Tag: friends

Quote of the day

“I think the takeaway quote of the day is, ‘Not even Vanilla Bean.’”

She had said, “If you don’t stretch, all you can do is Vanilla. And I mean you’re stuck with not just Vanilla, but super bland Vanilla… not even Vanilla Bean.”

Folks, stretching the whole body is immensely important, period. It also allows for loads more opportunities in life, especially in unexpected ways, when we keep the body stretched out, strong, and ready for anything.

Be prepared, and Life will meet you all along the way, and in unexpectedly wonderful ways.

Post-a-day 2021

Five years

So it seems, five years ago, on 21 June, I opened my account for a weblog. I wanted to be a writer, and so I needed to start writing. I was focused on writing only interesting, good things at first. By October, I had discovered that it stifled my opportunity with the weblog, limiting myself so strongly. I began writing every single day, sharing just whatever happened to be on my mind. It had become, and remains today, a sort of journal for me, a true log of events and emotions within my life. Whenever I cross older posts, I am delighted, and often also amazed at what I had to say on a certain day or topic, what I had to share. My own history, in a way, is written here, my mind itself put on display for any who would buy take the time and interest to read.

Fascinating… I am grateful for the opportunity of this weblog, both for the cataloguing it has done and for the expression of self that it has been for me. No matter my situation in life, with family and friends and all, hannahananas.com awaits me, always ready and always accepting whatever I have to offer. It is an open space, granting me opportunity for the cosmos. And I am grateful for that.

Post-a-day 2021

Love is the answer

“Give him a taste of his own medicine.”

But I don’t want to do that. I dislike when he does it to me, because of the lack of love, acceptance, and care I experience when he does it. I don’t want to cause anyone else to feel the way I keep feeling over here. Even if it is the person helping me to feel so poorly. In fact, his doing it makes me want to do the opposite – show love, essentially – even more than I already do.

If I want to sort it out, I think I need just to talk with him directly about it, be straight about it all. Fire doesn’t extinguish fire, after all…

Post-a-day 2021

Day 1

Today, I had my first splits stretching session. A friend of mine works in stretching, aerials, and acrobatics, and she is now working with me. I am extremely excited about it. My flexibility has always been mediocre, even as a teenager, and I have been actively pursuing improving it lately. Just over two years ago, I began a 30-day stretch challenge. At the end of it, I took the stretches from it that I had found most valuable for me, and I now do them every day, usually at night before bed. With two years of just that, I have immense differences in my flexibility. I can put my head to my knees, and with my legs and back straight. I can hold my feet straight in front of me with my hands, back straight. And all of those are with minimal warm-up. I can just do them. I never was able to do any of them in the past, even as a kid.

So, now, we are approaching my other true desires: splits and head kicks. I want to be able, on any given day and at any given time, to drop into the splits and also to do a kick to the head of someone around my height (especially when preceded immediately by a kick to the chest [aka double kick that rises]).

We went through a lot today, and it was stressful how hard most of it was for me. However, I love that I am pursuing this and also that I get to do it with someone I love. We took progress photos for me, both to see where I stand compared to two years ago (had a photo on that Day 1, too) and to have a starting point to reference down the road. I have my tasks for every morning (after my regular workout) this week, and then we shall meet again next Tuesday for progress and to do whatever she has planned for my next steps.

I’m cautiously optimistic and delighted. And I can hardly wait!

Plus, I’m excited to get to spend more time with her. 🙂

Post-a-day 2021

Feedback

I asked for feedback on something personal today. I was back and forth between terrified and utterly disinterested (out of the aim of escaping the fear), as I waited for the feedback to come in. Eventually, the fear won out.

But I kept a level head about it, allowed the feeling, and accepted that whatever the feedback, it would be exactly what I needed to hear right now, for whatever reason. Even if it was somewhat depressing.

And then, when I received the report, I actually laughed out loud at the only negatives offered. One of them was an unchangeable thing, which the person acknowledged in the feedback. The other was simply a personal taste thing, one that, though it’s always a bit of a bummer to disappoint someone else, it isn’t something I actually would alter, due to our opposing personal tastes.

And the whole area where I was terrified to hear the feedback, and I even asked a follow-up, just to make sure the person hadn’t forgotten about or avoided it? It was not even something the person noticed. My glaring failure in my own mind was not even noticed.

And so, yes, I burst out laughing at the two silly and near-unnecessary pieces of minimally negative feedback, and could hardly fathom how different the whole evaluation was than my own.

I truly am my hardest critic… I’m fierce.

But perhaps that is exactly the reason why this other person struggled to come up with the negatives…

Keep at it, Banana. 😉 I love you.

Post-a-day 2021

Still tired…

Apparently, I am still recovering from the past couple weeks and all of their excitement and whelming. This afternoon, I was struck slightly by a thought. It was a worrisome concern. And, instead of it’s just remaining that, it kind of spread, virus-like, into so much more, I was a mess and ready to cry and rush home to ball up during, of all things, karate class. That class is usually my active healing time, my fight club, my releases. However, because I’ve been so worn down, my mental capacity was somewhat shot by this afternoon, and I could hardly keep it together enough to be in class, let alone put forth full effort. My full effort was measly, really, which brought me down even more, mentally.

Granted, I started menstruating today. However, that was only icing on the cake that gave me the exhausted ache of my whole being right now.

Anyway, off to sleep to help as best I can, despite the delay (due to yet another technological letdown) on getting to bed at a reasonable hour.

Post-a-day 2021

Roomies

And so, the universe converges, yet again, and it looks as though I will be living, once again, with one of my best friends, in a city I love so much…, but in a new area of it.

It is time to explore, and not just this city, but myself and what we can create together, this Universe and I.

I can hardly wait…

But I must. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

Home…

… at last. I had a bigger bed and company the last several nights, staying with one of my best friends and her family. It was wonderful.

And yet, my body can hardly contain its joy at being in my own bed, small as it may be, with my own smells and my own vibes to rest and recuperate after so much these past couple weeks and this past weekend.

Post-a-day 2021

Day one

The visitation and rosary and family hangout afterward all went really well this evening and tonight. I kind of only touched my emotions on the sad part of the emotional spectrum, and I feel like they might kind of explode outward tomorrow…, but I guess that’s okay. Hopefully, I’m able to make it through the reading reasonably well. I’ll be doing it in German, which was his first language and our extra special bond, just the two of us. So, I shared that I would like to do my reading in German, and print the English in the worship guide. It was approved with flying colors by the ones in charge. However, our cousin the priest, who’ll be saying Mass, told me to mention what I was doing and why I was doing it just before I began the German reading… that part might just be my emotional undoing…, so, we shall see on that part. Perhaps I’ll be so nervous about its being my first reading in a Mass, I won’t even notice the emotions that usually would arise for such a statement.

Anyway, at the family hangout tonight, after everyone had been eating a while, I went around and handed out the party favors, as I called them to myself. They were pains au chocolat, the French pastry that I usually call chocolatines, which is the name used in Southern France. As I passed them out to everyone, I said on repeat, “Because everything is better with chocolate, especially pain.”

Some of them got it immediately. Others took a few seconds or a couple minutes, and got it once they realized I was repeating the same phrase to everyone, which suggested something important in the message and word choice. A few definitely did not get it…, but they did like the pain au chocolat I offered to each of them.

(The irony, of course, is that I actually don’t like chocolate. I do love chocolatines, though [pain au chocolat]).

Post-a-day 2021