flourish

i’m working on all of the required orientation trainings for my mba program this afternoon. we’re required to complete a sexual assault prevention training, but i found a little section of text explaining that waivers are available, and i let myself fill out the waiver request form without shame. (resources are meant to be used!)

i’m also emailing my supervisor to tell her that i don’t want to attend crowded public events for the next few months. there are other people on my team who can attend events in my place, who won’t panic as soon as they arrive. i know this is the right choice and yet! it’s hard not to tell myself that i just need to be braver, or more resilient, or more carefree.

i had a two-hour meeting with my supervisor today. i think she wanted to help me untangle my workload and the amount of pressure that i’m feeling right now, but it was not a helpful space. we are very different people, and it was hard to listen to her advice without wondering whether i am the cause of my own misery, whether i am fatally and fundamentally flawed. i locked myself in a bathroom stall right afterward and cried messy tears until it was time to pull myself together and facilitate a meeting. i am so tired of this.

i’m reading a novel right now about a nun who chooses to leave her convent. there is a moment at the end of the book where she says that religious life "solved so many things. i was able to postpone all my questions and inclinations. i’d solved myself for awhile.” this theme has come up in every book that i've read recently, and i keep circling back around to the same question. how do i solve the problem of myself?

magic life ✨

i took the train into the city this morning, then went for a long walk through golden gate park, all the way to ocean beach. there’s this little string of surf shops and coffee shops and bookstores near the beach, and i had fun pretending that this is how i spend every saturday morning.

there were a few guys in wetsuits, walking barefoot back to their cars, and i felt a little sad that i didn’t manage to squeeze my surfboard into my car for this trip. (my car is full of boxes of my mom’s old pottery instead, which feels equally magical.)

afterward, i took a bus up to the legion of honor, then wandered through sea cliff and the presidio, then down to pacific heights and hayes valley. my feet are tired!

i spent way too much money on a second permanent bracelet from catbird. i got the first one while i was recovering from my broken ankle/leg a few years ago, and i wanted to do something to recognize an equally challenging period in my life. the chain on this bracelet is thicker, and i can’t stop looking at my wrist and smiling.

i’ve been listening to this catholic podcast lately, and probably listened to four episodes in a row this afternoon. i don’t know why i’m so drawn to it. i didn’t grow up catholic and i disagree with so many of the church’s stances on big political issues. maybe i am just craving depth: a deeper sense of community, deeper roots, a deeper spiritual life. i open the “becoming catholic” page on a local parish’s website every few weeks, but i still haven’t been brave enough to reach out.

(i’m starting my master’s degree this fall and it feels slightly crazy to start weekly catechism classes at the same time? but it also feels wild to prioritize an mba degree over something that feels like an actual, real life spiritual calling? aaah)

i’m taking the bart into san francisco tomorrow, and i’m excited to spend most of the day bopping around the city while i listen to more podcasts. (maybe some non-catholic ones this time lol.) i want to go to golden gate park and a jewelry store in pacific heights, but otherwise i am just going to wander.

happy happy happy.

we spent the last four days in the eastern sierras, hiking and trail running and eating so, so much food. my feet hurt and i am covered in mosquito bites, but i don’t remember the last time that life felt this easy.

we stayed at a rental house in mammoth lakes, and spent hours after dinner each night scrolling through alltrails to pick our next adventure. i never had enough time to get nervous about the mileage or the elevation, and i still feel a little bewildered by everything that i was able to do. i am not always very kind to my body, but i am newly obsessed with these strong legs and strong lungs (even at 10,000 feet above sea level!).

i know that mental health encompasses more than exercise and time spent in nature...but man oh man, i needed this.

i got take-out food for dinner and spent an hour driving circles around town while i ate, with the air conditioning on high and the same four songs on repeat. there are supposed to be thunderstorms tonight, and i am waiting impatiently for the clouds to break open and the rain to start. it rains 173 days a year here, but for some reason the rain feels especially important tonight.

other bits:

i spent the morning at a city council meeting, watching coworkers testify as one of our policy priorities slowly fell apart. i know that it isn’t my fault (i did not vote for these awful councilmembers!), but i’m angry at myself anyway, counting all of the things that we could have done differently.

i had lunch afterward with someone i admire, a woman in her fifties who describes herself as “tough, but fair”. we ate at a seafood restaurant on the water, and i tried not to cry when she asked why i look so tired.

there’s this moment in the book where toews is reflecting on the fact that her mother is the only person in the family who understands and accepts herself: “she is not a problem to herself. and she is not suicidal.”

i spent a long time staring at my computer screen at work this evening, wondering if i am the kind of leader that my work requires right now. (i am a problem to myself.) my boss stopped at my office door on her way out, and i could tell that she wanted to ask if i was okay, but she stopped herself and i was grateful. i don’t know how to communicate that i am miserable, but also fundamentally okay. i cannot imagine what it’s like to supervise me right now: a bundle of anxiety and nerves and intensity and self-doubt.

i had a professor in college who ran six miles every morning. he said that it was the only way he made it through the day, the only way he could cope. i think about him a lot. i think it was the first time i realized that there was a path forward, a way to soften myself.

(we keep a running agenda for our meetings in a shared document, and today she glanced at it, then looked at me and said “what do you actually want to talk about today?”)

i cried afterward in my office, then again on the light rail train home. i can pinpoint all of the very real, tangible reasons why i’m overwhelmed right now, but i can’t figure out how to untangle any of it. i like so many things about my life right now! i don’t want to be miserable all of the time!

i’m obsessed with my commute right now: ten minutes in the car (listening to my favorite songs at top volume), then a twenty minute train ride over the lake.

i convinced all of the girls on my team to wear matching outfits last thursday, and then a few us accidentally matched again on tuesday, too. sometimes work feels like barbie land.

it’s annual review season, and one of the smartest girls on our team said that she loves learning from me. aaaah <3

work is so so busy right now, but i listened to a podcast about timeblocking and i think it’s helping? sometimes it feels like my calendar is a house of cards, but i’m holding it together for now.

(i am currently in the thirty minute timeblock that i allocated to “social media scrolling” lol)

i’m going to california at the end of the month! i’m driving to my parents’ house, then doing as many little trips as i can before i have to drive home. this trip feels a little impulsive (and i don’t really have any firm plans yet), but i can tell that i’ll feel better as soon as i’m back in my california mountains.