Category: self care

Ink…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

In what feels like another life, I hated writing in pencil. I hated how the tip felt, whether sharp or dull, as it glid across the page. I’m unsure what my issue was, or exactly when it changed. One day I was a devoted pen user, cringing with the equivalence of nails on a chalkboard at the very thought of using a pencil, and then one day it seemed I could only write in pencil. To say writing anything in pen spurred a sense of anxiety wouldn’t be a stretch.

Maybe you’re reading these words and thinking this all sounds pretty unimportant, but I can tell you that isn’t how it felt.

I belong to a doodling community and our beautiful leader is always encouraging us to doodle in pen, focussing on fun over perfection. Listen, I get it. I take every single one of these workshops with my pencil in hand and I guarantee perfection is still the farthest thing from my outcome. Is it fun? Cathartic? YES! This is why I stay in the community… Even so, every time we gather together, I’m the one lone creator not using ink. To be honest, I don’t see that changing… Sometimes I have tremors, sometimes my vision is so wonky, and sometimes there seems to be a foggy disconnect and everything I draw out is so grotesquely unsteady. In this setting, I don’t mind being the mechanical pencil-carrying odd man out. This is where I’m comfortable…

Comfort.

There is an odd sense of comfort in the ability to erase. Back, those years ago I perhaps lived within a confidence that disregarded room for error. Looking back through old notebooks and journals I see so many black ink (always black) scratch-outs. I didn’t care. Sometimes still, even with a pencil, I will scratch through an error, out of habit, rather than erasing it.

What brought the change?

This morning, as I sipped my cup of tea and engaged in my morning quiet time, I chose to boldly journal in pen. (If you’re wondering where the deep, thoughtful pondering of this very boring personal preference came from–now you know.) Ultimately my question became one of searching for when this changed and why. Maybe you’re one who just jots things down with whatever instrument is near, so the very idea of talking this out seems asinine. I get it. As a writer, I remember feeling far more intentional purpose with my pen in hand than I’ve ever felt with lead. Something shifted in me, years ago, and I want that girl back…

Or at least the inky version of her.

Sometimes habits shift so subtly that we aren’t even aware of the depth of the shift until much later. For me, it feels important to understand it, to understand what moves these shifts in me… On the surface, a change in us can feel trivial, but sometimes when we dig deeper we may learn something that ties to a much larger issue, aching, or need. One way to practice self-love is to spend intentional time connecting with ourselves, giving the type of attention to detail we often hope others will have.

adding fuel to the flame…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Have I forgotten what fire feels like? I mean, not real flames of fire, but the heart kind… the inside. The sort of fire attached to cliche sentiments like “pursue what sets your soul on fire”. That sort of fire, not to be confused with the harsh moments of life which feel as though they’ve burned my inner core to the ground.

What does set my soul on fire? For so long it was writing, and I think in comfortable ways it still is. Writing is that thing I need to always remain tethered to, or I simply cease to function well. Do you know what else impairs my ability to function well? Not being creative. The less I’m trying to be artistic (and listen, try as I might, I don’t do well, but I simply don’t care about that. It is the doing that is healing and life-giving, not the perfection!) the less I want to tackle the nurturing, daily bits of life…

the things that encourage me to

  • wash my face every evening.
  • go to bed when my body and mind tell me it’s time.
  • pick up a book to read instead of a remote to watch.
  • stop doom scrolling.

Attempting creativity on a regular basis corrects all of this. It insures that when I do want to listen to music or watch something, it is of a higher quality and less fast-food, mass-made consumption.

It all seems like a no-brainer sort of problem, doesn’t it? And yet… And yet I struggle.

I’m trying, in this new month and second half of an otherwise difficult year, to do better–be better. I’m also trying to release expectations because I am a chronically ill person who struggles with occasional depression. I am forever planning things that old-me could do, and then being reminded IN THE ACTUAL MOMENT that mistakes were made and I’m not that girl anymore. It makes it hard, and to be honest I am feeling a stupid amount of anxiety over my trip home next month, paired with my book launch. There’s so much pressure, especially since I haven’t been there for three years and I am just so different now.

I want to harness the fire I once felt, the flames that fueled the making and doing… the fire that motivated that girl. In truth, I’m tired. Most of us are. These past few years have not been kind to us, and yet they’ve taught us to take note of the little moments that keep life beautiful. These thirty-eight months have educated me on the vitality of being more intentional and prioritizing connection, community, and kindness.

Perhaps the flames are still there, it’s just that now they are the slow, steady burn of a well-connected and creative life.

that pesky halfway mark…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Every time I sit down to contemplate the lessons a month held, things feel so much heavier than they did the month prior. I’m not loving that trend. While it is completely unrealistic, as we’re now halfway through this year of our Lord 2022, I’m going to hope this B:Side is gentler…

June was a month. A MONTH. I’m really showing my age when I say this statement, but it is once again so profoundly true: This month was an eternity long, but also how is it already the end of June???

Things I learned (or relearned) over the past thirty days:

  • I do actually enjoy going to the movies. Hear me out, anyone who has known me for any length of time has known me as a movie lover. Pre-Covid, going to the movies was something we did OFTEN. Sometimes more than once a week. When routines hit pause, we reevaluated and started to wonder if we still loved this activity. Even getting back into it, well over a year later, often felt uncomfortable. Today I can so I do enjoy it but as something special. Once or twice a month is more than enough for me. I don’t want to go if it’s not a movie that I am seriously excited to see.
  • We can disagree with people we love, about hot-topic issues, and still be respectful. I don’t love this “unfollow and block” mentality, it’s gross and dismissive. Have the hard conversations–show that respect. If you can’t come to a place where you each can exists in love and differences, then take that drastic step. We’ve all had different experiences, and we will majorly disagree with our people sometimes.
  • I’m REALLY glad So You Think You Can Dance is back. While I’m not a dancer, I am a veteran series watched and suspect I may be more articulately qualified to judge than Leah Remini is. (Fox, if you need a stand-in–CALL ME!)
  • Raccoons are jerks. Or at least the one raccoon (we suspect it was one) who slashed the screens of our sunroom to get in and eat the cat food is. How are we kicking off July? By attempting to repair the damage and raccoon-proof our favorite room that is currently out of commission.
  • Sometimes it is essential to take a mental health day, (even when you work for yourself at home) lay on the couch, and binge-watch something. The world will whisper this is a lazy thing to do, but listen… the world needs to mind its own business. Rest can look like a million different things and only YOU get to say what’s right for you.
  • Ice cream for dinner is acceptable. Period. I am prepared to die on this hill.
  • That the world was not ready for Kate Bush music when I was a kid like it is now. I’m here for this revival, though I was also here for it when I was nine.
  • Conservative Purity viewpoints are solely responsible for things like porn addiction. I’d go so far as to say this may be true for a large portion of assaults on women as well. I realized this will be a controversial viewpoint for many, but the reality is the objectification of women is driven from this hyperfixation.
  • Too much time in the summer heat can cause a fever for me. It seems silly, but I experienced it after the Lumineer’s concert that was a few weeks ago, in the middle of a heatwave, and again after attending PrideFest last weekend. BIZARRE… but also, learning these things about the way my chronic illness manifests itself empowers me to know how to act, plan, and what to expect later.
  • Finding creative ways to partner with small, women-owned businesses is my absolute favorite thing!

As we head into the second half of our year, may we love kindly, hold space for others, and treat ourselves gently…

XOXO,

M

What if…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

So many years ago, (it’s hard to believe how many at this point) I was introduced to this growingly popular YA novel called Twilight. I wish that I’d heard it was about vampires and thought “yeah, that’s not for me” but the truth would have been (and still is) that vampires will always be up my alley. The super bizarre thing for me was honestly picking up a book to read at all, even when I had no clue what it was about. I hadn’t read for fun in years. I was testing non-fiction books for Harper Collins and blogging full-time. I was so far removed from the literary world that I had no idea what sort of fiction books existed beyond mysteries and Harlequin romance–neither of which had ever appealed to me.

After some intrigue at a few bloggers I followed raving about Twilight, I grabbed a copy. I didn’t sleep, or do much of anything, for two days. I couldn’t put it down. After reluctantly packing our family for vacation, I ran to the bookstore to purchase the second book of the (then) trilogy. While I hadn’t been much of a reader, at that point in my life, it is also important to note I had always suffered from car sickness. Even so, I read the second book, New Moon, as we drove throughout the mountainous Pacific Northwest. The Twilight world had sucked me in and I was unable to think of anything else. You’d think my family would have been annoyed, but they thought it was funny. They especially got a chuckle out of us having to detour our trip through Portland so that I could grab my copy of the newly released third book Eclipse.

It was somewhere into the first chapters of Eclipse that I found myself a passenger in a car with friends, as we navigated a mountainous road that was thick with heavy trees, at actual twilight. My mind began to wander at what was watching us, waiting, in the black line of those trees? I thought about the Quileute wolf legends existing in a heavily forested region with one of the highest “big foot” sightings… could it be?

Around this mountain side we traveled as the shadows chased the irrational wanderings of my mind.

~

Several years before, my first Christmas eve as an adoptive mom found me staring at our daughter as she slept sweetly. The magic of Christmas suddenly meant something completely new, and then out of nowhere panic plunged my insides toward the ground… What if Santa is real? What if this strange, magical being exists and comes sneaking through our home while we sleep?

What if?

What if…

Over the weekend my husband and I were inspired to have a Twilight movie marathon. It was so fun, and I was once again swept up in the memory of these life changing books… life changing because they inspired me to fall in love with reading again, and in doing so they inspired me to think deeper than the surface level I’d been handed–deeper than the very one-dimensional level I’d been writing at in my professional life.

The revisit, though thoroughly nostalgic and entertaining also made me think about that mountain drive, and that first Christmas eve. My mind began to think about fear. Then this morning I came across a news story about an asteroid sailing past earth and another report about the dangerous weather expected to kill many and render areas of the world disaster zones this summer. In even skimming each headline I felt that same fear pop its head in for a minute.

Fear.

We are living in a weird time when so many fear-motivated tragedies are happening on a daily basis. Instead of vampires and Christmas elves though, these fears are based in viruses, vaccinations, political powers, religion, sexuality, gender identity, skin tones, and on and on and on… any difference that divides us is connected to a fear-motivated tragedy that has taken place in recent days. The biggest difference between these fears and the fictional ones is it might just be a bit harder to call them irrational when the things we fear are really here. They aren’t possibly hiding in the shadows, but instead they are everywhere. Also everywhere are the printed and spoken stories about why we should fear them.

At the end of the day they are still stories. Whether it’s a fear of whats in the shadows, or a fear of something real in the world that you’ve been told is scary, we still have the opportunity to surrender to the boogeyman and let that fear control us. What if we didn’t?

What if we pushed past the fear and listened to someone outside of our normal scary-story-circle?

What if we tried to connect with someone else, something else?

What if we pushed past the usual sense of nausea we get from being a passenger in the car, and immersed ourselves in an experience so different than our normal, every day one?

What if?

education and re-education…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Oh, the brutality of April… I’ve chatted with enough people who also found April especially tough this year that I know I wasn’t alone… that being said, if you’re reading this post and thinking to yourself not me–this month was amazing, then know that I am so happy! It’s you who gives the rest of us hope.

I like to use my wrap days, at the end of each month, to reflect back on what life taught me over these past few weeks. To be honest, a lot of times I learn and relearn the same stuff. I guess someday it may stick!

  • This month I reconnected with what it was like to lose myself in a good novel. I actually did it twice, and both books were much bigger than my normal “page count” restrictions, so that was a lot of fun!
  • I learned that there is some speculation Lewis Carroll (Author of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland) was a pedophile. This one really caught me off guard, and I had to sit in my feelings for a while. I love his writing and the Alice stories so deeply. The more I researched and read, the more I realized that it was all opinions from today projected upon life back then. Sometimes we get into trouble doing that because there are so many aspects we consider common sense, ethical, or human decency today that weren’t long ago. I made the decision to still love these things because they resonate so deeply, and in the end, we just don’t really know.
  • I learned of a pretty well-known challenge to eat 30 different plants a week. Most people do it for a week but we’ve been trying to reset this every Sunday and do it through every week. We haven’t made it yet, but my chart is usually at 27 or 28 so I’m not going to consider it a loss. (The best thing I learned about this process was initially when I realized our normal weekly diet averaged between 20 and 25. What an awesome feeling that was!)
  • I’m learning how to use watercolors. The biggest reality I’ve had to adjust to is that it will be a process and take time to learn, but I do really love it!
  • I’m learning about creative dating! On the 2nd Chw and I celebrated our 28th anniversary and made the commitment to try A-Z dating over the next year, meaning intentionally creative dates must start with a letter, and we check them off when done–sort of like a bucket list. We aren’t going in order because logistically that seemed unlikely. We did do A, with the Alice Experience–an underground hidden immersive experience. It was so much fun and the perfect way to kick off this A-Z adventure!
  • I learned, (in a very unfortunate way), about Haglund’s Deformity. BOO!
  • I learned my husband and I would both be happy living a life where we only ate tacos and cookies. (Also, because we really diversify the types of each of those foods, we could still manage our PLANT challenge… It’s the perfect lifestyle, don’t you think????)
  • I’ve learned the right romper can be very flattering, and I’ll be honest–this one shocked me the most!
  • and finally, that going to a paint night with Chw will undoubtedly mean his painting will be far better than mine… but oh, was it fun!

It’s been a pretty quiet month really. Unstable weather, stress, heavy workloads, wrapping up edits and revisions on my memoir… The biggest lesson I’ve learned where that is concerned is that the writing of the book is actually the part requiring the least amount of work. I’m staying centered and grounded, working on not allowing myself to slip into a state of overwhelm.

My every-month take away remains, most importantly, to continue chasing beauty, adventure, and magic as authentically and intentionally as this life will allow.