meh

locked underground forever

boom boom boom boom

I want to be entombed

my final disposition

whenever you buy an object, you are going to own that object for your entire life unless you make the conscious decision to throw it away or give it a new home. maybe other people don’t struggle with this as much as i do, but i’ve grown to become a little exhausted by finding a thing and realizing i don’t want it anymore, but i don’t have the energy or motivation to do anything with it. signed, a woman with a packed 10x10 storage unit who is now extremely hesitant to buy new things.

food, and by that i mean good food (and by that i don’t necessarily mean healthy food, but food of good quality that you love), is necessary to live, and buying it, preparing it, and eating it is not a chore. the sooner you accept this and make food a priority in your life, the healthier you’ll be. 

speaking of food, not everything you buy should be the cheapest version of it. personally i’ve found it’s always worth it to splurge on good olive oil, butter, and canned tomatoes. for years i thought i was an awful cook because i was cooking with cheap, disgusting olive oil that made my food taste like shit.

speaking of food part 2, i can’t BELIEVE how long this took me to figure out, but mise en place is the real real. get your shit out and organized and prepped *before* you start cooking, even if it makes things take longer. and yes, it is always worth it to do the dishes as you go, which pisses me off.

when i was teaching myself how to cook and feeling daunted about it, the best advice i ever got was to aim to learn 15 recipes and then put them in rotation.

this is the most horrific and awful truth i have forced myself to accept: there may come a day you can no longer digest your favorite foods, and you will either have to stop eating them, or remain very close to a toilet. i’m sorry.

other people are always going to misperceive you and misunderstand you, sometimes willfully. other people’s opinions of you don’t actually have anything to do with you. they’re not your business, and you don’t have to worry about it or change yourself.

when innocuous or neutral things make you irrationally angry or upset, step back, realize you’re having a big reaction, and then when you’re ready, pay very close attention to the thing that upset you, because you’re about to learn something important about yourself.

a pill sorter can save your life. i don’t know how i managed my meds without one.

sometimes college is about learning stuff, and not about becoming something.

no matter how many perfectionist tendencies you have, it’s worth it to remind yourself that no matter how much of a mess you actually are, you deserve to be loved.

if you’re always forgetting to do important but tedious things, set an alarm and set aside one hour of each week, not to do the important tedious things, but to assess what needs to be done, and *schedule* the important tedious things for the following week. this literally changed my life.

during that hour, make a meal plan too. the point of doing this is condense the time in which you’re making decisions (what to do, what to eat, etc) so you don’t have to burden yourself with them throughout the week. decision fatigue is real. any way you can alleviate that is a good thing.

learn the difference between aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive behavior. recognize when you’re being one of the first three, re-assess and aim for being assertive, even if it’s hard.

you can tell you’ve processed trauma, not when the traumatic thing stops upsetting you to think about, but when the traumatic thing takes up the same size in your brain as all your other memories.

if you’re one of those people who never seems to finish projects or follow through with things, there’s a chance you may just grow out of it naturally. until then, follow your interests and don’t feel bad about putting down a hobby to pick up another.

if you love stickers but have sticker anxiety, buy vinyl stickers. you can re-stick them.

there are only a few careers i can think of that you have to commit to early in life because getting the undergraduate credentials is a pain in the ass (teachers, doctors, and engineers, from my research). nearly everything else you can switch to later, which takes a LOT of pressure off having to figure out what you want to do with your life.

people say there’s no money in becoming an artist, writer, musician, etc. actually there’s a ton of money in all of those things, it’s just in the stuff other people want you to make and never what you want to make. it’s still worth it to develop the creative skill and not force yourself into business school because it’s more “practical” or whatever. 

sleep when you’re tired. SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE TIRED. don’t beat yourself up about it, don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t be tired or that you’ve already slept too much, just take a fucking nap. you would never say “hm i’ve already had enough water today, therefore i should not be thirsty” so don’t treat sleep the same way.

when you build a piece of furniture from target or ikea or whatever, the first thing you should do is count all the little screws and things to make sure everything’s there that should be. it sucks to get halfway into putting something together only to find there’s a piece missing and you have to go buy it.

learn to travel by yourself, go out to eat by yourself, see a movie by yourself. in my early 20s i was scared to do these things, but i do them so often now i don’t even think about it. it’s the most fulfilling skill i’ve ever learned.

adding to the above, if you’re a people-pleaser, being alone is especially important, because you’ve probably developed the habit of making the people you’re with more comfortable and happy than yourself, and you’re missing a lot of the beautiful and interesting things around you. when you’re by yourself, you can focus on what *you* want without guilt. 

sometimes you’ll want to break things off with a friend for reasons that are no one’s fault, and you don’t want it to be volatile or make a big thing of it, in which case the goal is to simply fade out of their life. it is okay to let people go.

shame is useless. get rid of it.

no matter how much of yourself you put into your art (or writing, or music, or whatever), when people criticize it, they are not criticizing you. they are having a reaction colored by their own tastes and perspectives. their opinion of your work has nothing to do with you. you don’t have to take everyone’s feedback. in fact you don’t have to take anyone’s feedback. the other side to this coin unfortunately is that compliments don’t have anything to do with you either. it’s good to accept this because it means you’ll stop seeking validation from other people and won’t let anyone else’s perspectives impact your work. anything nice anyone says about your work is merely a bonus to an already good thing.

if you’re an artist of any kind, take one day a year to look up opportunities like grants, funding, residencies, workshops, whatever. put the due dates of all of them on a calendar for the year following and get into the habit of applying for stuff. getting rejected sucks, application fees suck, but in all the years i’ve been doing this, it has always, always been worth it. these things give you a chance not only to help fund and support what you’re passionate about, but they force you to take your own work seriously, and that is something that’s absolutely necessary in order to be successful.

you must become your own greatest advocate. in all respects–in health, in love, in happiness, in freedom, you must. no one will ever fight as hard for you as you will. this in turn will give you the strength and motivation to help others fight for themselves too. the only way the world will ever get better is if every person on this planet learns to see themselves as equals to everyone around them.

brag about yourself as often as you can. for one, people develop their perceptions of you based on how you treat yourself and speak about yourself. but for two, it’s the fastest way to figure out which people to keep in your life, because they’re the ones who are going “oh hell yeah, you’re awesome.” 

be the person other people want to brag to.

at some point in your life, someone is going to hurt you, and it’s going to be willful and intentional. it is not worth it to waste brain space figuring out why they did it or why you think you deserved it. all you have to do is let yourself feel that pain, acknowledge it, and try to move on.

no matter how bad off you think you are, recovery is possible. the first and hardest step is to learn you’re worth the time and effort it takes to recover from the awful things that have happened to you.

First, you gotta stay cold. The whining will go on FOREVER. They will call you directly. They will email you. They will put EMERGENCY in the email subject, and you will find the EMERGENCY is Why Are You Doing This To Me, You Selfish Brat. They will leave messages. They will call you at work, because they are just so worried, are you okay? If you respond to any of this, even just to say “I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU,” all you have done is show them exactly how often and in what ways they have to harass you until you respond.

After the harassment, there will be niceness. Honeymoon. You will get gifts. Concern troll gifts. My dad, he wanted to buy me a coat. It’s so cold out there, I don’t know if you know that. I am worried about your health YOU STUPID BITCH here I don’t want you to get sick now I AM GOING TO PUT YOU IN A MENTAL WARD. These will be patronizing gifts meant to guilt you about how much they love you and how you are unable to care for yourself properly. Also, there will be checks. With the checks will be little check-ins. Did you cash the check yet? I see you didn’t cash the check yet. Did you get it? Could you just tell me if you got it? I know you don’t want to talk right now and that’s fine, you need space, but just let me know if you got the check? Or when you’re going to cash it? That’s all. Can you not even do that? Really? Are you that immature? Do you need help getting to the bank? Because I can drive you. It’s just a check, for chrissakes, you can’t even take free money?

After that phase passes, there will be a period of radio silence. It’s not over. It’s just a break. When it revs up again, it’ll be through third parties. My coworker saw you at the cafe. I hope you’re not drinking too much coffee. Here, your mother asked me to give you this trinket from your childhood. She seems really upset. I don’t know what happened between you, but I think she’s been through enough, don’t you?

If you can chop your way through that, there will be mostly silence. Except on birthdays, or Christmas. Then there will be passive-aggressive cards and gifts and FUCKING CHECKS.

Let’s shoot forward a few years. Let’s assume the cut-off has worked and they’ve stopped trying to drag you back. Here’s some shit you’ll have to put up with:

You Should Really Forgive and Forget

Strangers, friends, acquaintances, anybody who hears that you have an estranged family member will tell you to forgive and forget. They will tell you that family is wonderful and really more meaningful than whatever you’re going through. Also, bonus round, but WHEN YOU GET OLDER YOU’LL UNDERSTAND, double bonus round, BUT BY THEN THEY’LL BE DEAD AND YOU’LL REGRET IT. After dealing with this shit for years, I’ve found it’s best, for me, to not respond. Maybe give them an mmm, oh, that’s interesting, but it’s not worth it to explain my circumstances or refute their assumption of my personal feelings. If they cared about my circumstances, or my personal feelings, they would have asked.

What people are telling you when they have this round-up toy spiel is what they are capable of. They are not capable of cutting off their family. They are not capable of imagining a life without forgiveness. They are not capable, perhaps, of imagining your life. They are not capable of separating the word “family” from “blood relations.” They are not capable of conceiving of happiness without traditions. These are not bad things. It’s just them, the way they prefer to live. You live differently. The only thing is, you probably don’t go around accosting strangers and advising them to cut off their family, and if they don’t, they’ll grow old and regret all their years wasted placating and living in fear. So, stay that way. Don’t be that asshole. Just understand that other people don’t have the strength to live as you do, and you do not have the strength to live as they do, and that is all okay, as long as they shut up sometime goddamn soon.

You Are Capable of Leaving Me and I Am Terrified

You will get this from partners and from friends. They know you are capable of cutting off people you love very much, people you are supposed to be with forever. There is a line and it can be crossed, and after that, you are gone from their lives forever. They never seem to hear the, “You could always make amends,” part. Just the, “I am not speaking to you anymore,” part. Some people can’t handle that. A surprising amount of people can’t handle that. They can’t handle the fact that if they were to call you on your birthday you would not be pleasantly surprised and decide that it was really all so long ago anyway. They can’t handle the fact that if they blew into town you wouldn’t have an obligatory cup of coffee, or if they got married you wouldn’t call just to say congratulations. They can’t handle the fact that you wouldn’t friend them on Facebook, or ask other friends how they’re doing.

They can’t stand the fact that you could erase them and still manage to exist in the world, without them.

A friend of mine from college had cut off her family, too. She told me about an argument she had with an insecure, needy, hurtful boyfriend. He was pretty much entirely in the wrong, and when he had run out of arguments, he lashed out using her family. “I guess I just get scared,” he wheedled, “Because you cut off your family, I feel like you could cut me off, too.” She didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” she said. “I could. If that bothers you, we shouldn’t be dating.” She and I laughed about it later. As if it was supposed to hurt us, the idea that we could protect ourselves, that we could cut out the riffraff. I mean, she had cut off her ENTIRE family — a boyfriend was supposed to get her shaking now? Get a better ultimatum, man.

Flint tried to use this, too. So did an ex-girlfriend. During fights, they’d spit out something about how I can’t deal with family since I don’t have one. The truth was, I couldn’t deal with abuse if I wasn’t having it. If family meant what they were doing to me right then, then yes, I could not understand, would not understand, and would not participate. And that was fucking unacceptable to somebody who needed me to collude in their madness. They knew that if I made the choice to cut them off, it would be complete. We wouldn’t fight. They wouldn’t have any access to my feelings, my thoughts, my experiences, anything they could use to hurt me or know me.

When people say these things, try to cut me down for exercising my ability to define my boundaries, they are letting me know that they want to reserve the right to hurt me in specific ways. They are letting me know that if I stopped being a part of their life, they would lash out and refuse to let me go. They are telling me they expect this of me, they need this in place if they are to continue being my friend. They need to know that I will let them hurt me as a price for any love we shared. They are telling me that this is what they think love is.”]

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SHOULDER PRESS

PUSHUPS

BARBELL CURLS

CHINUPS

ANOTHER KIND OF CHINUPS

A THIRD VARIETY OF CHINUPS

EVEN MORE CHINUPS (FOR DA LATS)

DEADLIFT

HAMMER CURLS

OVERHEAD TRICEP PRESS (AKA SKULLCRUSHERS)

ONE-ARMED DIPS

DELTOID FLY