livingoutloudstuff

[livingoutloudstuff]

Scrolling till the end of time....

As of late, my life has become totally unmanageable to me. Maybe not to God, the force, HP, however you want to call it. But I find myself going to work and waking up scrolling for hours, I mean HOURS, because I just don't know how to do life right now. Right now, I have no answers to anything, and it's concerning me. For example, I have this student loan debt that I've had since I graduated college, and all these years later, it's still unmanageable. My health situation is unmanageable, I'm worrying about my rent going up in Oct when his mom comes back, like all these things....so I don't want to eat or get out of my bed in the morning. I'm training for a second restaurant job and I have no idea who my true friends are. I'm understanding that I need to bounce my ideas off of people and I need people in my life, but it's not working with the support system I have. Or maybe this is showing me that I can do this alone? Well, clearly not since this is bothering me so much I can't get out of bed and I can't really feed myself all that well. So, what do I do?

I can leave the city.

I can work 2 jobs, stack up my money, not think about my ex.

I can think about my ex, and be alone.

I can spend every waking moment staring into space.

Here's the thing, I'm trying to keep my nervous system in check and all I'm doing is back to eating stimulants and pastries, complex carbs, things that chill me out, cause I'm like at 100 internally all the time.

So the student loan, I want to explain what happened.

I graduated in 2008, with I guess an archaic version of student loans called FFELP, which is a type of loan that had a 3rd party lender (kinda reminds me of those scalpers or 3rd party people that buy tickets and then jacks up the price for music shows, but whatever), and in 2010 they created Direct Loans, that are directly from the government instead (which is why I always wondered why my sister had "better" loans than me). I say that because my loans didn't qualify for the pause during the pandemic and also has a variable interest rate (which the person helping me had never seen before). So yea I graduated with 7 different loans, 4 private and 3 federal. I have spent the last years paying off the private loans and in 2 years, I will be officially done with those. And now for the past couple of days, I've been dealing with how to handle these loans because: recently 2 of my loans jumped from @2-3% interest to 7.7% and that made me take a deep dive into how to fix this, which is how I found out about this whole mess anyway. Between paying student loans, rent and looking for work, I have been a little bit of a mess, also I can't seem to shake off my life that was, being in a relationship for almost 5 years. So lots of numbers and very little time for fun, it seems. Ok, back to these loans. Between 3 people, I was able to get so much clarity on my student loans: so what I had to do was consolidate my loans to Direct and re-apply for an IDR(F) repayment plan, because the IDR plan that I was on may or may not qualify for the forgiveness after 20 years, because maybe I was not on the right plan? That part is still unclear, though. I have to wait and see the number for next year. So this last person helped me get that in order and I legit cried when that was all done, because here was a person who actually was trying to help me and I am so grateful. It's not like I am not trying to pay my loans, I am an actor, an artist, I have always worked multiple jobs, I've lived with my family and now at my age, it would be nice to live alone - and I still have roommates. My friend says to me why am I not famous/successful like the other people my age are like yet, but I don't know, I'm literally trying to do all the right things in my life. I'm trying to keep a steady head in a chaotic af world, I'm trying to handle these loans that I had for decades at this point, I'm trying to stay healthy so that I can keep doing what I love and that is another thing I'm working on. And so, I have a lot on my plate and yet, someone will take one look at me and say I'm not doing much, sometimes that even comes from my own family. It hurts sometimes to not feel like people really get you. And I guess I'm understanding that maybe it's not for them to get. It's for me to get.

I hope that none of this makes sense. I hope that I have a ton of run-on sentences and all those things I was believed to be wrong from teachers. Because look at me, I'm here in NYC and working my life away it seems, I'm not eating well and I know I need to go to the grocery store, but I literally do not want to get out of bed. I don't want to push myself, I don't want to see the world, I just want to hide and I know that's not the right answer either, but I def feel stuck and I want to feel like I can work and still accomplish my health goals and artist goals and life goals and travel....but right now I'm not doing that. Right now, I've been catapulted to how life was before. And I do realize what I'm doing is not long-term the best for my health. I got all these books to read and maybe what I will do is take a shower, go to a cafe and read before my training shift.

It's really important for me to have people around, but maybe I'm just not really getting what to do. I'm going to put it in the God jar and maybe meditate for a minute.

[livingoutloudstuff]

starting over again and again and again

Showing up for myself feels like the hardest thing to do, and I'm noticing...I really would like to change this narrative. What would it look like if showing up for myself was the easiest thing to do? Can I even imagine it? Once other people are involved, I throw myself out of the window, all my hopes and dreams and it hurts - this time really hurts. Other times I've allowed it, I've let it happen, I was happy to do it, but this time, it doesn't feel good. It is so easy for me to listen to someone else for hours, give them my time and space to express themselves, but then I don't do it for me. Why? It took me the longest to even brush my teeth consistently at night. What is going on with that? But this time, this fall hurt a lot. This tumble feels like a big bruise to my inner self, like I let the truest version of myself down. And for what? To not say no to others? To fit in? 11:41pm.

It seems like I'm really good at rejection and failing for this latest chapter of my life, and hiding. I want to heal my digestive system, I want to be fibroid-free and have healthy hormones. I don't want to live in fear anymore. Why have I given up this time around? What did it? It's like the old ways crawled back? It is about 3 things that I pinpointed: control, fear/safety and enjoyment/comfort. I started a new job, and there was a fear that I would be fired. That they will find a reason to let me go and I will be up shit's creek because my money has been dwindling and I'm scared. I work really hard at this job and I don't feel safe, and it isn't comforting. Also, it's a lot of energy being burned up at every shift and if I don't replenish, I end up eating out of depletion and comfort at the end of the shift.

All of this made me really sad today and I didn't have anyone to talk to about this, so I didn't eat and then I ate a banh mi (tofu) and iced coffee and then gorged out on vegan chips and cookies and a seltzer. This is the pattern. But I also recognized something VERY important as I was walking back from CVS: I'm in the inbetween. This is the inbetween and I am walking on the line. And THAT gives me hope. I'm transforming to a whole different person with different habits and different goals and ways to operate in the world and there are certain old ways that pop back, especially when I enter similar old environments. So, I guess I need to give myself some slack and learn to fail smaller. 3 coffees in 3 days equals basta. We can stop at 3. We don't have to go to 4. We can show up for myself now, instead of after the weekend shifts. I don't have to stop showing up for myself because I do things differently, even though it is so hard to say no over and over and over. Maybe the more I say no, the less I'll have to start over again and again and again. That could be an experiment I'll have to try, stay tuned.

I do have to talk about this inspiration moment that happened today? Yesterday? It was a woman that I started to follow via Grace. She was in front of a chalkboard menu that seems to be a vegan/plant based restaurant in a tropical place, maybe Nicaragua? And my heart gave a slight jump, like it perked up. I want that, it said. To make really delicious raw/healthy food in a situation like that. So, I followed her and she just so happened to have a raw food certification self-study course. I really want to take it, but I'm holding off at the moment because it's $166 month for a year and I need to figure out what's going with moolah and student loans and all this stuff is really stressing me out. I miss N. But this is life. And I'm too high on caffeine to go to sleep at my usual time, hopefully I can calm down enough to get some decent sleep before tomorrow.

xR

[livingoutloudstuff]

in the beginning

Who am I really?

I know what everyone else wants of me to be, and I’m really good at it. Obedient, respectful, responsible, self-less, a “team player,” nice, quiet, humble, considerate, respectable....it's been a mark of pride, but lately, a little voice, which feels similarly feels like the pea in the princess and the pea story, keeps irking me.

“Is this truly you?” “Is this how you want to continue to be?”

A past teacher once explained to not teach and show up is as much an act of the ego as being the one who takes all the spotlight. It never occurred to me before that there is just not one way an ego can manifest. There are many things in the past that haunt me still, so many experiences that have affected me that I'm still understanding.

I've hid my true self for so long to be accepted. And I hope that this could be a place where I can start to accept myself. For my self-expression, for my thoughts, big and small. To celebrate mistakes. To have run-on sentences and grammar errors and things that make absolutely no sense. To not be perfect, to look like a fool, to feel it all. I’ve been so afraid of life, because I’ve had to be excellent, I’ve had to know it all, I’ve had to prove myself in order to be accepted for so long – in that process, I’ve forgotten how to be myself.