Let’s talk about glasses.

I’ve been wearing glasses for 11 years. I started wearing them in 7th grade when I realized that the whiteboard I was watching my teacher write on 5 feet from me shouldn’t have been as blurry as it was. When I fully grasped what that meant, I was pretty devastated.

Glasses still weren’t cool when I was growing up. Even though the designs were becoming more fun and interesting, there was still a dorkiness I felt when wearing them. I mostly brought those feelings on myself (I actually completely brought them on myself). I don’t think ANYONE cared as much as I did about the fact that I was now resigned to wearing glasses. I so desperately wanted to pretend I was some kind of cool person that I resented myself a little bit for wearing my glasses. There were definitely a few times where I tried convincing myself I could get away with not wearing them. But BOY was it nice to clearly see the world when I had them on! The self-consciousness I felt was pretty instantly quelled by the wonder of seeing things in sharp focus for the first time in a long time.

Now, my prescription is mostly supposed to be used for distance. I’m near-sighted, presumably from genetics or the books/Gameboy games I would look at in the dark for years. I really hoped all the carrots I ate as a kid would help remedy the damage from that. However, they obviously didn’t and I now found myself needing assistance to see anything more than 8 inches away from my face. I felt freedom in this, though. The fact that I wasn’t permanently confined to my glasses at the time was a saving grace in the midst of my resentment in having to wear them. It was especially nice to be able to remove my glasses for plays, talent shows, or important events. It was less nice being unable to see well, but at least I looked… marginally better…?? Anyways… I really only needed them to see whiteboards in class or a friend running towards me from far away. It was great and noncommittal.

Then came high school and my introduction to contacts. They changed EVERYTHING. Literally. I started wearing contacts (if I remember correctly) during my sophomore year of high school? It was traumatizing undertaking the task of poking my eyes daily in the name of exceptional vision. Luckily, though, it didn’t take long to accustom myself to the routine and enjoy wearing contacts. It was liberating to have my full field of vision back without having to wear glasses. HOWEVER, wearing them all the time started to mess with my already changing prescription to the point that I am now 100% dependent on eyewear and will be for the rest of my life. Yay.

Honestly, though, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be as a kid. Sure, I still feel funny on days when I have to wear my glasses for a whole multitude of reasons (one of which being that the prescription on my glasses is two years behind my contacts). And sure, taking off my contacts at the end of the night and revealing the blurry world that my eyes naturally see still sometimes weirds me out for a good hour. But it means that my friends and I get to bond over our mutual love of Warby Parker designs and make fun of each other’s prescriptions by trying on each other’s glasses. It keeps life just that much more interesting.

Let’s talk about grocery shopping.

It’s one of my favorite things to do. It gets me out of the house AND provides me with food. I mean, just try thinking of an activity that provides as much joy and excitement. It’s okay. I’ll wait.

Psyche. I don’t have forever!

But I do really love grocery shopping. I was at Trader Joe’s on my lunch today, and I’ve been to Trader Joe’s during my lunch several times just in the last seven days alone. Their plantain chips that come in that slender purple bag literal have me salivating sometimes, they are THAT good. I have to go in and at least look at them a few times a week while picking up my salads and pasta.

I also have a soft spot for Albertson’s/Safeway, Target, and Whole Foods (I spent a lot of hotel lunch breaks walking through the Whole Foods in the shopping center across the street to get a smoothie and people watch. It would be the highlight of my work day sometimes). My mom would go to the grocery store a couple times a week with my brother and I in tow growing up. I hated actually doing the shopping because it was boring and I could’ve been playing make-believe with my friends down the street instead, but at least I got a bagel out of most trips. I can’t complain too much when bagels are involved. And as I got a little older, I still found myself with a mild distaste for the mundanity of shopping. It just felt like this adult chore that wasn’t the most exciting thing to be doing on a Friday afternoon.

But then I started shopping on my own in college, and it was a whirlwind experience! My room friends and I would frequent the Trader Joe’s right across the street from our house like it WAS our house. We loved it there! We also basically bought out all of the peanut butter cup ice cream they used to have along with the chickenless chicken nuggets because we are classy ladies who understand dietary balance. While the food adventures alone would be enough to get us excited, the walk over was always a bonding adventure that saw many strange and wondrous things happen over the four years that we made that trek. Those jaunts to, in, and back from Trader Joe’s are honestly some of my favorite memories from college.

Then my now ex boyfriend and I used to plan our time spent together around when we’d get to grocery shop. He loved (maybe still loves?) to cook, and was really the one who got me started on cooking better meals for myself (cue my mom furiously reading this because she is an AMAZING cook who seldom let my brother or I into her zone when she was cooking, which I never understood until I got older). We would plan out our next meal adventure where he would imagine all of the great things he would add to this ingredient, or cook up with those two other things that look like they go well together. Once we were inside the store, we were all giggles and goodness. It was exciting to spend time choosing the pieces for the perfect culinary creation that we were making together. Some of the fondest moments from that relationship revolved around cooking and grocery stores.

I think the appeal is easy enough to understand now that I’m older: grocery stores are outlets for survival, companionship, and creativity. Obviously, the ability just to obtain foods all concentrated in one place with easy access is an amazing way we get to keep ourselves alive. And you get to both watch AND meet interesting people if you’re open to it. But most importantly, it’s an everyday space for inspiration. Now that cooking is a regular and beloved routine in my life, grocery stores are a beacon of excitement in my day. I walk through the sliding doors of my local TJ’s or Albertson’s imagining all of the things I could create and enjoy.

I normally end up choosing the same few go-to items for the week. But it’s still a thrill walking through the aisles, dreaming up delicious recipes.

Let’s talk about rain.

It’s raining right now in Orange County. I am the happiest lady. I thought I loved rain growing up. But the longer I live down in eternally sunny Southern California, the more I realize that my affinity for rain growing up was nothing compared to the way I feel about it now.

Now I do want to start by saying I appreciate and am grateful for the life I’ve cultivated in this endlessly sun-kissed part of the world. It is nice to never have to factor weather into whatever plans I make unless it comes to hiking in the summertime.

There does come a time after a while, though, that those perfectly gorgeous days just all kind of…… blend together. And when the weather stays pretty much consistently warm until mid-October (only to start it’s return again early February), it creates the perfect environment for a seemingly never-ending summer day. Which is great for a while. But I love when the days are broken up by clouds, and storms, and the feelings of a true winter. I love the sound of the rain against my window as I curl up in my bed and listen to it as I fall asleep. I love the mad dash from my car to work and then back again that makes me feel like a kid again. I love when the weather every so often gives me the emotional permission to let whatever I’m feeling metaphorically catch drift on the puddles that form from the downpours and wash away with the LA storms that seem to come and go in the blink of an eye. I appreciate when the weather decides to empathize with some of the storminess I tend to feel.

I will admit, though, there was a brief time when I was less keen on rain than I care to admit. When I was working at Disneyland on The World Famous Jungle Cruise during my first holiday season with the resort, I felt like my childhood dreams came true when I got to be outside in the rain all day….. and I got PAID to do it! Just for a little insight into where this excitement stems from, I would like to let you in on the fact that I used to run around outside in the rain during lunches and recesses with my friends in junior high and high school. I remember one day in 8th grade, my friend and I danced outside in the rain between finals and then proceeded to take our science final completely drenched but completely ecstatic. And that persisted into college, where I distinctly remember an old college friend putting on nice dress and dancing in the middle of a freak rain storm with me while we blasted Taylor Swift. The appeal has always been there, and I hope it always stays with me.

So, Disney in the rain working my dream job seemed too good to be true.

Because it was.

I mean, there were some fun days at first: the parks were empty and the people who braved the rain were usually some of the nicest, kindest people. Rainy days also sometimes meant I got to go home early, which is always enjoyable. But especially at jungle cruise, there’s a special appeal to commandeering/captaining a bad joke cruise with only the most willing of passengers as you all explore the jungles of the world with only some bad khaki, worse jokes, and your sense of adventure to keep you safe (you know, for the whole seven and a half minutes you’re out in the Disney wilderness… but safety is still key, nonetheless).

There were a good few months that I really loved Disney in the rain. Even when I started to feel more miserable working in the rain, I still allowed myself to be overcome with the joy my younger self would have felt knowing I was working at Disney in my favorite weather. And I could usually maintain that until one very key thing occurred: my shoes soaked through. Once that happened, it was game over. I was tapped out. All I wanted at that point was to throw my feet under a dryer and wrap myself up in my blankets at home in my bed. That’s when the appeal would wear off. It was emotionally brutal.

But since leaving Disney, I’ve completely regained my love and admiration for the rain. I love the way it makes me feel, physically and emotionally. I still will walk around/dance outside in the rain when given the chance. And I am ALWAYS here for the Hilary Duff jam sessions that inevitably come when the sky “let’s the rain fall down, and wake my dreams…”

Just as long as my shoes don’t soak through.

Let’s talk about doing laundry.

It’s probably the bane of my existence. It’s a never ending chore that, upon completion, does nothing to make me feel like I’ve accomplished anything important in my day-to-day.

It feels silly to say that for a lot of reasons, one of the primary reasons being that I could do dishes all day and feel like I’ve really made something of myself and my home in doing them. Dishes are cathartic. I get to be out of my room, watching whatever show I’m currently binging, cook, and make my kitchen look/smell/feel better. This can all happen simultaneously, too! It’s a rush, honestly.

I can clean my bathroom, make my bed, or do a host of other activities with the same never-ending qualities to them, but never do I feel as awful about those as I do about laundry. I can also fold laundry when it’s not my own. Does my mom need help folding laundry when I’m visiting? I’m on it. Is a friend packing for a trip and in need of someone to help sift through and clean up their clothes in the search for the right outfits for their trip? I’m their girl to help. But I can’t get myself to fold my own laundry on a regular basis, no matter how hard I’ve tried.

I can and DO wash my laundry frequently, though. That is easy and doable. But my ability to then fold said laundry is usually useless and results in the newly cleaned clothes ending up in a crumpled pile in my closet bin that I rifle through every morning looking for the shirt “I swear I saw at the top of this thing yesterday”. You’d think that after enduring those frustrations enough I would have changed my ways by now. But no. Here we are, with laundry in the dryer and in a basket waiting to be folded. Always and forever waiting to be folded. It’s a never-ending struggle. You’ll probably find my laundry basket with clothes in need of folding abandoned as I do dishes for the upteenth time in a day. It’s not something I’m proud of.

I also feel silly because I know that I’m lucky to own enough clothes to have to wash them frequently. So I’m slowly recalibrating my mind to realize the lack of clothes on my floor/in the basket on my floor is a refreshing sight and I should strive to make it a more frequent reality. Slowly, and all while doing anything else I can to avoid doing laundry at this exact moment. It’s a work in progress.

Let’s talk about walking.

It’s how I get to wherever it is I need to go. Well, scratch that. I do find myself jogging/lightly sprinting to some places like work, or a meet up with friends because I am perpetually late as a human being. Running is my way of being on time (as opposed to, you know, managing my time better. I would like to blame my anxiety for this, but anxiety doesn’t own me. But we can talk more about that another day). It’s how I get to food, and friends, and my bed at the end of the day.

In the 10 months since I’ve left Disney — a job where I would almost always hit double the average daily step count needed — I’ve made a conscious effort to get out and take a walk for the sake of being outside in the world, and not just using it as a means to transport me from one place to another only to remain sedentary when I was where I needed to be. Now, at the hotel I worked at I also walked a lot in an 8 hour day, but after the inane amount of walking/moving done between Disney and the other job I had at the same time, the hotel didn’t feel like enough. I felt as if I was letting my body down by not taking advantage of what it’s able to do. I also felt like I was cooping myself up more since most everything I did took place indoors and out of the direct path of the sunny Southern California climate.

I started by walking before late night shifts or after early morning shifts. I downloaded a barrage of podcasts (but most notably always listen to Ear Biscuits with Rhett and Link, my favorite duo who film my favorite YouTube channel Good Mythical Morning) and took off. At first I was ambitious and told myself I would also do some HIIT sprints in the middle of my walks. And ambitious it was because I hate running. Even HIIT sprints are a friendly adversary to my lazy tendencies. I will say that I have been able to get those sprints into about a third of my walks. I’ve also occasionally thrown in some lunges mid-walk that make me look absolutely ridiculous to the moms jogging past with their strollers in tow, or the biker racing past like he’s about to win the Tour de France, or the older couple just trying to enjoy the outdoors together without having to see some young woman in her mid-twenties struggle to do a lunge correctly because she’s a right-handed human learning the correct way to use the muscles in the left side of her body. Athletics are a late bloom for me, so I’m learning to embrace the silliness in order to eventually do things correctly. But I digress.

Not long after I started making this a more regular part of my life, I began exploring. The walks started out by being jaunts around my neighborhood one or two times. Then by doing that, I learned of the little gates and walkways that lead out of my neighborhood and across the street to this great walking path that can either take half an hour or almost two hours to complete depending on the exact route I take. It’s a route with a paved path and a dirt path so if I feel like pretending I’m out on a REAL adventure, I walk that dirt path for a little bit (I always end up back on the paved path though because I know one of these days I’m going to slip and absolutely it if I stay on the dirt. I just know it). I get the chance to walk amongst trees, shrubbery, and wonderful pockets of flowers with houses and neighborhoods just a short jaunt away. It’s a little suburban wonderland of a walking trail that lets me escape for even just that hour I usually am out for. Or some days I will completely break the mold LIKE A MADWOMAN and walk an entirely different direction than normal only to stumble upon another little walking oasis with views that take my breath away. And while these walks really are not much, they’ve become my way of — at the very least — really seizing the opportunity to discover the small gems of where I live and show them off to friends. For someone whose anxiety has taken such a large chunk of opportunities from them, these walks have become my own kind way of saying “screw you” to the overwhelmingly frightened voices in my head. These walks make me feel braver, and if I add those good old calisthenic exercises to the mix, a lot stronger in many ways.

Over the last 10 months, these walks have now become one-third exercise related, one-third adventure related, and one-third self care related. By embarking on these mini journeys at least a few times a week, I’ve discovered a new little form of self-care that I had been missing. Doing these walks has given me permission to simply *be* for an hour or so while I’m out. With my podcast going and my route pretty much set, I simply get to exist between the trees, the silly comments from my podcasts, and the smiles from strangers. I get to fully take in the look of my neighborhood, the surrounding city streets, the hills that backdrop Orange County. I am allowed the opportunity to reclaim some time in busy days as an hour-long expression of love and kindness towards myself and the area I live in. And it’s all made even better by the sounds of innuendos and ridiculous commentary by Rhett and Link.

It’s self-care at it’s finest.

Let’s talk about In n Out.

It’s something I had occasionally growing up in Northern California. Team dinner after an away basketball game? In n Out. High school lunch hour getaway? In n Out. Special treat for dinner one night? In n Out. It was this weird specialty staple that I didn’t seem to truly see the significance of… that is, until I started college and discovered the beauty of animal fries.

My waistline was sure pissed when I discovered the onion, spread, and cheese-covered salty goodness of animal fries. My soul was ecstatic, however. This food from the gods themselves would be a treat after a long day working Disney and the other job I had at the same time. It was my go-to when a friend wanted to go crazy and get In n Out (or just generally wanted to eat because that seems to be a common request amongst all my friends and I). And then it became more of a regular staple in my life than I care to admit. To repeat: waistline = NOT. HAPPY. But it’s quick. And cheap. And filled with cheesy goodness. It’s hard to resist. So while it may not necessarily be the absolute GREATEST of all fast food burger chains (feel free to debate amongst yourselves), it definitely became a delicious and satisfying thing to look forward at the ends of my week.

Luckily, I’ve changed my ways. We have officially gone back to a more casual, occasional relationship, In n Out and I (probably the most casual relationship I will be in with anything… ever). But when I eventually move out of California for a while, I know that this will be on the list of top 15 things I miss most. How could it not with all that cheese?!

Let’s talk about routine.

As made painfully obvious by my inability to post on here daily even though I am only 11 days into 365 of these things, routine is not something I am good at. There’s the saying “routine is the enemy of creativity”, and it’s the reason so many people feel stuck in their day-to-day. That’s a big reason I have always hated routine: I have always hated the idea of being stuck in one place. Granted, I could sit in one place for 4 hours watching my favorite shows on Netflix, but only because I turn my brain pretty far down to just enjoy what I’m watching. But even my Netflix watching is sporadic. The idea of being held to the same things every day used to absolutely terrify me to my core. So much so that I worked at Disneyland for three years because I thought the lack of schedule was a wild and appealing concept (boy was I wrong).

After having experienced the mass chaos of not only working at Disney but reworking my life, friendships, dreams, and activities to revolve around it, I have grown to enjoy the idea of having a set group of things I do at the same time daily. My new job is a 7a-4p desk job that high school me would have lost her shit over (however, high school me would be pretty psyched that I have purple hair and get to wear my own clothes instead of a costume/uniform. It’s all about balance). But what I’ve come to realize is that having some kind of routine has actually allowed me to work more spontaneity into my daily life.

Because I realize the work that I do is monotonous and keeps me indoors, I find myself craving adventure and extra activities during my day. I find myself out on walks more. I find myself exploring the city for those wonderful little coffee shops I adore. I find myself more excited to work on my music because I’m not exhausted by a circadian rhythm that forgot how to work properly since….. probably forever. So, slowly, I’m finding that maybe routine is actually greatly needed for creativity and happiness. Instead of fighting sleep, schedules, and uncertainty all the time, I actually get to think ahead and use my energy to pursue activities, goals, and relationships that refill my emotional cup.

I still get nervous that ten years down the line I will have forgotten the dreams I had in the midst of burying myself into a stable job and the ideas of comfort. But hopefully that fear is what drives me to create the needed balance that gets me to where I ultimately want to end up. I will be sure, though, to pencil in plenty of adventure along the way.

Let’s talk about procrastination…

A little bit later.

Let’s talk about mushrooms.

I fucking hate mushrooms.

Okay. “Hate” might be too harsh of a word, but it gets close to the root of my feelings for the spongy evil that seems ever-present in most recipes nowadays.

I also want to add that these feelings come not from a lack of trying to like mushrooms. I have tried eating them different ways with cheese, eggs, sauce, fish, veggies, pasta, curry — you name it, I’ve probably tried it. And occasionally I can get over my distaste of the fungi. But there’s always a point where I end up hitting a wall: everything just seems to meld into the mildly earthy sponginess of the mushroom, and I lose my ability to take another bite.

Now I HAVE grown to like them more as I’ve gotten older, and since I’ve adopted a new vegetarian diet, they’ve become a reluctant partner in my day-to-day. Part of me really wants to like them. I’ve bought mushrooms for the sole purpose of making a meal specifically out of/around them. I encourage my friends to make meals with them when I’m over so I have no choice but stare them down and cry a little on the inside as I slowly… very slowly… but surely make my way through some of them (again… very slowly so that my tongue doesn’t revolt and dislodge itself straight out of my mouth).

And then I hit the wall.

So in order to get them into my diet, I’ve reverted to childhood: I cut them up into teeny, tiny pieces so small that I *almost* forget what they are. But let’s not kid ourselves: some primal parts of my brain would always be able to pick out the smallest of morel morsels from within a thick layer of sauce covering the most delicious pasta on the planet. And while the pasta would make things better, I’d still sweat just a little. At least I’ve got that pasta.

Let’s talk about rock climbing.

In the last few months, I’ve found myself engaging in an activity I was once too afraid of: rock climbing. Actually — to be more specific — it’s indoor bouldering: no harnesses, no belays, no walls over 20 feet that make my stomach turn just thinking about them. Through what I’ve seen of indoor bouldering facilities, it’s just you, some chalk, a 10 to 15 foot wall, and all the strength you can muster to get up and down those walls.

My mental and physical strength are usually pretty on par with each other. I have very little upper body strength, which does not bode well for my mental strength’s capabilities in getting my hands to the top of some of the walls. I can usually get my hand to the top of the first few I do or the painfully easy ones later on in the session. But after a fairly short while (and a few failed attempts at some of the harder courses I try out of sheer curiosity as to how silly I can make myself look in front of a group of strangers), I’m usually pretty pooped. But boy do I always leave a happy albeit sore lady.

Growing up, heights were a constant source of unshakeable fear. I seldom would swing too high on the swing set, or climb to the top of the metal spider-web dome, or conquer the small kid-friendly rock wall at the elementary school a few blocks from my house (which subsequently was not my elementary school, and was still unconquerable as I went through junior high and high school).

Speaking of high school, I would dread set-building days when getting ready for my school plays because I was always afraid of getting delegated the task of set painter. I luckily only had that task once and spent a hair-raising, heart-pounding 30 minutes climbing up and down ladders in order to paint the ever-changing facades that created the various worlds I inhabited all throughout high school. And if that wasn’t bad enough (I still get nervous thinking about it), I also once had a role in a show that required me and my love interest to stand atop ladders while speaking to each other. The ladders would get us — at most — 6 feet off the ground. Knowing that did nothing to cure me of my trembling knees and sweaty palms. It was great.

My next big battle against heights gets us back to the topic at hand and happened a few years later in my first year of college: I went rock climbing on a date. I had met a guy on a trip to the Hollywood Sign and Griffith Observatory that a friend and I signed up for together through our school. The three of us spent the entirety of the day together, steadily dancing our way up the trail to the Hollywood Sign with Gangnam Style as our soundtrack then exploring the Griffith Observatory while reminiscing about our dance moves. Apparently my dance moves were pretty impressive because the guy and I ended up exchanging numbers, which is how a few days later saw me meeting him at our school’s rec center setting up to rock climb. I was shaking. I desperately wanted a way out, but he was cute and nice and I wanted to seem fun and adventurous. So he belayed me while I ascended a vertical wall well over 20 feet high. It was terrifying and mildly liberating. I would look down every few feet and see a sweet face looking up at me on my journey. For a brief moment, I did feel like I was unstoppable.

Then came the time when I had to get back down.

I’m also a mild control freak, just so we can get that out of the way now. So the fact that I was now pretty much at the top of this almost 30 foot wall with only one real way down sent a chill of terror down my spine. I kept hearing the voice of my steady belayer calling up to me saying “Just let go, I’ve got you”. That didn’t stop me from holding on to the holds on the wall for dear life for easily a full minute or so. Every part of my body resisted even the thought of letting go of the wall and letting my ENTIRE LIFE REST IN THE HANDS OF THIS GUY I HAD ONLY KNOWN FOR AN ACCUMULATIVE 24 HOURS OF TIME. I did eventually remember that I was in the middle of pretending I was fun and adventurous, so for everyone’s sake I did let go of the wall to be gently belayed back down to the solid ground of Earth. That was the end of the date for me because the guy had another friend there that he was going to climb with. We parted ways and that was that.

Conquering my fear of heights comes about in slow, steady spurts. When I was asked in October of last year to join some friends and their group in indoor bouldering, I almost told them that I was too afraid to do it. However, as I’ve gotten older and in light of recent regrets I have regarding my fears, I decided against it. I decided to not only face my fear of heights but to do so in front of a group of people I didn’t know. And it was terrifying. But it was revolutionary for my soul. It was revitalizing. It was something I didn’t even realize I needed as badly as I needed it. I was out of my comfort zone in so many ways that I was almost calm during my first attempt at climbing in years. It was a rush to be up on the wall with nothing helping me. It was also terrifying to realize that in order to get back down I either had to muster the strength to climb down or I had to launch myself from the wall and onto the mats below. And as we mentioned before, my upper body strength is abysmal, so I also learned the art form of screeching graciously as I fell onto the mats below, trying out different variations of my dismount. It was exhilarating.

Now I’ve only been climbing 2 or 3 other times since then, but every time I go gets me more and more excited. It’s a chance to explore what my body is capable of and break out of mental cages that fear tends to trap me in. It’s a great way to catch up with friends while rooting each other on to challenge ourselves (and then laughing hysterically when we fail miserably at a course). It’s a constant learning experience, especially when the place I go to changes the courses in different sections of the facility every week or two. Most importantly, it’s a reminder that I’m always growing, always improving, and always showing up for myself.

Here’s to many more blistered hands, chalky clothes, and moments surrounded by friends as I conquer my fears one foot hold at a time.