it smelled like warm cinnamon rolls. the day was beginnings and endings knit together. starting and ending. over and over again. little pieces of life, slices of emotion. it had been an odd day. a good day.
the evening lulled into a comfortable, languid, happiness.
she cleaned the cutting board, wiped it off with a blue fuzzy towel.
a small portion of bubbles crawled under the cutting board, where she couldn’t see it.
i could.
i didn’t say anything. just watched as they traveled beneath, preparing to drip onto the floor. stubbornly, they held on for quite a while before she swiped once more, the towel falling over the edge of the cutting board just enough to wipe away the escapees.
and i got to wondering.
what don’t we see? what goes on beneath? under? into the places where we don’t typically peer inside. what don’t we know is just below us, out of sight?
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne Frank
“Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.”– Roy T. Bennett
I hope that as the corona virus has turned your life upside down, that you are safe and loved. We will make it through these stressful times.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to search for joy today. Little things matter. Don’t let the world swallow you up with its hatred and isolation. We are in this together. We are strong and we care.
I think this is a perfect example of how the internet and social media is such a huge blessing. We are isolated physically. But we can still communicate and find companionship via the technology we have at our disposal.
I hope you have a fabulous day!
Me? I’m still going to work as of right now. The business I work for is considered an essential job so I’m pretty blessed. I only work part time and my health is being a jerk. The new medication I’ve been trying has made me worse and I’m having to get it out of my system. I’m struggling but I know I have to feel better eventually, at least emotionally (bipolar depression and anxiety are kicking my butt right now). I’m also not sleeping and dealing with a lot of pain.
But I know things will get better. They have to. Our struggles give us the opportunity to grow stronger. We can do this.
I’ve been spreading myself too thin. With my blog, twitter, my ASMR YouTube channel, new YouTube channel, writing my novel, writing bedtime stories for my ASMR channel, working, handling my increasingly messed up health, and then – you know, life….
Too much.
I don’t like repeating myself across social media platforms because I feel like that’s fake or pointless. I like to share honestly regardless of where I’m at. And finding a way to be me across that many platforms is not doable for me. It’s made it hard for me to post at all, anywhere. Especially since no one site will show a true depiction of all of me, considering I don’t want to be repetitive.
So I cut down and thought I’d take the moment to share what I’m up to…
This Blog
I don’t spend enough time here. I haven’t gotten to do any fun research posts lately because I’m so spread thin.
Gonna have to fix that!
Plus you guys kinda have no clue what’s going on in my life lately. Since this is my blog and all about human connection, that doesn’t really make sense to me. So I’m going to have to remedy that too.
ASMR YouTube Channel
I posted my first ASMR video on January 18th, 2019. For those of you scratching your head and wondering what on earth ASMR is….
ASMR is weird. Flat out strange. I do ASMR and I love it but I recognize that it’s legit so weird! It is a bunch of people doing weird things, using odd objects to make sounds on and around microphones.
ASMR stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response”. Think ocean waves, the sound of someone’s soothing voice lulling you to sleep, a subtle and calming white noise, or birds chirping off in the distance. ASMR is like the satisfaction of having your hairdresser massage your scalp or playing with a Zen garden. The “happy little trees” painter Bob Ross is often considered ASMR.
Some people experience a pleasant tingling sensation in their scalp, neck, and down their spine. (That’s why a lot of ASMR videos talk about “tingles”.) Others don’t. Some people just find it highly relaxing or use it as background noise to help them focus. Different people like different sounds and/or visuals. You will often hear these referred to as “triggers”.
I started this channel and actually started using it, like, last week. The point is to talk about things, whatever things I feel like talking about. It’s going to be busting with loads of different types of stuffs.
Sometimes I just want to talk to you guys in a video.
I haven’t been on twitter in eons. I really want to get on there and be me way more often. I don’t know why, but I tend to be hesitant to say what I’m thinking 100% on there. I think it might be because of how political it can be, and that’s not my thing. But it does seem to get people in a defensive, angry way of communicating and I don’t want to deal with drama.
But whatever. I need to learn to be me and not worry if anyone has a problem with it.
On my ASMR YouTube channel, I’ve started doing something new. I’m going to make bedtime stories and whisper them or speak softly to tell them.
Doing them for ASMR presents quite the challenge but also an interesting bucket of possibilities. It’s not exactly the same as writing a novel because the language has to be more flowery and repetitive for ASMR and the story doesn’t have to be as strictly structured or paced. So it’s an odd change to make. But fun, so far.
Here is my first video:
I’m also working on a second bedtime story with a different feel to it, while working on chapter two of the above story.
My Novel
I haven’t worked on my novel in a month now. Everything has stopped moving in my life because my health has gone downhill and I’ve been in too much physical pain to focus on anything. I’ve literally lived on my couch, crying and trying to breathe.
I really want to get back to my novel. I’ve plotted the basic timeline of the story out and written the first two chapters, getting myself up to a word count of over 13,000 words. (A normal novel of my genre is 80,000 to 100,000 words.)
And I want to share some tidbits about my story with you. *evil smile*
Work
Do you remember when I was terrified I’d never have a job I liked and be able to hold it down with my health?
I now work 5 hours a day, Monday through Friday, 25 hours a week as an office manager for a technology company – and I love it. I get along with all my coworkers and both bosses (what are the odds, right?) and I enjoy my work. I get to organize things all day. It’s perfect!
I started on March 26th, 2019.
Life
I’m all jacked up! And it would take quite a while to catch you up. So let’s not spend the rest of this post yammering on. I’ll get to me in the future.
If I give it claws, we’ll talk about the monster in us.
If I give it fangs, we won’t look away from what society tells us is too uncomfortable to linger on.
If I make it a world we don’t live in, we can look at the things we don’t want to talk about. Perhaps we can find the strength to do something about it the next time we see it.
If I make its eyes glow, we’ll think about the pain we want to hide. Maybe we will find a way to deal with it too.
If we have to suspend disbelief, we can poke at our childhood programming, our insecurities, our secrets.
Stories don’t judge us. They open us up to the possibility of change, connection, hope, and purpose. They give us new perspectives on things society labels for us (as if we don’t have brains or hearts to decide for ourselves). Stories give us the option to define our own life, our own self, and realize we’re not that different after all.
A black grandpa can read the same story as a white single mom. They can both recognize love when it’s being denied, the pain of a child dying, the need for someone in this world to see us for who we truly are.
Stories show us what’s broken and what’s beautiful. They give us a safe place to peel back the layers of this life without anyone mocking us or telling us we’re wrong or bad.
Stories give us heroes with fantastic abilities, somehow making it easier for us to love them when they mess up, hurt, and prove they aren’t perfect. It gives us a little more leeway to be imperfect ourselves.
There’s a certain magic to a story, whether there’s anything fantastical or whimsical in it or not.
If we read a story about a monster with a heart, it doesn’t hurt so much to look at the monster within ourselves. Only then can we do something about it.
If there is something you know you need to do – there is a way.
People might laugh, might mock, but the fact of the matter is this… If you know this is the right thing for you, this is your purpose, this is your path? Then you are 100% correct.
There might not be a clear step by step guide as to how to accomplish it. The odds may very well be against you. There might not be a single person on planet earth that believes in you.
That doesn’t matter.
What matters is that you do it. You work toward it, you keep picking yourself up after each mistake and road block and unseen complication – and you keep striving.
Keep going.
If it’s right, it’s right. That doesn’t mean easy or predictable. It means you’re meant for it. Go get it.
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
