Larissa Gudino

I was doing a gratitude list of ten things every day and it really helped my depression. But around this time with any list I try to diligent over, I start lagging and fall behind when I’m doing really well and then everything kind of plummets and I struggle to get into the habit of doing something regularly. That being said, I’ve been proud of my progress with quitting smoking. I didn’t totally cut it out the way I wanted, but I didn’t smoke one until today. Today I am smoking two. I’m smoking the second because I was up ALL night and I want to sleep. Tomorrow I’ll take melatonin.

I didn’t notice the depression that I usually have gotten every time I quit. It’s been remarkably less difficult. The biggest trouble is the habit itself. That sounds obvious but I mean that I haven’t actually been fiending for a cigarette, more so that I’ve been wanting a habit of something to do and instead I’ve been eating, which I knew I would do.

The biggest thing is that every time I’ve tried to quit, I’ve beat myself up for giving in. I didn’t today. I beat myself up for eating a lot. I didn’t today. I beat myself up for resetting the app—and I didn’t today. Not doing that has been making it much easier to not care so much about the act of smoking. Instead of it being this ominous, anxiety inducing thing, I just smoked because I was hurt and then congratulated myself on going 36 hours before smoking a cigarette.

I do feel more energized not smoking. But I notice that I’m getting lazier because I keep noticing my triggers and I end up trying to avoid them all.

But I notice it, at least. And I’m not running from them entirely, just making jokes about it and letting myself be silly about it, which also makes it easier.

This is my birthday, the last day of the month, the finale that starts my new year of goals and plans. It was slow and beautiful, with so many friends and family sharing April and small gifts and time and assistance in little ways throughout.

I like to celebrate my birthdays as though it’s my personal new year, so I make new year’s resolutions every time. My first goal is to quit smoking. That money can go to things that help me accomplish my goals. I’m tired of being tired and I’m worried about my skin, teeth, and voice.

I feel ready to do it. I’m ready to quit. And I don’t want to turn thirty and be slipping. I’d rather turn twenty-nine, give myself motivation and few slips, but really just go cold turkey. I feel ready.

What I AM worried about is that I know a side of me that I shove under smoke is going to appear and I’m not going to be willing to post that here. I’m going to try to journal about it and then maybe I’ll post some of that here but it’ll be a struggle to keep up positivity and self love when the last few times I’ve tried to quit, I gave up at the depression stage.

However, I know that I am capable. I know that there are things that I want to end in this decade of mine and in starting the last year of it, I better start now. I’m working actively to being the person I want to be and making the necessary steps for Lizzy’s and my future.

I’ll try to post updates this next week though they might be not as positive as I want them

to be, but I want to force myself to find something positive to write about regardless.

I missed yesterday because it was the day of my birthday party. I felt bad because I was super anxious about inviting anyone that wouldn’t be comfortable with each other. I was nervous about having people in my home. It was very small and not a rager or anything, but it was comfortable and cozy and I had visits from pretty I do very much like or dearly love and that made me happy.

I struggled a little bit with staying positive because I wanted to feel sorry for myself but I’m glad I didn’t. I was sooooo excited when a lovely friend stopped by and she cheered me up times ten, which she does just by being around.

I’m gearing up for tomorrow. It’s officially my birthday tomorrow. The last year of my twenties. I’m ready for it to be over but I’m also seeing it as leaving a lot of this messy decade behind—a lot of hoarding, a lot of holding onto people and things, the worst years of my life, the deepest fear I’ve ever felt, the most lonely I’ve ever been, they were all in this decade and maybe it’ll happen again but I’ll know that I’ve survived it once and can again.

I wanted to write about a proud moment today because I think self love is taking time to acknowledge progress or treating yourself as you would a close friend.

I kind of ran around a lot. I was out too long from work because of bad timing of plans and I thought I could "knock it out" but it took longer, which placed work on someone else. It took me a long time today to get over this; I felt really terrible.

But when I do this, I self debase, I forget to give my gratitude and appreciation to the things or people that did their part to add brightness to my day.

My daughter actually woke up and got ready in a timely manner this morning. My best friend picked up my cake baked by a woman I really admire. My daughter’s father picked it up and delivered it to me in conjunction with picking up our child. My band mates were enthusiastic about working on two songs I wrote. I came home with my other best friend who helped me clean my house to be ready for my birthday.

I asked for forgiveness from my work friend for not coming back in time and putting more stress on her for my personal business and it was given. I told her I shouldn’t have left for that long and I wouldn’t do it again.

Overall, though there were two small hitches to my day, I started to let them consume me, and with this post, I acknowledge that a number of beautiful things happened and I’ll carry those with me tomorrow instead.

Oh, and I felt fierce.

Today I was in a situation where I lost someone that I trusted to be a close friend, because of anxiety I gave him about my trauma. This was especially heart wrenching when we bonded over experiences and he himself had discussed a bit of his trauma with me. I didn’t tell him what had happened to me or any details.

Aside from that, when it happened, I felt myself start to spiral downward. I was embarrassed for mentioning anything about my issues. I apologized for making him feel that way. Then I realized how unfair this was and decided to not waste my time with someone that wouldn’t reciprocate for me what I have and would have done for him.

This is a huge step for me. I cried. I really hardly ever cry. I acknowledged that I felt betrayed. I didn’t demonize him because his fears are valid, however I do believe it was selfish considering the circumstances.

But how his anxiety manifests is outside of me and my control, and I cannot allow someone else’s trauma and coping mechanisms to inhibit mine for my health.

I was hurt. It’s been a while since I’ve been hurt in such a way that brought me to tears so quickly, strongly, intensely. I was confused and still I think it’s unfair. I’m glad that I didn’t dissociate to avoid feeling this way.

That moment was followed by a birthday lunch from a dear friend, a comforting and inspiring message from another lovely friend, and the night closed with a late dinner and conversation with a friend I’d met on Facebook years ago and was finally able to meet and share company.

My daughter and I argued all day. It fell over from yesterday onto today. Tonight, she was hellish. But when she finally quieted down, her eyes half-lidded but semi-coherent, I told her, “I love you baby. Good night. Tomorrow will be better, okay? Okay. I love you.”

365 days of self love//day 4

I’m not the biggest fan of going shopping for clothes, but I think I’m a good person to go shopping with. My rule is, "if it’s not a definite yes, then it’s a no." I want to see an article of clothing and get excited about it and to start imagining all the outfits I would put together with it.

That being said, I really don’t buy clothes very often. When I do, it’s because I’ve worn out something I wear a lot or I want to add something new to my style.

I’m working on gradually making a capsule wardrobe because I really like everything I have to serve multiple functions and the idea of picking out outfits that can all be layered to make different ones is really enticing.

For today’s self love, I was proud of several things:

For acknowledging that I’ve held onto a lot of things because of being in terrible financial situations

For recognizing that excess is no longer necessary for me to feel comfortable or fulfilled

For finding appreciation and excitement in the opportunity to be creative with less

I only wish there was a way to feel energized enough to go through everything right now, but since there’s not, I’m going to share outfits where I was really feeling confident with my pairings, proud of mixing and matching, and use this post to motivate me to fill up one more garbage bag tomorrow.

I took all of my mother’s photo albums after she died.

In these albums, it’s hard for me to remember the stories behind a lot of the people but what helps me are my personal memories of those in the photos.

If I had a choice, I wouldn’t only keep the pictures of my mother and my immediate family, limiting it to maybe two photo albums.

I feel guilty because I want to give the rest back to the family members that would remember those people, but I’m not in contact with them and have no way to find out who they are.

It makes me question if I should hold onto generations of family photos for which I have no sentimentality.

Then I think of my daughter and how, when she sees these photos, the only ones she’ll feel connected to are the pictures of me: no memory of a single person in any of the rest of the albums.

Today was a bad brain day and I strongly considered not writing this post—-but that’s usually when posts like this need to be written.

I was tagged in a post meant to be funny about my star sign, Taurus. One of the jokes on it is that a Taurus “can’t be wrong,” mentioned on it four times. I know that it was an issue in my much younger years but near my early twenties I realized the best way to never be wrong is to never claim that you know something, unless you really know it.

I was really proud of when I learned that. I got braver at saying, “I’m not sure but I THINK so. I think I remember something about this but I’m not positive.” That was the best way to not be proven wrong. When there is something I definitely know for sure—what actor starred in a film, who wrote what book, etc.—-I have no problem arguing that I’m correct because I know that I will be proven correct.

This got trickier with things that I know to be true “morally.” These include things like past experiences that I’m familiar with but others aren’t: one person’s truth doesn’t make it incorrect; it just means that that’s a situation you haven’t been put it yet and it’s okay to admit that you don’t know this. It’s also okay to have different experiences: “Maybe it was that way for you but for me...”

A really big one is offense. Just because you are not offended, does not mean that others cannot be. Just because you did not mean something hurtfully does not mean that others cannot be hurt. Even if I have the best intentions when saying something, if I’ve hurt someone, I have to accept that I caused that regardless of my intention.

The example I use for this is walking down a hallway. If you are walking down a hallway and you, walking peacefully and happily, do not notice another person and bump into them, making them knock over their things, what do you do?

Do you say, “you should look where you’re going,” and keep walking away?

Do you see them fall and keep going on your way?

Do you say, “I didn’t mean to,” and keep going?

Do you stop and say, “I didn’t mean to,” and help them gather their things? Regardless of the intent, you’ve caused that person to stop, drop their things, and now must either pick it up by themselves or with your help.

I see unintentional offense this way. Though the situations I’ve gotten into in my life have taught me that most people don’t.

Seeing that post today sent me into a downward spiral. I flashed to the last three relationships where I was wronged in terrible ways and nearly each time was not only made to believe that everything was my fault (yes, both people should be watching as they cross each other in a hallway, but sometimes no amount of dodging keeps you out of someone’s way—making it hard to believe it was unintentional in the first place), but sometimes that the wrong didn’t even occur. Sometimes I was told that I tripped myself and fell and dropped everything because I wasn’t looking and was now just passing blame to avoid accepting it. I would remember the push that knocked me down but the lie would make me question everything that I thought was true.

In my last relationship, he would say that I had bumped into HIM and then would tell others an aggrandized story of how and why this was true, while leaving me in the hallway trying to gather my scattered things.

The relationship before, I would be told that because it was unintentional, I was just passing off blame.

In a relationship before that, I was told that he didn’t see me there so I shouldn’t be taking it personally.

Which brought me back to my parents and the times they did all three. The times they went around and told lies about me in case I tried to get help from others. The times they made eye contact to knock me down and claim they never saw me there. The times they pretended to be unaware of their actions to accuse me of casting blame. The times they treated me like I had just fallen and had never even gotten close. The times they knocked me down, held me down, threw my things farther, asking why I was upset because all of it was in my head.

I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong because I never claim to know anything that I don’t know.

I drove home from the grocery store with dinner in hand, having flashbacks for hours of my exes and my parents and people that I trusted as friends, knowing that I can never truly forget what they’ve done and recognizing it’s because of links to what my parents have done, and I cried.

I haven’t cried in a while. It only lasted slightly longer than five minutes and ended in less than ten.

Sometimes self love is feeling your pain and feeling all the anger and sadness that you have inside of you, even if only for a few minutes.

I’ve been toying around with embracing sexuality as a mother and someone who doesn’t see their body as what it used to be—a growth more than a regression, since we can’t go back from stretch marks and the filling and draining and filling and draining. I repeat this line to emphasize that this has happened more than once. This has happened several times and only a person can know themselves just how often their bodies have been stretched and worn.

From the womb the child takes and destroys. This is the nature of the thing. It takes in the best parts you have to offer from the marrow and you pray that you planted excess for your own stores.

Your skin stretches and tugs and leaves writing on your belly and thighs, the arms and breasts—the places you tried to keep what you wanted to keep. Your breasts heave with fullness and your nipples harden from the gut-filling pull of a teething mouth’s bite. When this ends, they droop like wilted flowers, skin withered like pleats, emptier and with minds of their own.

The body takes on so much.

When I was younger, I nervously looked up BMI and measured my curves with a measuring tape to use math and find my ratios between waist and hip, waist and breast. I picked bras to make my breasts appear stiffer than they already were, perkier and more robust. I look at old pictures of my younger body and remember taking those pictures and feeling repulsed at every flaw. My body now would have made that person gloat, and the guilt of that gloat would have made them discover more physical flaws.

I press on the softened parts of this body and think of tortilla dough and my mother. I smooth the quilted skin and think of ruffled skirts. I find humor in my aimless breasts that rival a cross-eyed observer. My face has thinned and filled and then thinned and filled and the softness that showed off my naïveté has sharpened into edges that draw the line at bullshit.

I struggle to find this body appealing and battle with the idea that anyone else could. However, I embrace the idea that I can achieve this now—first with myself.

I’m a mother of a five-year-old and I work for a newspaper and magazine company. I don’t dress how the character in the book with those qualities would dress. I dress in a way that makes me feel both comfortable and sexy, both youthful in daring but older with confidence. As my body changes with age, I abandon my qualms about loving it.

We excite over carefully sown seeds. We watch them sprout and tend to the meager tree, directing trunk and branches upward toward the stars. As it thickens, we admire. As it grows, we gush. We carve names and symbols. We prune the weaker parts to “allow more nourishment to go to the living parts,” as someone once told me as we pulled dead leaves and drying blossoms off a small bush. We wait for the next year to see what new wonders will arrive without scorning it for its scars but with pride at what it chooses to show us this time.

I want to be a

Calligrapher

Illustrator

Painter

Guitarist

Pianist

Vocalist

Scholar

Writer

Songwriter

Lyricist

Good mother

Hard worker

Mediator

Loving partner

Activist

Friend

Volunteer

Minimalist

Make up artist

Healer

Tea maker

Baker

Chef

Film maker

Actress

Cartographer

Graphic designer

Sculptor

Communicator

Fashionista

But I only have so much time and can’t claim to be good enough on all of those things so I better start separating my life into phases to focus on five each time, or maybe some can be doubled up.

Jill of all trades will master at least some

Some things can’t go to waste. Time cannot be bought. I cannot afford to give it freely.