‘Arise,’ they told her.
‘Do it like this,’ they said.
‘It’ll be perfect,’ they promised.
But these were lies they said.
And so, instead of stepping up to being who they expected her to be, she stood up for who she truly was made to be.
And the world never was quite the same,
Once she’d set it aflame
With all that she truly was.
Post-a-day 2022
My body is on fire. It is almost midnight, and I’ve had only around seven hours of sleep combined these past couple nights… I am exhausted.
And my body is demanding that I notice it and, hopefully, take care of it.
Post-a-day 2022
I believe we can grow afraid or we can grow from fear itself. Be brave. Be honest with yourself – your true, deepest, whole, God-given self – and speak up, step up. Do that one thing every day that scares you, that will change your life for what it deserves to be and is made to be. Be afraid. Be very afraid. And also have courage, so we can grow from the lessons we learn and create something amazing.
God, please, bless us with your love. Your will be done, and may it be clear what our next steps always are. I’m your name, we pray.
Post-a-day 2022
I went to my sister’s house early, so I could do a workout in her front yard at the same time as the gym was doing the same workout at the gym. Afterward, she and her husband would be leaving to go to something, and Imd be with the kids. As I finish my workout and go inside to go to the bathroom, one of the two girls who has been let outside during my workout decided to hide without telling anyone. I could see her from the bathroom window initially and had intended to play a bit with them out front before heading inside for the evening. I just had to go to the bathroom first, as I knew I was all bloody after those double unders.
However, she had other plans in mind when she decided to disappear/hide. The middle child and I walked the whole neighborhood, and she even started to cry. Something in me wasn’t worried, though – I kept wondering at that… was it a sixth sense guiding me then, telling me she was totally fine and was genuinely just playing a trick on us? I kept calm yet firm about finding the sister. After returning from the park, just as this older sister was starting to cry about her missing younger sister, I could hear scream yelling coming from the front yard. Sure enough, it was the youngest. She had been hiding in her dad’s truck apparently, having a blast as we all looked for her, though none of us was playing.
As we had been walking back to the house, I had been thinking of how ridiculous it was that I hadn’t even started my real supervision duties for the evening and there was already a kid missing – not the best start for me, ne? Man…
Obviously, I’m glad she was okay. But I’m still a touch spooked at the fact that I wasn’t spooked at all. I didn’t even know that she had a history of hiding or running off initially, and I had felt like she was just hiding somewhere nearby…
Thank you, God, for that bizarre yet helpful guide today. And please, do give the youngest kid a bit more sense. That was super not cool today on her part. Guide us that we be your love expressed. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2022
Well, I’m on my bed, in the new apartment, getting ready to go to sleep. I am a tad nervous. I am still here, doing it, though. I can do this. I can have an amazing time living here comfortably.
But I just get to sleep now, as it is getting far too close to midnight for me still to be awake. Good thing I have the highway to keep me company, or else I might have felt lonely in the new place in quiet darkness.
God, please, keep us safe and well living here, that we may best fulfill your will in the world. I love you. Thank you for this life and its infinite blessings. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2022
Man, my body is tired of menstruation… not having my supplements this time, leading up to my period, I mean, has been a real hassle. I spent most of the day sick today – exhaustion and weakness with slight elevation in temperature in the afternoon (I talk about this like I’m a weather report…). I felt roughly dreadful ever since my shower after the workout this morning. I went back to bed just for a nap, woke up after an hour, needing to potty and adjust the air to cooler, and then fell asleep hard for another three hours. I woke up hot and panicked, knowing it was later than it was supposed to be.
My mom didn’t mind too much, though. She still enjoyed the rodeo on her own, then left early, as it was incredibly crowded (as expected) by later afternoon, and brought me some soup. She just happened to have made some soup yesterday, and to have brought a bunch with her in thermoses to the rodeo, but not drunk them yet. It was just what I had needed, that soup. And it got me outside for a few minutes when I went to get it in the driveway and talk with my mom briefly.
I’m feeling much better now, but still not tops. Hopefully, I will improve throughout the night… though, it will be tough having to get up as often as it looks like I’ll have to do to use the bathroom (due to menstruation, not the potentially-menstruation-induced illness)… only tomorrow will tell.
At that, I bid you all a wonderful and rest-filled night! God, please, bless us all with your love in a new way tonight, that we better fulfill your will tomorrow. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2022
I’m staying at my sister’s this weekend while they are out of town. I think that is the perfect time to move my bed out of my friend’s house. That way, I can adjust things at the apartment as needed before I actually have to stay there on Sunday night. But I can prepare myself mentally Friday and Saturday nights while at my sister’s house, and then my brain likely can adjust better to the idea of moving there when it had already been moving and has been somewhere it considers ‘away from home’ already. That way, I won’t be moving from ‘home’ to ‘somewhere strange and not as nice’. Instead, I’ll go from ‘home’ to ‘my sister’s house’ and then to ‘another place’, where I will start to adjust over time to have it feel like a ‘home’ of its own.
I like this idea. God, help me, please, to enact it well! I trust in your timing and in all you do and wish. Help me to manifest and to embody it all through and for you. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2022
(Yup. Still hesitating.)
I have OCD – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Back in 2018, it had progressed so much that it was actually debilitating. The agoraphobia part of it especially had increased in intensity, and I couldn’t get myself to go almost anywhere, including to the store for necessary food/groceries.
But, that summer, I started seeing a holistic nutritionist who had mentioned in a presentation that my mom had attended – I had not attended it, as I had been too scared of the idea of going somewhere unknown with an unknown situation and unknown bathrooms and chairs and floors and smells and all the rest – that he believed OCD was from hormonal imbalances. He did a bunch of muscle testing on me, and he got me on a regimen of specific supplements to take mornings and evenings daily. Within six weeks, I was a completely different person. Rather, I was a person again. After six months, I was unrecognizable in my behavior. And, what’s more, all my menstruation stuff had gotten loads better, too… which suggested even more so that my main issue had been hormonal imbalances in the first place.
Now, these supplements that I take, they are straight up a few bizarre plants and seeds and oils, but mostly the odd parts of animals that we tend not to eat anymore as a society… liver, intestine, gallbladder, etc… (I don’t actually remember if all those are in there, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were.) The things that elite athletes and health folks keep trying to get us to cook up at home or eat raw a few times a week, I am already taking in a powdered, capsule form. Pretty bizarre yet cool, right?
Well, I had thought I’d had two weeks of my supplements put together, ready for me to take. I found out at the end of the week that it was only one week’s worth put together. Now, it takes me a few days to plan out and make it happen to put my supplements together each time. It takes a while to do, and it isn’t something I can leave out if I haven’t finished. So, I kind of have to plan for it. And I didn’t do that this past week. It, therefore, took me several days to figure out when to put them together. And that time kept getting pushed to the next day, for various reasons…
Alas, about a week went by without my taking all the supplements. And I’m about to start menstruating, so my hormones are going absolutely nuts right now, I imagine.
I had to force myself to put the supplements together yesterday afternoon, though, as I could feel my entire body struggling, as though I were almost getting a cold, and I could see how my OCD was showing up all over the place, stressing me out and preventing me from doing things I needed and had wanted to do. It didn’t help that I was eating crappy foods this past week-ish.
So, this morning left me with almost no food of any kind – genuinely had green juice to take my supplements, then ate Girl Scout cookies and a few bites of sausage and gelato as my breakfast and lunch, as I had nothing else at the house. I didn’t go to the gym at my usual time, because I was scared of going and hadn’t slept too well, anyway, which was the official reason. I had intended to go to the store to get food for breakfast after the workout, but switched it to ‘once I got up’. I avoided getting up as long as possible, though the sleep was so restless (from midnight onward, really), and eventually got up at eight. It took me hours just to fold two small loads of laundry and pack them up. And I didn’t make it to the store until after noon.
I kid you not, as I walked into the store, I was close to tears. It was both out of stress and fear of going into the store itself – going into the agora – and it of frustration at how ridiculous it was that I was so stressed and scared at s bunch of nothing(!). Yet, there was nothing to be done about it aside from just doing it (and eating well and taking my supplements, though those weren’t valid at that particular time and place).
I got the green juice – Aka green water – and some food to cook later, along with the needed cleaning supplies, and I made it to the apartment. My flat mate was there, and I shared about my current state and morning – we haven’t seen each other much in the past week, surprise surprise. Then, of course, I cried loads. She very conscientiously asked if I wanted a hug or not right then, and, after considering a moment, I told her that I actually didn’t want to be touched at that moment, and we laughed about it. (Because I am such a toucher!) It took me a bit of adjusting, but I knew I was on a time limit, so I managed to get to work cleaning. I got most of it done, and left the bathroom and bedroom smelling of bleach, but airing out well. I felt very accomplished and positive about it all.
I was still nervous going to the gym from there, but I showed up and worked out anyway. Naturally, I felt good once we got started after the warm-up, and it has been smooth-sailing the rest of the evening and night so far. Before getting ready for bed, I had cooked dinner and prepped my food for school tomorrow, and I had taken my supplements for the fourth time in two days (the right number of times), and I was already noticing differences in my behaviors – improvements. In particular, I peeled a bunch of shrimp that had been in a soupy mess I’d made when cooking them, I bagged up and threw away their peelings, and I cleaned up everything and turned the faucet on and off multiple times all without having any panic. And only the peeling itself had kind of gotten to me a little bit, because there were just so many of them, and I was running out of space in the peelings bowl and the sauce kept squirting around all icky-like. But I just had to breathe and keep calm, and I was able to make it through all 30+ of them before cleaning everything up.
Just this morning, I was having major struggles just turning off a faucet. (Every time I went to turn it off, if I touched even the slightest bit the wrong way, I had to turn it back on and re-wash my hands and try again… I usually got it within three goes, though that was a huge sign that alerted me to my hormones’ being off in the first place the other day. Tonight, however, I didn’t struggle like that. I barely even thought about it.)
All that being said, I’m going to stretch and read and go to bed now – I’m exhausted. And I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, I do expect.
Post-a-day 2022
I took a step today that shall begin my process of moving into the apartment where I am paying rent. Sure, most of my stuff is over there. But I’ve still been living at my friend’s house. I have been – and still am – scared to move there. I love the company and the lifestyle and the cleanliness here, and the newness of the house’s renovations… and the feeling of complete safety with them here.
God, give me the strength to do what I must do in order to move into this apartment. Help me with this transition, please, and help me to maintain this amazing connection you have allowed so unexpectedly to form between me and my friend and her little family, even as I move into my own apartment and out of their spare bedroom. Give me comfort and confidence in your will through this endeavour. In your name, I pray. Amen. And thank you for this life. Amen.
Post-a-day 2022
(Definitely still have to think about that year!)
I never went to read my Facebook birthday wishes from people… Tomorrow will be a week after my birthday, and yet I still haven’t done it.
I wonder why…
Perhaps to avoid disappointment in how few I expect there to be, combined with an enjoyment of life out here, real life… I feel no need to go check them, though I also am a touch nervous to go check them.
Post-a-day 2022
hannah ananas 