I am so utterly, wholeheartedly, and genuinely exhausted. 2014 has done everything Georgia Nichols promised it would be a multi-year window of flux + change. How much of it is either existential breakdown, mental health/anxiety, or just being exhausted and unsure I do not know. But it's even more exhausting. Why can't I just be one of the normals who's ok with mediocrity? Mediocrity rules, right? It's like I'm so tired that I consider this my "year-end" and I have two more months left, ugh.
I considered this blog as good as dead. I mean I have time for nothing. I *should* be lying on my back on my yoga mat willing my pinched shoulder to loosen itself up. I'm always running day-to-day thriving + surviving hardly having/making time for taking care of myself or processing. It's like people who start urban gardening or a new workout regime or have to see a nutritionist or want to heal some resurfacing trauma, you make a journal of all the things you're learning of the things you're doing different, but what if you don't even have time to find a fucking notebook to write in? I can't even make time to find a notebook to write this shit down in! And, I'm learning so much, I want to meaningfully document some of it. You're welcome in advance. This shit is good as gold.
1. Same old bullshit: take care of your physical health. And I don't mean in some fucking white background health blog sort of way. Who has time for that, really? First step is sleeping more, drinking water, listening to my body, sleeping (I've started taking melatonin to force it and kill the anxiety and praise the baby jesus it works), addressing health problems one-by-one (rather than all of them together). I put "get exercise" in this one. Today I cut 20 cabbages in half. That's my exercise for the day. No pressure. No expectations. Get through the day feeling better than the day before. I got to this point where I was taking so many supplements + vitamins + prescription drugs (for things) that I got sick of taking pills! It's kind of what happens when the natural remedy is diet change + more than a dozen vitamins a day. So just get better so I don't have to take so many pills. Makes sense, right? We'll see. I've been so ill for so long I sometimes don't know what will make me feel better, you know? (Except yoga, the answer is always yoga).
2. Take care of your mental health: If I can't make up my mind or think I have to make a decision about something or have a feeling about something that I can't reconcile my go to answer is "go to sleep". My new go-to is "take rescue remedy" (new to me!). After that, "make a decision tomorrow". "let it go to voice mail". Say no to pretty much everything + stick to the basics. Have a bath in tears + epson salts. Nothing is more important than taking care of myself so I can be in the world without anxiety + stress. I heard an interview with Gloria Steinem where she said women were depressed because they aren't angry enough. So get angry + do something about it.
3. Feminism (is the answer): Having a frame to understand how systemically fucked up the world is is so handy. Being able to make life + business decisions BECAUSE OF FEMINISM is the best. We say no to things all the time. We see the complicity and the complexity and we refuse to back down. My job is hard + exhausting + challenging but feminism gives me the tools to do it well and with intention. #thankyoufeminism!!!
4. Men who brew beer in the north are the fucking best. The beer family sees itself every so often and they are so kind + welcoming. Having events that include or are about beer are the best. Any idea + beer will be successful. I promise.
5. No one gets any piece of the pie. This is a lesson to learn the hard way. Get excited about bringing other people in and realize that the relationship building needs to take way more time (not just a few meetings or lunches or emails). After that relationship is built, move forward in a good way, but take the fucking time to do it. What you have built and own and run is not worth the headache of some douche canoe taking advantage.
6. There are so many beautiful + supportive activists and feminists on the internet and they congregate on Twitter and often they are white men who are tired of other white men's bullshit and they take less space and women and POC rightfully take that space. It's a world where white feminism is seen as shitty + land rights are the most important. I'm grateful for this community to spread the messages of decentralizing and deconstructing the system.
7. Do things other than the internet. Please.
XOXO
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