Tag: surprise

Bravery, or Self-Expression and Self-Love?

Have you ever done something, and then thought afterward that you must have been so brave to have done it? And then, have you ever noticed that, since bravery and courage require action in the ace of fear, you had not actually been brave at all? You had had no fear, and thus had had no need for bravery. You merely acted comfortably and confidently from within yourself, truly and honestly so…, and so you saw no fear, had no fear to overcome. You were already above any possible fear simply by being yourself fully.

Golly, is that a spectacular feeling, especially after the fact, realizing that who I was was enough for me to be comfortable and at ease and confident in a situation in which I traditionally would have been afraid, and would have needed courage. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, instead of more courage in this world, we could really use some more self-knowing and genuine, love-filled self-expression…

That would be an interesting world, indeed. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

^Definitely had to focus

Today

I have hit a wall with my daily life. With the freeze and its nonsense, I only made it through the sorting part of the KonMari method. That was my true requirement goal by my birthday, so I did achieve that goal. However, I had intended and planned to finish tidying completely by March 12, and that did not happen.

Various factors contributed to that, and that is okay. I have allowed myself to be stopped by those factors, and that is the scariest part of it all. It calls into question whether I truly am ready for this, and ready for what comes out of this. And I think today helped me to see that all clearly for myself. The biggest thing is that I am scared. Just like how not exercising Saturday and Sunday makes it somehow extremely difficult to get myself back into the gym on Monday, having those days off leading up to my birthday made it extremely difficult for me to get back into all the work that awaited me back home. Add onto that that I also had to unpack everything from the week-long stay, and I had an overwhelming amount of work to do at home. And I let myself be overwhelmed by and stopped by it.

I am now back home after the March 12 weekend trip, and I am truly feeling the strain that could be my daily life going forward. I lost sight of my goals with the tidying. And I saw that today. I also saw how losing sight of the tidying goals had affected me in other areas of my life. I had been free and easy and interested in the online dating platform, but now it has been intensely stressful, and so I have mostly avoided it. I was comfortable on my own in a day before, and would take myself outside to walk or run, just so I could be outdoors for a while each day; now I am not doing any of that, and I feel a strain underneath everything every day. I mean, come on, I got myself a minor virus and a resulting butt rash – how can one possibly argue that I am not stressed?

And I haven’t even had a busy schedule lately. I even watched two whole series online. I don’t do that unless I’m miserable, by the way. One show, if it’s short, and I can do it in a single day or day and a half of exhaustion, sure. More than that, and you can bet that I am avoiding life somehow, either consciously or unconsciously. I spent an extra four days of time devoted to watching these shows – I was borderline depressive here, and definitely avoiding things.

Now, I’ve gone through another couple vacuums of the baking soda that is soaking up the petroleum-based oil from the oil heater that exploded by my bed (and all over a shelf). (Unfortunately, the dry-wet-vac started spewing baking soda all over part of my room on the last set, so I have a bit more of that still to clean up, and then I need to empty the vacuum tomorrow before using it again.) I will aim to get at least one more round done tomorrow, if not two. Hopefully, that will allow me to clean up the shelf tomorrow or the next day, and start using it soon. I need to wash the sheets and stuffed animals that got the oil all over them, and I would like to do that in the next couple days, or four at most.

I also cleaned out and put away today my large suitcase from the recent trip. I want to finish unpacking the remaining items, and to put away the smaller suitcase tomorrow. I have photos I am going to do tomorrow, probably for a few hours, but I want at least to get that done, because it is doable. The main thing I can’t do is finish sorting where to put what of my clothes and such right now, because an entire storage shelf is out of order, due to the oil spill. So, while I’m sill sorting out the oil spill stuff this week, I want to handle the smaller things that I can handle right now. And unpacking is one of those things. So is washing those sheets.

I pulled up the dreamboard I had made for my tidying process today, and it almost made me cry. It is so lovely and so much of what I want in my life. And I had gotten scared and stepped away from it. But I made myself look at it today, and that was a very good idea. It reminded me not only of exactly what I want, but how much I truly do want it.

So, giddy up, partner. You can do this, my love.

Post-a-day 2021

^Barely a pause, but a pause nonetheless

Hmm

Well, I still have the rash. I think the next step is to get baby diaper rash cream tomorrow. I will be in the same place as my mom at one point, so I’ll see if she will take a look at it to give her confirmation on the potential diagnosis of diaper rash. If she does confirm, I’ll move forward with that treatment pathway. If she finds it to be different than she expected, then I’ll use whatever knowledge she has to guide my next steps.

Fingers crossed!!

Post-a-day 2021

^Only a slight hesitation that time

Seriously?!

****Body issues in the following text – be forewarned!!****

I have a ridiculous rash and a strained muscle, so I can’t exercise, and I’m quite stressed today. What is going on with my body right now?

?????!!!!!!!!!!

Ugh!

It’s like a diaper rash, and is along my bum crack. It is possibly from not showering right away after exercising Monday afternoon, but we really aren’t sure. I’ve spent most of the day on my side, letting the area air out and, hopefully, dry out enough. I put some remedy stuff on it all, but I very much dislike being without underwear or pants/shorts/bottoms of some sort, so that has added an extra layer of annoyance to my day. The one positive about it is that it doesn’t actually hurt or itch, the rash, which is a positive sign. However, it is still a rash, and that is not good.

Ugh…

Post-a-day 2021

Ouch

It seems that I might have strained a muscle that runs through my elbow last week. When I stretched before getting out of bed one morning, I yelped in pain and automatically yanked my arms back inward from the stretch. It has felt like something had just suddenly bitten me just above my elbow, in the direction of my tricep, etc. Something was definitely not okay.

I checked in with my mom on what to do – she’s a massage therapist – and she had little advice. I then checked with my aunt, who does a more rehabilitation type of massage therapy, and she gave me some things to do to see if I could handle whatever it was that was wrong. I did those, and they helped significantly. However, they didn’t heal the issue completely, only improved upon it. I could now stretch farther before the biting sensation would arise, but it still inevitably felt like a spider was attacking the back of my upper arm, whenever I got it into certain positions or used it in certain ways, all of them normal parts of any regular day for me.

Now, several days later, I have seen a chiropractor, and, though he only had a few brief moments to check it out, he thinks it might be strained. But it was definitely right, he said. Being a holistic nutritionist, he gave me a sort of regime to follow to see if my elbow issue can sort itself out in the next few days. If it doesn’t, though, he said to go back to see him on Saturday, when he’ll be able to spend more time on it all with me. I stayed away from the gym today, because so much of it was about pushing with the arms (bench press and push press and all that jazz), and I had barely been able to do the super light push presses last week already. Plus, it just seemed like the rest would be a good idea for my arm. I am following what the chiropractor/nutritionist said to do, so we shall see what happens tomorrow and if things improve – I certainly hope they do, and quickly. Things like this can grow rather scary. As it stands, I keep checking if my arm is swollen or red, because it feels like my arm is both in that area just above my elbow on the back side of my arm. And it feels consistently so. Even when I touch it gently, it hurts pointedly, like a burning sensation on my skin, though it is the muscle underneath that is so tender and sore.

Man… God, help me heal, please, that I may be fully fit to do my work here. Thank you for all. Amen.

Post-a-day 2021

^Still had to think about it carefully while typing it

Progress

I did another set of progress photos today to coincide with the body electrode measuring scan I did this evening. On January 11th, I began a good rehab and fitness challenge with my gym. I had an electrode scan that week, too. The challenge ended after three weeks, and included required progress photos.

At that three-week mark, I was not delighted with my photos; not in the least. I barely even saw a difference in the photos, despite the fact that I had verified differences in how my clothes fit and how certain parts of my body felt and looked firsthand. A friend of mine reminded me that women tend to take longer for things to change visually, like in a photo, when compared to men. (Ah, yes, I recall the men’s photos from the start of at-home workouts for COVID-19, and the month-in photos… super unfair.)

Anyway, so I determined to keep at it for st least another two sets of three weeks, and see what could happen then. Today, I am at that nine-week completion mark. I did photos every three weeks, and compared them to one another. By the sixth week, I definitely noticed a difference from the start of the photos, and it was even more so noticeable today. (Keep in mind that I was already rather active before the challenge, though not in near as great shape as I had been pre-COVID-19. So, I wasn’t starting from sedentary or from eating total crap, but I definitely was not as active as pre-COVID-19 [or now] and was rainy a lot of stuff that wasn’t good for me in various ways.)

Put in the right workout outfit, I look amazing right now, even to my own eyes. I watched this little clip someone took of me last week over and over and over again, it was difficult for me to grasp that I actually looked so good as I did. And it was awesome.

Today, in my old shorts (that I now have to roll twice to keep from falling off of me) and new bra, as in all the photos (though I grabbed the wrong green ones by mistake, it might have been a good thing in the long run), I did the fourth set of photos and was grateful. Though everything was out in the open, I can truly see an awesome improvement from January. From the electrode dats tonight, I have numbers to back it up.

My weight went down a pound. My muscle weight – the number of pounds of muscle in my body – went from 46.5lbs to almost 51lbs, increasing three pounds. (That means that I released roughly four pounds of fat.) And my body fat percentage went from 18.5% to 17.5%, down a whole percentage point. Several other things improved, too, but I do not remember their particular numbers.

All of that was in nine weeks. Sounds pretty cool to me, but it also feels Really cool and Really good, and I am extremely grateful for the progress and my ability to make it.

I’m conclusion, wow. Here are some photos, in case you care to compare them.

Post-a-day 2021

^Had I think about it still

Agèd

I must be old. I can not describe how… necessary it feels to be home now, after being away for two nights. My space, my things, my clean, my joys and comforts… I haven’t even gotten homes for all of my stuff yet – more than half of it still seems to be sitting in odd spots around the room, or just totally out somewhere. (Actually, it’s more like a third of it doesn’t have an official spot in which it can live yet, and a big part of that is the oil spill I’m still working on cleaning up behind my bed’s head, in front of and on a main storage shelf for my room. Once that finally stops soaking up into the fresh spreads of baking soda that I keep laying and vacuuming up, we should be in really good condition with finishing the tidying for everything.) And yet this place feels right. This is the place where I sleep, surrounded by all of this stuff, and in this bed with these sheets and blankets and all, and these fairy lights and twinkle lights on the walls.

And I am powerfully grateful for it all.

P.S. Not to mention, I go to bed already between 8:30pm and 9pm, and wake up between 4am and 6am (if I “sleep in”)…

Post-a-day 2021

^I swear, I almost put 2022… ::facepalm

Drained

I think it is an extremely important social skill to know when people in a room do not want to listen to music and when they want the music turned down. Extremely important.

And yet so many people seem not to have this skill…. and they often seem to claim control of the music.

Ugh.

I’m just drained beyond reason – overstimulation is 100% a thing, and not being able to get away from it is extremely stressful on and exhausting for the body. That applies for the mind, too, actually. I have had too much experience with this from dance, the gym, and various other social situations. One thing I have truly enjoyed and loved about the quarantine lifestyle is that I do not have to be in or be missed from those environments. That seems to be going away again now… not so much a fan of it, though…

Man.

Post-a-day 2021

Energy levels

What is it with our bodies that, whenever we sleep in and have a relaxed day, we end up just as if not more tired than the days when we get up early and exercise and do loads of things throughout the day? We still reach the bed at the end of the day exhausted. Today, I let myself fall back asleep after my regular body alarm wake-up, and I passed out immediately and hard. I got an extra two hours of solid sleep then. I did not exert myself almost at all throughout the day. Yet, here I am, barely able to keep my eyes open or sit up straight, and it’s only just after seven p.m. That’s only 13 hours of being awake today, and not even doing very much.

I really think that there is some kind of balance between being active and getting energy from that activity, and being restful and getting energy. If we do too much of either, the scale is tilted and we begin to lose energy. But, if we do just the right amount of each, we end up more energetic and able than ever.

So, while I would have said that today was possibly too restful, I must disagree now. I realize that I went to bed really late for me last night – 10:30. So, I only got just over seven hours of sleep. My body has shown me again and again that it needs more than that on any normal day, let alone when I am already behind on sleep. So, today, I think, was my body just being tired period – it would have been tired if I’d exercised, too, which is why I didn’t go today. I didn’t want to hurt myself. However, I do definitely have the days on occasion when the rest is too much, and tilts the scale the wrong way. Of course, I totally have the energetic days that tilt the scale too far, too, but those make the clearer sense.

Speaking of sense, I’m losing mine for the night, so I’m signing off now. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

Scritch-Scratch

*****Warning: True yet oddly explicit bodily discussion coming.*****

Okay, you know that feeling of scratching an itch really, really well, right? Where your whole body reacts positively, and you can definitely relate to a dog or cat leaning into it and thumping with pleasure during a good head scratch…. where you kind of must moan a bit, it feels so ridiculously satisfying…. that kind?

Yeah, those are rather rare but spectacular.

Now, you know the scratches that scratch an itch you didn’t even realize you had? They are like scratching your head after having your hair in a ponytail all day long, where you push the hair follicles all around while massaging and scratching the scalp all at once.

Those are rather spectacular, too.

Now, have you ever had a combination of the two? The unexpected absurdly satisfying scratch in a place you stumbled upon, where you hadn’t even considered you might need or even want a scratch…

If you haven’t, I wish you one in the near future, for sure. They are… well…, wow. 😛

Okay, now… have you ever had one of those, that combination scratch scenario, on/around your anus?

Trust me, I was partly shocked and partly appalled at first, myself. However, I realized that it doesn’t exactly have any reason not to be allowed a good scratch. When I shower and clean my body thoroughly – and yes, I clean my body thoroughly every shower – that includes my butt/anus. It is part of me and a part that needs cleaning, so of course I clean it. No question. And I have experienced in the past a few occasions where the final rinse/cleaning step for it results in a good little scratch for an itch I hadn’t known existed. However, tonight, it was on a’ whole ‘nother level.

It was that perfect combination of unexpectedness and utter satisfaction, forcing a moan/sigh of awesomeness from me. Of course, it surprised me, but I really didn’t care. It was such a good scratch.

Seriously.

I hope you, too, can one day experience something so spectacular all on your own. Not even joking on its ridiculous proximity to the category of sexual satisfaction. Not even joking.

Post-a-day 2021

^Slight hesitation