The power of Spring

With Spring I feel comes a sense of renewal, born again is our sense of self and we can make change to our life that fit this changing of season. As regrowth begins in fields of flowers and color springs out in the forests, , I suddenly feel that growth inside my spirit too. As a sense of community is felt as neighbors and friends slowly come back into existence, I feel like I myself take a new form of existence as well. I am ready to take this new energy and run with it. I will call this feeling Springness.

Before I explore too far into this Springness, let me first remark about the experiences I have undergone and the discoveries I have made about myself the past 2 weeks since I last said that I was off to a fresh start. Well, that start pretty much ran into a ditch pretty quickly into the race. I was having great trouble sleeping due to the discomfort I was in with my back and the anxiety that I faced with tests after I received a bad mark on the exam that I took the previous week. I then faced more sleep deprevation eventually resulting in my diagnosis of fibromyalgia. In the past 2 weeks I have been to the chiropractor 3 times, a counselor twice, and a rheumatologist. I have moved from a dorm room in Davis to an off campus apartment. But I think I finally figured some things it out (not all of it, but on my way).

Springness has come with the new atmosphere I have set myself in. Away from my prison cell of a dorm room, I feel like I can breathe fresh air and as it is as if a lifted a great weight off my shoulders. I feel like it will really help me to be more organized, to focus better, and be in better health with cooking my own food and having a nice bed to sleep in. As independent of a person I am, campus living was just not right for me and so many people who know me well warned me of that before I came to Wake Forest. They knew me better than I knew myself, but sometime it is harder to make judgments on your own life than it is for other people to understand its complexity. It's like watching a movie, frustrated that the characters do not make rational decisions because they cannot see what is around the corner when the audience can.

I think I need to realize that change and progress often needs to be a slow and gradual process just like the blooming of flowers and the process that nature takes as Spring comes into true season. Patience is a true virtue.

My Story Box

The past week I periodically have thought about the different stories that have burned a whole in life in good ways and in bad. I have wondered which have made a profound effect on my life, what stories have scoped me to be the person I am today? There certainly are a lot of stories that I have arisen due to my family's love for vacations and in those vacations adventures. Certainly I can see how they shaped me, but I am not sure how to shape those into a story that I could tell in a box. They are more imaginable in a grand collage or moral. A lot of my life the past 7 years has revolved around my jewelry business and I could definitely tell you a few stories about that. I could tell the class about how that created a unique life for me as I went through high school running this business and going to shows on weekends. This story could tell you about all of the interesting people I have met along the way and believe me those people have made more of a profound effect on me that I can even explain or even see the results of, but I know that in some way each of them has touched me. I could tell you that story, but I want to distinguish myself from my jewelry. I have told stories about jewelry and made jewelry such a part of me my whole life, that with this project I really wanted to focus on something else.

I want to say I did have the intentions of digging into my past and coming out with a story that would be really fun and exciting, maybe laughable, however, I think I have found the right story and to me it is really not laughable at all. I arose at this idea for a story when I was asking my mom if she could think of a story in my life that makes me the person I am today. She threw out some things that I couldn't really expand upon or did not really have strong feelings about. Then she suggested my health issues. At first, I was skeptical because I really did not want this to be focused negative energy especially with everything I have been dealing with lately. I wanted this project to be therapeutic as crafting is to me.

I realized that telling about my health might just be the therapy I need even though I think it will be a struggle. Maybe if I dig deep enough into the story I will pinpoint all of the good that have come out of it.

So I have started to collect things to put in it and just grabbing the material pieces of this story really are upsetting me. I feel like I want to cry already. As much as I know that all of these things take a tool on me, I never knew it would make me so emotionally. I am ready to see what else comes out of this.

A Fresh Start

Since last week I realize that I really need to step back and reassess. Obviously the way I am going about my life right now is not working for me, I need to go back to finding the right balance of everything. In high school I really had that balance with everything I did and I have not found it yet in college which leaves me feeling anxious a lot of times and tired and uncomfortable with my self in many ways. Friday I went to Bikram Hot Yoga and it really helped me to start thinking about where these corrections in my life needed to come in. I am going to try to go to this yoga as much as I can because maybe it can be the center core to the change I am going to instill in my life. I want to be able to find the time for me to do the things that put me at peace and make me feel accomplished and gratified. I want to gain the control that I once felt over who I was that drove me to be able to be the strong person I am. Without the balance and structure I become disorganized and that makes my life much more stressful. So, first order of business, I am going to try to get up at 6 like I used to to workout and clear my mind and prepare for the day ahead. Waking up early might be tough but the air feels so much fresher and it is so peaceful. Other goals:

1. concentrate more on when I am twirling my hair so that I can force myself to break the habit

2. go to yoga as much as possible

3. do not put toxins in my body

4. smile always

5. volunteer weekly

6. do not stress over work meaning give it my best shot and then let go

Obsessions

It is 3:30 in the morning and I should definitely have been sound a sleep a while ago, but I gave into one of my obsessions. I lie here in bed thinking why can't I just do what is right for me sometimes. When I get on a hook of something I have to have it, I am addicted so many things. It is really very frustrating having so many things that I obsess over all of the time, it makes my mind constantly wander into these obsessions. For instance, this coffee that is keeping me up right now. It is not the caffeine that makes me need coffee, it is the fact that I should not have it that I want to have it. It does weird things to me like makes my heart feel like it is going to jump out of me while I am trying to sleep and makes me kind of feel a little funky all day. So then, why not just give it up? I did and I felt great, but then I start obsessively thinking I can't have it and want it more and cannot repress myself from the habit. Then it ends up making me sick because I cannot sleep, but I will just have it compulsively without thinking-- I will make it or buy it and think that now I really have to have it cause I can't waste money. There are a lot of habits I have like this... I cannot stop twirling my hair and it actually become a huge distraction. I twirl it and the more I want to stop the more I do it. Some with food... the more I tell myself I should not eat something the more I want that thing or I will think about a food all day until I have it. Same for exercise... I like to workout in the morning because I will think about working out and it will eat at me all day until I workout even if I am feeling sick or am hurting that day. How do I stop thinking about all of these pointless things all of the time so I can focus on real things in life? Sometimes I just stand there staring, contemplating all of these things that I know I should not do, but constantly think about while twirling my hair. Wow writing this done really makes me feel like this is a problem, I mean I know its a problem. It really overwhelms my life. Do I have obsessive compulsive disorder? I would look up symptoms online, but I had to give up googling my symptoms to different things because I think I am a hypochondriac. I am scared. I want to put an end to this, maybe I should see a therapist.

One more note...

When I came to college I said to my mom, "I do not want to care about grades so much at college, I want to go and get an all around good experience and just learn and gain ideas from other people, pay attention in my classes and do my work, but not worry about the grade component because I feel like that holds me back. I just want to learn and discover what is out there and take it all in." Wake makes that so hard because everyone does care about the number so so much, and the good numbers are so hard to get. It makes it hard for me to enjoy the other stuff going on like the amazing speakers that we do bring it yet no one can even go to them because they are too busy fighting for their grades.

Big Decisions, Little Decisions

I had a case of the Monday's today filled with lots of what I would call Absent-Minded Megan Moments. They filled my childhood and have continued with me as I have grown up. Luckily they have become less and less over the years, but they still happen and I found today as frustrating and inconvenient they are and as irresponsible they make me feel, I need to embrace these moments because, maybe somewhat unfortunately, they are part of who I am. After about the 5th moment today I texted my mom and said, "It has been quite an absented-minded Megan Monday." She responded. "That is what make you so special! But I know frustrating." It is true though, I have learned to just know that even when I have these days where I am a total clutz at times or am running around everywhere wasting time because I have leaving stuff everywhere, forgetting things, that life still goes on. The next day will be better and I am not going to fail at life just because I did the wrong homework. Yeah, it sucks, and makes you feel like your whole world is falling apart and you have lost some sort of control of your life, but you know sometimes we all trip (maybe even literally). So my Monday started last night, when after the superbowl, I got an email asking about Italian homework that was due today. Homework that I thought was due the 7th (whoops that is tomorrow!, problem when you lose track of what day of the month it is), so I had to do that. Went to my sister's apartment where I sleep because my roommate wakes up too early for ROTC, but I left my keycard in my car, so i walked there and walked back. Next got to the apartment and realized I had the wrong book to do the homework, went back to my room, back to the apartment, forgot the actual key to the apartment in my car. Back and forth again. This morning in a rush so I could have time to print off my homework, I had to change my outfit 3 times because of different things I had today that I had to dress for then dropped a whole funfetti cake on myself and the floor. Mess to clean up. Could not get my loaner computer to print so had to resolve that problem and ended up late for class. Found out I did not do the right homework. Needed coffee, went to starbucks and spilled my whole nalgene bottle in line, so ran out of time to get coffee. Later made my own coffee and my suitemate spilled it all over my desk. Just one of those days. But I called my best friend from home and told her I was having one of my days and she was very excited saying, "Oh please tell me, I have not heard one of your moments in a while." Maybe just knowing that other people can get a laugh out of my day makes it alright.

(It was also great that I could hashtag my tweet with #Mondays and read about other people's days. I am not alone.)

Along with embracing this character of life, it kind of got me feeling down in another way. It made me realize this constant struggle I have to pop the bubble that I live in here at Wake. I feel this constant pressure on my shoulders. It is not even the academics though. I feel like this school holds me back from everything I could be, like people are not creative and inspirational enough. I do not mean there are not people to look up to here and who do amazing things cause honestly some people do so much here that it makes me overwhelmed to just think about what they are doing. What I mean is that so few people are reaching outside the box, they are like freaking machines. Then when they do get a break, they get wasted or something. I mean obviously not everyone, but everything around me just seems so routine. Like I think I counted 4 times in my sorority's chapter today that I thought why I am in a sorority. Like there are aspects I like and being at Wake you have to be in one pretty much to get involved and to meet people, but like what do I care about half of the stuff. I like that you can have leadership positions and plan stuff, but some of it just seems a waste. I feel like I want to be really involved in the sorority sometimes but then I step back and think of everything else I could be doing that is more worth-while instead. I feel like so many things at Wake just hold me back. I love having more of a social life in college than I had in high school, but I felt like I did so many more meaningful things in high school and so much more that I was proud of. I mean now I am getting school work done and everything obviously and that in itself is an accomplishment, but there are so many other components that shaped me before I came to college that I don't do anymore simply because I feel like I am in this bubble. I dunno?? It is very frustrating because I do not really like to think about transferring at all because there are so many great friends I have here too and I don't want to leave them. I just feel like other schools would have opportunities that would pertain to me more, I just do not really know where at this point. Maybe going abroad next semester will be really good for me.

Jealousy for the week:

People that are actually productive on the weekend with stuff besides being social and doing homework. I want to volunteer too or work somewhere or better get actually get my new website up and running.

Solution:

Make more of an effort to set aside time to do one or more of these things next weekend even if it means not going out like I am expected to.

Do you look in a puddle or jump in?

Jealousy can be a vicious enemy, an ever looming thought, a temptatious desire, a weight that burdens, a guilt, a mystery, or even an obstacle. Sometimes it is hard to even pin point jealousy- who or what you are jealous of or those who are jealous of you. It can create great tension in relationships even when you do not acknowledge the feeling. It is certainly better to recognize jealousy in order that you can make amends to deviate from those feelings and do something better with it. We all need to pay closer attention to that fact that we often are reacting toward jealous feelings. Instead of reacting to jealousy with hate, self-pity, grudge, false judgement, and detainment, we need to change our course of action. Redirect jealousy into positive action. Staring into the puddle and seeing a reflection of someone who you are unhappy with does nothing for self-betterment. If you see something in that puddle that makes you unhappy, do not just stand there, jump in and make things happen. If you are jealous of someone else's accomplishments, rather than blame them for your ill-feelings, allow them to influence you in positive ways and try to succeed yourself.

I think that I need to start to recognize my jealousies in order to make my life more satifying as well. I have started to jot down things that I am jealous of in my life and what I can do to change course...

1. I think I am envious of students who have either earned their own way through college or have earned scholarships to pay for it. I feel like I would be so proud of myself and have more respect for my own college experience. If I feel this way I should start to look for more scholarships that reflect my own accomplishments and apply for them.

2. I am jealous of people who really make an effort to reach out to others every day no matter what is going on in their own life. They will take time to listen to you even if it takes away from their own "sacred" time. I need to give more attention to m friends and family as well so that they feel like I am dedicating special time to them as well.

From now on, I will try to pay more attention to the feeling of envy and jot it down and at the end of the week I will reevaluate the situation so that I actively make my life more satisfying.