every single food and beverage I consume, combined with intense and strict exercise plans at all times in my life…, than about that it isn’t physically possible.
I genuinely think it is possible to have the belly I want.
It just seems like so much work, combined with a degree of impracticality for sustaining it… and I worry I would feel even worse having obtained it and let it go than by not ever having had it…
But then…, well, isn’t that just a way to avoid doing work under the guise of something else, and is it not just a way for me to avoid putting myself in an exposed and vulnerable situation?… and in a potential amazing situation…?
As Marianne Williamson suggested, am I really just afraid of how amazing I would be, if I truly went for it?
The fact that my eyes are tearing at this last thought suggests a powerful affirmative…
I am afraid of being so spectacular and still being unloved, rejected, not good enough… at least now, at my not best, being rejected and unloved can have an excuse of my not being at my best…
But who I truly am, underneath it all and at my source as a being on this planet and in this life, that being wants me to do it, to go for it, and to be my best…
Okay… let’s do this somehow… I love you, and I know you can do it…, and so do you. 🙂
::big sigh
LFG. ❤
Post-a-day 2020
Okay, I think I need to go to Italy.
At this point, the only thing left would be for someone to meet me and offer me a place to stay in Italy, in order for my trip to be made certain.
(That, or someone offering me passage to Italy…, though I had kind of planned on managing that one myself, I don’t mind letting someone else handle it… again…[I just remembered that I actually did have a free trip to Italy that one time I went for a long weekend…yes… anyway…])
Italy just keeps popping up around me: in conversations unbidden, in my calendar (it is a page-a-day with Italian phrases and culture, and it genuinely was the only one on Amazon that seemed even remotely interesting… I mean seriously, Amazon?), in a whole handful of conversation partners reaching out, in comments from others, and even in the book I spontaneously started reading today (It’s the first in a series and it has “gelato” in the title, but the second book has nothing Italian about the title, and that‘s the one that got me interested in reading the series!), where the girl up and moves to Italy from the US… I mean…. wow… the world really wants Italia to be on my mind right now.
And so, I am letting it.
I am embracing all the Italia I can, and am beginning to look for more around me.
I have a friend to whom I plan to reach out (not in the middle of the night) about finding a conversation partner/tutor here in town, I have begun a challenge on Duolingo, I am reaching out to the online conversation partner offers, and I have a whole plan for how to practice my Italian.
What’s funny is that, whenever I ask the whole “Why now?” to the world, though I get no distinct answer, I suddenly start thinking of what it might be like there, and I think of all the Italian men, and I suddenly have an almost overwhelming thought of, “Well, I can probably handle the Italian men now,” and I suddenly have my answer.
I just wasn’t ready for Italian men before.
Now, I actually am ready to take them on and run my own way.
If you don’t know anything about Italian men, I don’t have the words to teach you much about them, nor can I fully speak on them, for I have not truly spent time with them in Italy.
However, everything I have been told about them from others has proven exactly true with the Italian men I’ve come to know here… even just the Italian heritage ones… oof… anyway.
So, now, I think I’m about ready to take them on, and, by the time I actually get there, I’ll have had enough mental prep (and physical prep from the gym) to take them with a grain of salt, and to smile about it. 😉
This is going to be fun and absolutely amazing – I can feel it in the humidity around me… yes…
Italia awaits… me. 😀
P.S. And I don’t mean just for a short visit – we’re talking a month plus here…. just FYI.
hannah ananas 