Moving This Week

Oh man am I stressed. Taking a break from packing right now and reminding myself that everything will work out. Also, I am watching one of my favorite anime (My Hero Academia) to help chill out. When I first started writing this, I realized pretty quickly how sad it sounded. While reading back through it, I did not want to spread the anxiety and concerns I was feeling to my readers. So I started to look on the bright side.

By the time this is posted, 95% of the packing and moving out of this apartment will be taken care of. We choose pod storage moving and since the parking in the complex is limited, we hired movers to help us fill a Uhaul with everything but our air mattresses, pillows, the things we were told not to put into the pod and our personal essentials. We will be able to relax and clean the last 3 days here.

My mother is coming up to help me with driving to New York since I do not do will with driving long distances. We have also turned it into a road trip so we will see a baseball game, check out a zoo and a major college campus we have never seen before. I am most excited for seeing parts of the country I have never seen before, including rural Pennsylvania. I know not everyone would find this exciting, but I love to explore.

I will miss a lot about the Great Lakes area, but I am really looking forward to living in the Hudson Valley. I have been a nomad for nearly 15 years now, since I left St. Louis to head off to college at University of Kansas, and I can not say I regret it. I lived in Kansas, California (twice), Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and now New York state! I do hope to find a place to settle down, but the adventure of living someplace new calls to me.

This calling makes us recognize how much physical stuff we have that holds us back. We got rid of a lot, but there is still much we feel we need to sever our attachment to. Like textbooks we will never use again because we look up everything on the internet these days. BetterWorldBooks is a great organization to donate books to. I think keeping a few mementos of your life can be great, but I am the type of person who is more about developing a story.

What experiences have I had that I can share with others. When I was an Undergraduate, I loved hearing everyone else’s life story, but felt mine had not be a happy one to tell. Instead of being jealous and retelling other’s journeys I set off to gain more of what I loved in life. So while moving our stuff is stressful, the experience will be well worth it.

Learning a Second Language

I have been meaning to learn Spanish since my partner is half Cuban and if we have children we want them to be bilingual. Spanish is a very practical language to learn and it would be a benefit to my relationships with his side of the family, but I have just not felt that passionate about it.

When I took French classes in high school, it was because I loved the culture and still do. I enjoy brushing up on French and loved practicing it with friends during my college years. Having that kind of joy and passion for something makes it a priority and can relieve some of the stress in your life. If I had the time I would love to learn German, Japanese, French and Spanish.

Recently, my partner and I have expressed a shared interest in Japanese culture. We love Japanese food, anime, how well everything seems to work in Japan, the quality of their products, their politeness and the gratitude they show in daily life. We feel that if we were to live abroad at some point in time, that Japan would be at the top of the list. So I started doing Japanese lessons on Mango and I am finding it to be super fun!

I really thought I would devote more time to learning Spanish during this time off. I feel bad, but at the moment my heart is just not in it. Plus, my partner is excited to learn with me and can not trick me into saying, “El gato orinó en la alfombra,” (The cat peed on the rug).

I liked practicing a bit of Spanish when I had friends or coworkers to practice with. Though I kept using French pronunciation at first. Practicing with family is difficult because they forgot to speak slower, felt uncomfortable telling me I wrote or spoke something incorrectly and Cuban’s seem to have their own dialect. With them all just use to everyone knowing Spanish and me not, they just went about speaking as they normally do. Which makes for a challenging learning environment.

I am hoping the area of New York state we are moving to has Meetup groups for practicing these different languages. Then hopefully I will also make some friends in our new area. Plus, with practice we can travel to more amazing places! That should be a motivation for me to learn Spanish, but at the moment Japanese is serving me well.

Jaa, mata! (See you later!)

Treat People How You Want to Be Treated

I touched on this a bit in my last post. Since gaining some weight, I have been fat shamed. People ask me why I stopped working out and say things like, “oh no, you have gained weight,” or “maybe you should seek a second opinion because I do not know why a doctor would ever want you to gain weight.” I also had a family member point out to another family member that I looked much thinner last year, thanks Facebook for those walks down memory lane. It makes me feel horrible.

Then after being put down so much, I start shaming myself. You should never put yourself down. I gained weight and that does not make me a bad person. It was the result of going through a tough time and hormonal issues. It is ok. I am working on the problems and feeling better. No one deserves to be treated poorly because of their physical appearance.

When I hear someone say, “they look disgusting,” I think, “no, your disgusting.” We should be bringing each other up, not putting people down because think about what it really does for your life to treat someone that way. I was bullied heavily as a child and what I regret the most are the times I bullied others. Even right after I did it I felt horrible about it because I knew what it was like to be in their shoes. I did not know how to handle myself though and had way too much going on at home to become self aware until I went away to college.

I am deeply sorry for the times I have passed judgement on or hurt others. I sometimes meditate on how I have moved on from these negative past behaviors and what I still need to work on. If we have children, I already know there is so much I am going to teach them. So much that I feel I was not taught that is valuable to becoming a great human being.

While their are still these negative attitudes in society about certain physical appearances, I have to say I am really loving some of the steps that have been taken to opening up everyone minds and expectation. Such as the inclusion of women of all shapes and sizes in clothing advertisements. I think the more we normalize things that no one should feel ashamed of, the happier everyone can me, and therefore, the healthier we all can be.

Just some food for thought. You are beautiful.

Life Update: Moving to New York State and No Cycle in April

To be honest, I really had no clue what to write about this week. I started writing about 2 different topics and just could not stay focused to complete them. So I am going to write about what is on my mind right now.

Last weekend we spent a long weekend in New York State’s Hudson Valley where we are moving to at the end of this month. I learned just how very important it is to say New York State, not New York. We found an apartment to live in for our first year there. I have also just applied to 2 positions I am excited about at local historical societies/museums. We even spent a couple days around New York City. It was my first time being in that area of the country. I loved it and am looking forward to exploring more.

All this moving stuff (planning and preparing for the trip, scheduling appointments to see apartments, deciding on a place, having to start packing again, etc.), has stressed me out quite a bit. I did not get a cycle in April. I stopped working out right before the trip because I had a feeling my cycle was not going to come and the thought of working out stressed me out more. We walked a lot during our trip and enjoyed eating out once a day with treats. It felt like a relief.

Upon returning I just feel like walking and hatha yoga help relieve stress and resistance training only adds to it. Plus, I said if my cycle stopped I would stop the workouts. I think the hardest part is dealing with the weight shaming I have experienced from others and myself. When I start hearing it from others I start doing it myself. And today I packed up the clothes that do not fit me. Not much fits me right now. So part of me feels like I should be working hard to get rid of the excess weight ASAP.

It is ok though. Surprisingly, I lost a pound after the trip. I also just bought a pair of shorts that fit me and boy does having clothes that fit make a big difference in how you feel about yourself. My partner reminded me yesterday that this is a process and I am making the right choices. Which helped me sweep out the binge eating thoughts of, “I have that dark chocolate bar I could eat, chocolate makes everything better.” In this case, not so much.

I am thankful we are making this move together. We have been in sync with supporting each other lately and it is a blessing. Even though I had some tough moments lately, I feel grateful and fortunate.