Positively Weightless: July 2020

Just last week I talked about checking in on yourself and making sure you are doing well during really any time of your life, but especially now during this pandemic. I am going to give you whiplash here because I want to take a full 180 and talk about the opposite end of the spectrum. Although it is good to keep yourself in check and take care of your needs like I said, I also want everyone to remember that we all should not be selfish either. We all need to be considerate of each other’s needs, wants, and emotions at all times, within reason of course. I know that might be a little confusing after my post last week pretty much having the opposite message but hear me out here!

Let’s jump into the most obvious topic relating to my theme here first: The pandemic. I think it is safe to say there has been a lot of selfishness going around when it comes to the pandemic. I just recently read a story of a 21-year-old who either thought the virus was a hoax or just wasn’t worried because of his health or age so he decided to go to a big party. Within a week his father was severely ill because he was asymptomatic but brought it home to the family he lived with. I am paraphrasing here of course, but it was a headline just last week in the news. I have a similar living situation myself for the time being and I have been doing everything I possibly can to prevent exactly that from happening. I am not saying that to get praise from anyone or anything of course. I am saying it to show that I realize this is something much bigger than my life alone. I think it is about time we all realized that.

To go off the pandemic a bit more I think with the entire debate about masks, social distancing, and overall just preventative measures regarding the virus there is a lot to be said. At this point it is absolutely about respect of each other and not being selfish. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous to return to work to an extent. I have been back in the office for almost a month now and I can say I am actually very comfortable here. The reason for that is the respect from others around the office but especially my bosses. They are making sure I am comfortable with things, put me in my own temporary office instead of an open cubical, and always check with me before entering, using any of the supplies on my desk, etc. My direct team has the respect thing down. With that being said every place is going to have at least a couple of people who don’t want to comply with the rules. Generally speaking, there seems to always be one person who doesn’t want to wear a mask, doesn’t want to sanitize anything afterwards, or otherwise just doesn’t respect other people’s boundaries. You are taking the comfort levels away from people around you by doing so, it may be your right to not wear a mask, but it is also the person around you’s right to live a long healthy life. Do you truly want to be the person that takes that away from them?

Let’s finish this up with a less serious and morbid example, shall we? I think we as humans are naturally just selfish. That sounds harsh but I think most of us have that mindset without even realizing it. You may be hurting someone’s feelings but completely oblivious to it. This isn’t a personal example at all but one I have heard many times: you may know someone in your life that is constantly being asked when they are going to have kids. For all you know that woman might have fertility issues and her and her partner have had no luck getting pregnant or maybe they just suffered a miscarriage. I think also in that case, if she has a friend or family member that is expecting a baby and is constantly talking about all the plans and excitement for her new baby, it might emotionally be getting to the woman who has not been able to conceive. Now do not mistake my meaning here. Of course, the expectant mother in this hypothetical scenario has every right to be excited and share that excitement with the friend, but I think there is a very fine line as to where it can be a bit too much for the person mentally struggling. Both people’s emotions are equally as important of course. Each have every right to feel the way they do. All I am asking is for us to be conscious of the feelings of others around us.

Some of you may strongly disagree with my point to this post, especially that last example, and that’s okay. We are all entitled to our own thoughts and feelings and opinions. All I am asking of my readers with this post is to show a little compassion for others. You have no idea the story and feelings of those around you, yes even for the people you are closest to. Maybe you feel you don’t need a mask to get your groceries, but maybe you are just a carrier for the virus and the woman in line in front of you has severe asthma or lives with someone with health issues making them in the high risk category. Just remember that those around you all have internal struggles they do not share with anyone. Only we truly know the battle going on in our own minds, so we truly should be mindful of others. A person can be truly happy for someone else’s milestones and accomplishments but still have that ugly voice inside their head telling them that they ache for those things as well. Yes, that is their problem and not yours of course, but I think it is very easy for us to forget that we all have feelings like these. Do your best moving forward to be aware of others and respectful of their needs as well. Keep each other safe! The world could truly use that right now.

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This week I want to start off with a question to you, the reader. How are you doing? Not your family, not anyone else around you, but just you. This week at work I listened to a lot of virtual workshops and one of the first sessions had a speaker that was very motivational and spoke a lot about taking care of yourself not only in the office/in regards to work, but personally as well. Quite honestly that really hit home and it got me thinking about a lot of different things I could be doing for myself during this pandemic, but also well after that as well. I was hoping to share my thoughts and ideas on checking in with yourself and putting yourself first from time to time, no matter how many other people are depending on you.

Time is something that we all have different amounts of. Someone like me that lives a pretty busy life under normal circumstances may have a pretty packed schedule, but I still have a lot more time to myself than a mother of 3 kids, just to put things into perspective. I realize I am not the busiest person in the world but that does not mean my time is not being sectioned off into many different things. Even our biggest time eaters are sectioned off into smaller sections. For example work takes up eight(ish) hours of my day but how much of that is spent on the phone, checking emails, working on projects, etc. I think the most important step here is to realize just how your time is sectioned and broken up in your daily life. How much time do you have to yourself once all the important things are done? Would you like to add more time to that number? If you did have more free time what would you like to do with that time? Now there are no wrong answers to this last question. Your free time is yours to do as you please, if you want to just stare into space, you do you! Time truly is a precious thing and I think so many of us take if for granted.

So now that we have thought about all that, how can we make better use out of our time? During that workshop last week there was a lot of talk about prioritizing your projects. What needs to get done right away and what can wait. The one piece of advice I personally took very personally was to not sit all day monitoring emails at work. Things like that can be so distracting and take your focus completely away from your important tasks. Setting aside certain times for certain projects and activates is so very smart in my opinion. If you have followed this blog since the beginning you might remember how sporadically I actually used to post. I would type out a post really whenever I felt I had time to do so, sometimes that wasn't too often. Eventually I decided I needed a schedule with my posts and now I am writing every Sunday. This works great for me. I deal with my important tasks during the week, and still set some time aside for myself to dedicate to writing. The funny part is I am a lot busier now than I was back when I used to hardly post, but I am just using my time a bit more effectively. Think about how you can do just that.

Now I did not only want to talk about time today, even if it has eaten up a lot of the space of this post. Overall I wanted this to be a reminder for you to check in on you. If you are like me, you have spent the time since this pandemic started checking in on the ones you love just to make sure everyone is physically and mentally healthy. Sure most times the ones you check in on also ask how you are doing, but only you can truly answer that fully honestly to yourself. Always remember that you are also a priority. Take some time on yourself to make sure you are staying physically and mentally well. Another suggestion during that workshop was to have an established morning routine. That really got me thinking. Sure I have a somewhat structured morning routine: Hit the snooze twice, contacts in, skincare, brush my teeth, makeup, dressed, breakfast then out the door, but it made me wonder if I could do even more for myself in the mornings. Hitting the snooze twice is just under twenty minutes of time just spent dozing in bed while messing up my sleep schedule at the same time. How can I use that time a little better? I decided I am going to try and start getting up right when my alarm goes off and fit in 15-20 minutes of yoga. A nice stretch in the morning is never going to be a bad thing. Are there ways you can structure your life a bit better to set yourself up for a better day?

Overall I just want all of my readers to check in with themselves. Ask yourself all the questions you ask your loved ones when you are checking in on them. If you need someone to talk to I am sure there is someone in your life you can reach out to. None of us are going through the crazy time alone. We are all handling things the best way we know how and in some cases I am sure that means barely hanging on. Just know that is okay and work towards a better day tomorrow. You are not selfish for putting your needs first from time to time regardless of how big your home is. Your kids or spouse or any other family members you may live with are not going to love you any less if you take a few moments to breathe. We all need to take a step back from reality sometimes just to relax and recharge. Accept that you are human, and allow yourself to do that for you! You will thank yourself for it later I promise.

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Life right now is far from normal, and really hasn't been for a little while. I am sure you have heard many people saying right now that they wish we could go back to normal, or calling this the "new normal" or even people saying in a more pessimistic tone that life as we know it will never go back to normal. But what exactly is normal? What do we mean when we want things to go back to normal? Sure, things right now are far different than they were in February of this year. You can't go to the grocery store without a mask on, I use hand sanitizer every single time I get into my car or walk into my office or home. I have made a new routine of wiping down my entire office at work before I even log-in for the morning and check my emails. That is extremely different than how things were when I was going into work before. So yes, things have changed drastically, but we as humans are fully capable of adapting to them.

Now that I have used the word "normal" more times that I can count in just the introduction of my post, let's talk about what I really set out to discuss today. Throughout all of our lives we are constantly adapting to things when we have to. Some of us have a better time adapting to new surroundings than others (yes I am talking to you, if you are someone who would rather argue with a minimum-wage essential worker at a grocery store about your rights not to wear a mask for twenty minutes rather than just putting it on and going about your business) but we all do have the ability to adapt to our surroundings. I know change is hard for a lot of people, myself included, but it is extremely necessary sometimes for both your mental and physical health. I am sure you can think of a ton of different ways you have adapted just in this year alone! We are all living in the same crisis at the moment. The most important part is accepting the inevitable change, and dealing with it moving forward the best you can.

So let's get into some more specific examples here. I think a great one to start with would be regarding the chain reaction that occurred at the beginning of this pandemic. I am sure none of us need to be reminded of the completely bare grocery store shelves and the lack of resources because of people hoarding them. The first week after that occurred I had no idea what I was going to do about lunches the following week. As someone who always meal preps that threw me for a loop. Since I couldn't find bread my boss's wife was able to track down some bread flour and yeast and so very kindly purchased it for me so I could bake my own. Sure baking a loaf of bread, even in a bread machine, takes a lot more time than just buying a loaf from the store, but I made due with what I had. When yeast became scarce I decided to start making sourdough bread which is naturally leavened. We pretty much all had to change around our plans especially when it came to food and providing meals for our families. I also do not even want to think about the ways people without toilet paper because of that shortage had to get creative! 😉 When we have a lack of resources, our instincts kick in and you find a way to make due. Now that the stores are overall pretty much back to functioning fully again, I am still continuing to make my own sourdough. I actually have a loaf rising as I write this. Do I have to? Nope, but I found it was something I enjoyed doing.

I think something else to talk about which is pretty important in my opinion is that we all need to realize that these adaptions need to stick around for a lot longer than anyone wants. You see cases of this virus skyrocketing again because so many people just want to carry on back to life before this was going on. I am not talking about small gatherings of course... but the articles you see where beaches are absolutely packed in Florida and Disneyworld opening back up with pictures of huge lines. I am talking about the house parties you hear about with 100+ people packed into a small house together. If you are back to working in an office like I am, you might notice one or two people that are just not following the rules they are suppose to be like wearing a mask to the copier or walking into someone else's personal space. Sure all of these things were more than okay before, but they just aren't now! If you are living your life as if nothing is going on, I hate to say that is so beyond ignorant at this point and you could be the reason someone gets severely sick or even dies. Take some responsibility for the sake of others and stop being so incredibly selfish.

I wasn't really planning on a rant with this post like that, but I personally feel it is so necessary. We are all adapting right now to a completely different world than we were living in four months ago. My friend Gina (shoutout if you are reading this haha) made a joke about me writing a post about the little croc-pot I bought to warm up my lunches at work as "the new normal" but it honestly fits. We cannot use the microwave because of the pandemic guidelines at work so I figured out a new way to still have a hot lunch at my desk. Just $25 later and I found a way to adapt to those guidelines and still be able to have a little bit of normalcy at the office while still following them. Maybe you have had to do something similar. Maybe you had to work through a regulation at work like I did. Maybe you changed brands of something you love because of the supply being low. Perhaps you also took up baking or cooking more at home. These changes do not have to be forever, it is important to remember that. But is is also important to remember that they are necessary right now.

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Happy Sunday all! I hope everyone is hanging in there and staying safe and healthy... and sane of course! I wanted a change of pace this week. Instead of talking about the events going on in this world and continuing to lecture my readers about wearing a mask when they go out, I figured something lighter and more fun would be nice for a change. Really ever since the pandemic went into full force I have been trying to shed a positive light on the issues and how we can help one another out during this time of uncertainty. Today I wanted to stray from that and do something I haven't in a while, a book review! More specifically a poetry book review.

If you know me at all you know my relationship with poetry has been an interesting one. To be frank I hated the poetry units in high school and in college. I know, pretty funny that an English major hated poetry when so many famous works are in verse. I purposely avoided having to do my final presentation as an English major during the poetry unit as well. Needless to say I did not exactly enjoy reading poems and I certainly wasn't doing it for fun. Fast-forward to a couple of years ago and I am not only enjoying reading poetry but writing it and I even have some of my poetry published. Pretty ironic to think that someone who disliked poetry so much is now a published poet! It has been a pretty crazy ride I must say! I also have a nice collection of poetry books that I just love to read on my own time. A few weeks ago this book, Pillow Thoughts by Courtney Peppernell caught my attention when I was at Target so I decided to give it a try and share my thoughts for all of you.

Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry focused on all different emotions. There are poems about love, heartbreak, longing, if you are in a long-distance relationship and missing someone, and many more. The book is made up of sections for all these emotions and the back even reads: "It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most." I honestly loved that. Each section is broken up into these specific segments making it really easy to find what your heart might need most. The poems are free-verse and vary in length. A cute little touch in my opinion was the little illustrations on the cover, and at the beginning of each section/chapter of the book. These illustrations are little jellyfish, somehow relating to the content of the section to follow. As you can see in the picture I included here, this section is about love and the jellyfish are forming a little heart. I thought this was such a nice touch that adds a little personality to the book. Overall it is a book packed full of emotional poems for all different emotions you may be feeling in your life.

"May your weapon be kindness

Your shield compassion

May flowers grow again

To sprout love from all this sadness,"

-Courtney Peppernell, Pillow Thoughts, Page 127

So what are my thoughts? Well I absolutely loved this book of poems! I honestly could relate to so many of the poems and even bookmarked many with sticky-notes to reference back or even send to someone else. I am a highly emotional person as many of you know so I loved all the different feelings this book covered. You really can sit down with this book and read through a specific emotion you may be feeling at the moment. Personally this book inspired me to start writing more poetry as well. I have never really written much free-verse until this book inspired me to do so and I have a new love for it! I have been very happy with my writing lately too I must say. The poems in this book are truly beautiful and you can very much feel the emotions that were put into each and every one of them. Even the poems that are just a handful of lines like the one I quoted have such a lovely feel to them and I enjoyed reading every single one of them.

As I was reading this book I found out that it is actually the first in a series. Pillow Thoughts II, and Pillow Thoughts III are both already published, and Peppernell also just announced Pillow Thoughts IV is on the way and releasing in August. To think that this one, the very first, was only published in 2017 and the fourth installment is due to be published in 2020 is truly impressive. It shows the impression these poems have left on others, myself included. I for one plan on reading every single one of them. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for some poetry to enjoy. Sometimes fiction novels are a little overwhelming to take on, especially if you read right before bed like I do. If that is a struggle for you I highly recommend you get a nice poetry book to just tackle a little but at a time. Pillow Thoughts would be a wonderful book to add to your collection!

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