Tag Archives: self-care

Ten Ways to Cope with Toxic News Cycles

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I went back and forth over how to title this post.

“Unsettling” seemed too anemic a term to describe the insurrection that took place in the Capitol just four days ago. I rejected “apocalyptic” because while it may be true, it felt like hyperbole. “Revolutionary”, while also accurate, is a term most often used to describe the good guys.

But “toxic” fit the bill.

I’ve written about distraction before. A lot, actually. And inability to focus or to find the energy to be creative is nothing new for me. I’ve been struggling with these issues for the last several years–the last four years, to be exact. But the stark reality is this:

Nothing is going to change.

You read that right. I don’t mean that everything is going to remain static; that things will neither get better nor worse. Given our current trajectory, things are probably going to get much worse before they get better, if indeed, they still can. What I mean by this harsh statement is that things are always going to be in turmoil, the news is almost always going to be terrifying, the year that we look forward to with hope as being better than the last is almost certainly to disappoint.

We’re going to have to adapt if we want to live our best lives.

I saw a question making the rounds on Twitter this morning asking if those over 30 could remember so much crammed into a single news cycle. After all, this week brought us both Bean Dad and a violent takeover (at the instigation of the current president and others) of the Capitol while Congress was preparing to certify Biden as the next President of the United States. Yes, both these events happened in the same week. I mention Bean Dad because that already seems like months ago. Life comes at you fast these days.

The response of the over-30 crowd on Twitter was interesting: it’s not just that the news cycles have become shorter with more horrific events. It’s that we can never get completely away from them either.

So the real question is what are we going to do about it?

I took this quote from a post I wrote last February: 

But I’m noticing a greater tendency on my part not to want to do anything but mess around online. Stay home in front of the laptop or with the phone in hand. If I could order my groceries and do all my banking online, I’d never leave the house on my days off. It’s an effort to put the dogs in the car and take them out for a run in the national forest or go horseback riding–things I used to love doing. I keep looking at my watch and thinking, “I have this block of time I need to use for writing!” only I pick up the phone, and four hours later, I haven’t typed a single word in the WIP.

A few days after posting that, because of the pandemic, my husband and I made the decision to split our households into those who could WFH and those who could not. And now I do order my groceries and do all my banking online. I’ve stopped riding because I didn’t feel comfortable going to a public boarding barn where I was leasing a horse. And while I can still take the dogs out for a run in the woods, I don’t do that nearly as often as I could.

I waste my precious available time doomscrolling.

And again, rather than stating the obvious, the question is what am I (and you) going to do about it?

I snagged this bit of advice (that I should have taken!) from the previous post:

Just in time for this post, I came across this old Twitter thread from former CIA personnel, Cindy Otis. (I know, right? The irony…) In it the OP talks about toxic news cycles and how to cope. She doesn’t advocate ignoring the news–and she’s right, it won’t go away. But she outlines positive steps to take to make yourself feel better. You can check out the link or follow the tips here:

  1. Take Action: Volunteer. A hard one for me, I admit because I’m already on compassion burnout as it is. But that’s why I give money when I can’t give time, and why I focus on local rather than national or international efforts. You need to see the benefits of your kindness. Do it. (I should add here that I participated in a small way in Romancing the Runoff this year, which generated over $400,000 to support getting the vote out in Georgia, and helped flip the Senate–so even small efforts can make a difference!)
  2. Accept Your Limits: The flip side of the first, true. But critical. Remember, if the O2 mask drops down on the plane, you have to put YOUR mask on first before attempting to help others. You can’t do anything if you’ve passed out from lack of air.
  3. Research before Panicking: particularly important in this age of disinformation. Check your facts before sharing that post. For all you know, the crisis you’re sharing may have already been resolved by the time you hit ‘send’. Or it may not even be true.
  4. Get up and Move: that’s right. Unplug. Turn off the phone, go outside, play with the dog, call a friend. Your body and brain needs a break from stressful content but also you need to release that negative energy. Even if you don’t feel like taking a walk, do it. You’ll feel better afterward.
  5. Set Rules: I like this one. No Social Media after a certain time. Only fiction reading at home. Whatever works best for you. Shut out the negative so you can recharge.
  6. Avoid Dark Holes: Don’t go down the rabbit hole of one bad news story after another. Don’t succumb to clickbait. Deal with one thing at a time. Don’t get yourself wound up about the coronavirus and then leap to climate change and then hyperventilate about how unprepared we are for all of this and how the next thirty years is going to break us as a society and species… Ooops. That was kind of specific, I see. You see what I mean, though.
  7. Have Fun, Darn it: Another tough one. It’s hard not to feel guilty having dinner with friends or enjoying a movie when the world is on fire. But the thing is, enjoying those little things is what life is all about. And sharing our fandom squee, or a beautiful photograph, or the joy of bringing home a new puppy or kitten doesn’t mean we’re shallow, terrible people because the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we’re not screaming about it. It’s all part of recharging. It’s all part of making sure we’re rested for the next fight.
  8. I added this one myself: Celebrate Your Wins: No matter how big or small. Because that’s what life is about too. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for sharing about your new book or your concert tickets or pictures from that awesome vacation (pre-pandemic). Because that’s what life’s about too. The things that make us happy.
  9. Adding this one today: Treat doomscrolling like any other addiction.  Because that’s what it is. And believe me, it’s hard to cut yourself off from your phone when you’re supposed to be staying at home because of the pandemic. But if you find yourself unable to stop bingeing on potato chips, perhaps the answer is to stop buying chips. My life seems full of mostly bad habits right now. I’m trying to cope any way I can, and most days I feel like the character from Airplane! You know, “This was the wrong week to give up <insert escalating vice here>. But the only one who can stop me from indulging is me.
  10. Adding this one too: JUST START. If you want to write, knit, paint, do a puzzle, regain fitness, journal, learn a second language, get a degree, whatever. Just. Start. A word after a word after a word is a sentence. If you are stalled out creatively by the endless toxic news cycles, throw out the idea that it must be perfect or that you must complete it by such-and-such date. You may have heard the advice you can’t edit a blank page (Jodi Picoult) or that the water doesn’t flow until the faucet is turned on (Louis L’Amour). Well, it’s true. And if that faucet has been off a long time, at first the water will be tinged with rust and may only trickle out, but given enough time, it will run clear again. But only if you turn the valve.

Now excuse me while I go walk the dogs. I said that in February 2020. I’m saying it again today. Because it’s always the right answer.

My Focus Word for 2021

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I’ve been creating focus words and phrases for myself back before it was cool. Before you could readily find small stones with words carved into them, before there were organizations such as myintent.org. Sometimes I would assign an object my focus word as a reminder to myself. Sometimes I would simply decide that this would be the year of living with passion or joy.

Since focus words have become more popular, it’s been easier to not only purchase something tailor-made to carry your intent with you at all times, but also to create your own personal reminder. I even went so far as to purchase a metal stamping kit a few years ago, and while I’m not all that good at it, I confess, I love making these lightweight aluminum bracelets for myself. (Actually, I’m pretty darn good at the stamping, it’s bending the aluminum into a wearable bracelet without screwing it up that’s the problem, even with the special tools for doing that. I need to get a little expert advice on that…)

I’ve written about this concept many, many times. I’ve written about the importance of personal talismans and of using stones to focus my intent. I did a Twitter thread about bringing good energy into your upcoming writing year, and I think the bulk of the advice still holds true today. I wrote about the word I chose for 2020 (and man, does that make me cringe now, even though I still believe in the principles behind the choice). 

I’ve written about the push-me/pull-you relationship I have with the theory of the Law of Attraction, and why it does and does not work for me. And I keep coming back to this: I am my own worst enemy. I’ve made self-deprecation an art form.

USA Today bestselling author and 2018 RITA finalist, Margaret Locke, and I had a conversation about this on Twitter the other day. She had complimented me on ending up on a year-end list with some pretty amazing authors, and my knee-jerk reaction had been to shuffle and say, “I don’t deserve to be there.”

She made me realize that this is common problem among women because we’ve been coached that way. Not just the “You’ll Never Be Good Enough” syndrome that so many of us know from growing up in households with exacting parents, but a condition inherently female because so many women are raised to defer their abilities in a way that men are not. (And I sense a future blog post about this topic someday…)

So I found myself floundering on a word choice for this year. Survival felt too stark, and not the energy I wanted to bring with me into 2021, even if it felt like I’d nailed it. Hope felt too impossible to achieve. I came very close to selecting Believe for this year, because it embodies the things I want to carry with me into 2021–and also because I’ve fallen deeply in love with Ted Lasso. (Note: link contains spoilers) If you haven’t had a chance to watch this charming, earthy show about an American football coach tagged to lead a losing UK soccer team out of their slump, you should check it out. I know, it wasn’t on my top ten shows to watch either, but my husband persuaded me to try it, and after the first episode I wanted to watch the next right away.

And I came very close to choosing Believe simply because of Ted Lasso, and because this word is so flexible. It can be used for so many things: believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. Believe in change, believe in the future of our country. Believe in things getter better in the future.

But I wasn’t quite ready to go with believe. I know that because when I was looking up old posts to link here, I ran across another word that clicked with me. I saw it and though, yes. This is it.

Resilience.

It’s a word my husband thinks I have. One I used to think I had, but somehow lost along the way. One that I want to have again. It embodies everything I want from a focus word for 2021. Not giving up. Pressing forward. Taking my dreams, my hopes, and goals and tucking them in my jacket to carry with me. It’s putting one foot in front of the other in deep snow. Taking a deep breath. Tackling what lies ahead: be it a pandemic, a thorny WIP, depression, anxiety, whatever.

I had to take a break from moving forward. My base camp has been pitched on the side of a mountain, a small sliver of space I used to catch my breath, lick my wounds, and recoup from loss. But the summit is still above me, and I can’t stay on this ledge forever. It’s time to start climbing again.

Resilience.

I’m not going to ask you to move off your ledge. I’m not going to ask you to do more than you can in 2021. For many of us, the fact we made it to the ledge and are hanging on is a bloody miracle. You’ll know when it’s time to break camp and climb to the next level.

But I’ll leave the rope dangling for you.

 

 

Dear 2020: I’m Almost out of F*cks To Give

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People talk about the liberation in reaching a point where they have zero f*cks to give. I’ve joked about it myself, and laughed when a friend gave me a glass that embraced this concept as well as my love of foxes.

But the truth of the matter is we need people to give a f*ck about things. Important things. We need people to care. To have compassion. To go out of their way to help others. And losing the ability to give those kinds of f*cks is not a good thing, or something to be desired.

Right now my TL is in a stew over a couple of new releases: most notably Bridgerton and Wonder Woman 1984. It’s a measure of how tired I am that neither event–things I might have looked forward to in the past–generates any feeling of excitement or outrage. Back when it was first announced, I was thrilled about a second WW movie, and desperately hoped there would be a way for me to see it when I had no intention of setting foot in a movie theater. I purchased HBO Max just so I could watch it, and I simply… haven’t. WW84 seems to be a disappointment to many (and apparently missed a huge opportunity to make use of 80s music–the soundtrack would have been fabulous!) and as for Bridgerton… Let me preface this by saying I haven’t read the original series, I wasn’t aware of the problematic scene/plot point that has some people up in arms and others defending it, I had no problem with the diverse casting until people pointed out the added egregiousness of the problematic plot point, and given the hostility with which the different camps have taken sides, I’m not sure I will watch this series.

Because I am very close to having zero f*cks to give.

And I don’t mean that in the good way, where you stop worrying about what other people think of you, or you look ahead at the remainder of your life and think, “Screw it. I’m going for it.” Where you dress the way you want and look fabulous, and ignore those stupid advice posts “What Not To Wear After Forty.”

I’m talking about when you don’t give a rat’s ass about anything.

I can’t lay this blame entirely on the pandemic, though that certainly didn’t help. It’s a culmination of chronic stress, both physical and mental, combined with a crapton of grief stuffed into the last four years. And while I can’t blame the current administration for ALL the problems in my life, it strikes me as ironic that the worst four years in my life have been the last four years.

I’ve long detested the obligatory “end-of-year” posts. I dislike looking back on the past year and shouting out about achievements. Mostly because it goes to show how little I’ve accomplished in a given year. I also dislike the concept of New Year’s Resolutions, fed into us by the diet industry, given the enormous number of exercise and weight loss ads suddenly crossing my timeline. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve resolved to do x-y-z only to see that resolution fall by the wayside in a matter of weeks.

My only real resolution this coming year is to survive.

My stories frequently have “life is more than mere survival” as a theme, however. Which has me thinking, what would my characters do, faced with the utter lack of f*cks to give?

Rhett would drop her ray gun in her clutch, whistle up the dog, and ask Peter if he had any ideas on how to stop the invading force from taking over the world. Her lack of f*cks would mean she would go down fighting, looking extremely stylish in the process. And because she has such utter confidence in herself, she’d probably come out on top. She’d definitely be the resistance fighter in any guerilla-war.

Ellie West, knowing she had much to fight for and the ability to do it, would marshal her clan and shift into her glorious dragon-form, taking wing and taking names. You’d regret messing with her found family.

Sarah Atwell is the most like me, I guess. She would continue to work hard, and try to please the people in her life. She’d give of herself until there was no more left to give. She’d nod and back down, struggle with anxiety, plagued with nightmares and borrowing trouble with her fears. The problem is, because she’s savvy and well-read, her fears would be legitimate. And believe me, it’s hard to meditate yourself into a calmer state of mind when you know the odds of your worst fears coming true.

But even Sarah has that underlying backbone that cannot be denied. A line in the sand you must not cross. Sure, it may be a lot closer than most people’s lines. But when push comes to shove, you’d better not cross it. Otherwise you’ll discover that meek, self-effacing, self-doubting woman is a cougar inside.

And so when I was writing this post, thinking of how utterly exhausted I was and how unsustainable certain elements in my life are right now, I remembered I created these characters. They sprang out of characteristics I either possess or admire. They are part of me, even if not the whole me.

And end-of-year bragging posts notwithstanding, I am proud of a few things accomplished in 2020. Some are personal, that I’m not sharing here but brought great happiness to my life in a year where happiness was hard to find. I wrote and published a book in the middle of a pandemic. Another book won a couple of prestigious awards. I participated in Romancing the Runoff, and–along with Stacey Abrams–helped raise $400,000 to support Georgia Senate races.

I voted. I saw the tremendous motivation of a nation to vote for change, for healing, for hope.

And while I didn’t get as much writing done as I would have liked, I am still writing.

Maybe my life is more than the mere survival it feels like right now. So watch out, 2021. As someone almost out of f*cks to give, you don’t want to mess with me.

 

The Girl Who Lost Her Dream

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Once upon a time, there was a young girl who loved polished stones.

She loved the slick feel of them between her fingers, and the way they warmed in her hand. She loved how being spun in a tumbler sanded off the rough outer shell and brought out the beauty within–a kind of Cinderella story for rocks.

She’d learned to identify the dinosaurs by name, and collected plastic models. She resisted the reclassification of the Brontosaurus (and her adult self rejoiced when her belief was vindicated). She moved on to mammals and birds, thumbing well-worn identification guides, learning animal tracks and bird calls as well. 

Her childhood passion for identifying things was on the wane when she discovered geology, but the magic of polished stones stayed with her. A school trip to a mine netted a little velvet sack of rocks that stayed with her through several moves and all through high school, disappearing somewhere after she went away to college. But she always remembered the pleasure those polished stones brought her.

As an adult, she rediscovered that joy again, coming across some polished stones with words engraved on them. She began collecting stones again. A rock tumbled smooth by the Snake River. A piece of quartz that caught the light like a diamond. An amethyst from a park gift shop the last time she took the old dog camping. Bloodstone from the writer’s retreat. Sodalite for creativity. Hematite because it looked like solid mercury. Other stones with words engraved on them: Wisdom, Courage, Serenity, Joy.

The stones that didn’t have words carved into them also got named–secret names that grounded her when she kept them in her pocket: Hope. Love. Kindness. Peace. Strength.

She used to carry them with her one at a time, a talisman in her pocket to remind her to focus on the idea embodied within. But the fear of losing them caused her to leave them on the shelf collecting dust. With time, they got packed away and forgotten, only to turn up again out of the blue after another move.

She spread them out on the bookshelf again, admiring her little hoard.

Then things got bad, not just for her, but for the entire world. Things felt really hard, and she began looking at her talismans again. At a time when she needed it most, she carried Hope, like a little prayer, in her pocket. After feeling hope again for the first time in years, she switched out and began carrying Courage. The smooth stone in her pocket grounded her and gave her strength. So at the end of the week, she selected a new stone to carry: Dream.

It seemed audacious to carry Dream with her, but since she’d chosen audacious as her power word for 2020 (and had sadly not lived up to its promise), she placed the sparkling stone in her pocket and went on about her business.

Only her pockets were shallow, and at some point, Dream fell out and was lost.

She tried not to let it bother her. After all, wasn’t that the reason she stopped carrying stones with her in the past–fear of losing them? It was inevitable she would misplace one sooner or later. The fact it was DREAM didn’t mean anything. Her dreams weren’t encased in mineral, unable to thrive without a touchstone to activate them. Sure, having dreams had been tough this year–for the last few years, actually. But losing the Dream stone didn’t mean she’d lost her dreams–only that she had lost a rock.

She kept looking for it though. In part because she remembered hearing a ‘clunk’ at some point in the past, and hadn’t put it together with losing the stone until later. But if she heard it fall out of her pocket, that meant it wasn’t in the yard, or lying in the forest after one of her walks. She resigned herself to having lost it forever, though, and told herself that perhaps someone else would find it one day, and it would bring them joy (and maybe even a little nudge in the right direction from the universe).

And then after she’d given up searching for it, she came across it by accident while straightening up, the Dream stone lying beneath a stack of clothing she’d had yet to put away because it simply wasn’t a priority for her.

She snatched the stone up with joy, thrilled to have found her Dream again. She rushed to place it back on the shelf where it would be safe with all the others once more. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. The stones would stay put, stay safe. But she hesitated as she positioned the stone among the others.

Wisdom. Courage. Faith. Serenity. Joy. Health. Hope. And yes, Dream. Concepts that could not be killed by losing a little rock. Concepts that shouldn’t remain safe at home but should sally forth into the world to do battle, to protect, to inspire. She didn’t need to lock up her stones. She needed a better way to carry them with her. In a small pouch, so they couldn’t easily fall out of her pocket. Safe, but still with her at all times.

She took Dream outside held it in her hand. The sun came out from behind the clouds and set the stone to sparkling.

“This,” she thought. “This is how Dreams are meant to live.”

And because she believes in them, the once-upon-a-time little girl grew up and lived happily ever after.

Celebrating Christmas in Pandemic Times

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Celebrating the holidays has always been a little problematic for me.

I grew up in a family where Thanksgiving and Christmas were dominated by my grandmother and her wonderful cooking. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered how much my mother hated these gatherings, due in part, no doubt, to her ongoing internal battle with food–something she passed on to her children, I’m sad to say.

To me, however, the holidays meant food in such abundance and flavors that we never got at home: turkey with all the fixings, ham, mashed potatoes, yams, succotash, collards, and green bean casseroles. Yeast rolls and cornbread. Sausage balls and stuffing. And the desserts! Pumpkin, lemon meringue, chocolate pies, applesauce cake, pound cake, or sour cream cake–take your pick. Not “oh, we’ll have lemon pie one year and pumpkin the next.” No, ALL the desserts mentioned on the same table with the entire extended family there to enjoy it. Everyone came home for the holidays at my grandmother’s house. Everyone.

Because of the tremendous volume of food made, we got bundles of leftovers to take home with us, spreading the joy for two or three days after the holiday was over.

When my grandparents died, there was no one to pick up the mantel of cooking and baking. My mother thought if a little heat was good a lot was better, and given her own food sensitivities (which I’ve inherited, darn it), she stripped most recipes of all seasoning and flavor.

I tried to cook for the family when we got together for the holidays, but my own weak skill set was hampered by the lack of proper cookware–a fact I didn’t realize until I discovered what a difference the right pots and pans could make.

It didn’t help that early in my career, as a single woman with no children, my employers scheduled me to work every holiday under the assumption I didn’t need to celebrate myself.

Decorating seemed pointless–when you live alone, you never drive up to your home and see the welcoming lights of Christmas decorations gleaming through your windows. Not to mention all the work of putting them up, only to have to take them down in a few weeks. Then there was the fact my dog–the first one that was all mine and not a family pet–had this bizarre quirk where she would remove the string of lights from the tree… and pop every bulb. She never touched anything else, but I would come home to find the tree and ornaments in place, and the string of lights on the floor surrounded by bits of broken glass. Weird, right?

She was Practically Perfect in all other respects, however, so I just learned not to put up decorations.

Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to experience the magic and joy of the holidays, I would have to come up with my own traditions. This usually took the place of watching various holiday movies–mostly the old black-and-white classics such as It’s a Wonderful Life and Christmas in Connecticut. I’d watched these movies on the AMC channel at my grandmother’s house, and they were part of my Christmas memories, along with the animated television specials: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Oh! And it wasn’t Christmas unless I watched A Christmas Carol in some version, usually with the Muppets (which is the best, IMHO). I listened to Bing Crosby, and in a seasonally driven burst of domesticity, I baked.

After I got married, my husband and I developed our own traditions. He has an advent candle he likes to light each year, and we started putting up a tree again. Neither one of us are huge decorators, and while he probably thinks my taste in holiday movies is dreadful, he cheerfully suffers through my desire to watch them. We don’t go crazy with gifts either, but since we’re both big readers, Christmas usually means a nice cache of books to read though the winter.

This year, because of the pandemic and our family’s decision to split households for safety reasons, once again, I’ve been thrown back to those early days as a young professional when I worked straight through the holidays with only the official day off itself. I find myself struggling to find the Christmas spirit this year–I mean, who isn’t?

I realized the other day, this wasn’t a new phenomenon, however. It’s been quite a few years since I had the time or energy for Christmas. There always seems to be more work before and after a holiday to make up for taking the day off. Somehow there is never enough time to watch my favorite movies, and various determinations to count calories or avoid gluten has cut into my seasonal baking. (It’s not that eating gluten will kill me. It’s just that I only seem to be able to tolerate a small amount these days, and since when has anyone been able to stop with one Snickerdoodle?)

This year, in deference to pandemic-driven anxiety, I’ve been watching new-to-me Christmas movies on Netflix: The Princess Switch, A Christmas Prince, and the even earlier A Princess for Christmas. There’s a certain kind of appeal to the picture-perfect winter settings in mythical kingdoms where all needs are met because there is an insane amount of wealth in the background. The heroines are often hapless but brave, the heroes wealthy and in need of lightening up. It occurred to me while watching yet another scene where the True Meaning of Christmas had nothing to do with the limitless credit cards but the people you spend it with that a) money helps and b) … people weren’t going to get to be with their families this year. 

I have to tell you, instead of feeling comforted by these light movies, I felt sad. I understood why people feel they MUST family during the holidays, even when every recommendation is to stay home and not cross households. I got it because sitting on your couch watching fluffy holiday movies with the dogs feels very lonely when there are people you love that you wish were there. And yet, if we love our families, staying apart this year is exactly what we have to do.

It’s as if the Whos in Whoville woke on Christmas morning without decorations, and presents and roast beast—and without each other too. After living on my own for so long, I’d become accustomed to the level of comfort living with a family of your own choosing can bring.

Suddenly, for me, This Would Not Do.

So I got up early this morning and went through all my old recipes, and after rejecting the ones that required rolling out dough, specialized equipment, or included vague directions of “add flour sufficient to handle dough” (I mean, seriously, is that three cups? Four? Five? Who knows?), I went with my tried-and-true favorites: Nestle’s Tollhouse Cookies and Snickerdoodles. Any cookies I broke, squashed, or burned ended up in my personal stash. I packed a selection to take into work. And then I packaged the rest and drove out to where my husband is staying. I wound up on the doorstep holding a tin of cookies in lieu of a boombox a la John Cusack in Say Anything.

I didn’t go inside. We didn’t throw caution to the winds and break our self-imposed separation of households. We sat outside, wearing masks, speaking of nothing consequential and at the same time everything that was important. Because Christmas really isn’t about palaces in Aldovia or switching places with someone in order to see how the other half lives. Christmas can come without ribbons. It comes without tags. It comes without packages, boxes or bags.

It’s what we make of it.

Isn’t everything?

 

Dear Family: It May Be A While Before We Meet Again

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The other night, my husband and I had another conversation about the surge in Covid-19 cases, and whether we were doing everything in our power to keep our family safe.

See, back when when first began hearing about this virus, I knew it was going to be bad. Call me paranoid, but one of the reasons I’ve always feared zombie movies is because I realized “zombies” were a metaphor for a pandemic–and that falls in the category of one of my worst nightmares. So in January, when the news began speaking of a serious new virus emerging in China, I sat up and took notice. I began buying an extra item of the things we used most each time we went grocery shopping. Hey, if you’ve ever tried to get bread and milk when the weather channel calls for a coating of ice around here, you know that was a prudent move.

This was the disinfectant aisle at the local store back in March–but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Shortly after Valentine’s Day, I told my husband he should start working from home, even though his workplace hadn’t issued the order yet. We made the decision to split our family into two households as well–with my husband and the high risk family members in one home and me (an essential worker) staying on the farm to take care of the animals. We understood the need to flatten the curve and to protect the high risk family members as much as possible. I was the one most likely to bring something home, given my interaction with the public and the inability to work from home, and let me tell you, the steps you need to take every day to protect yourself under those circumstances is exhausting–and I’m not one of the people on the front lines. My heart breaks for the medical professionals who are being ground to dust by this terrible, relentless pandemic. I know just how lucky I am.

It doesn’t hurt that I’m not by nature a social person. Sure, I enjoy the company of friends and family. I miss not going to conventions this year. But even when I’m having fun doing such things, I need frequent breaks from people and I don’t enjoy big crowds. I don’t need people the way some of my friends do–as long as I have access to the small group of people I do need. I can wait for a movie to be released on DVD, or am willing to pay extra to see it live-streamed instead. I prefer hiking to shopping, and as for the holidays? Well, growing up with a mother who was anti-holiday has prepared me for shrugging them off and not making a big deal about them. It’s okay. They’ll be there next year.

My husband and I still got together once a week: socially distanced and outside. We’d grill burgers or steaks and sit in our well-ventilated mosquito tent until after dark, reading, talking, or playing board games. In a way, it was a throwback to a simpler, quieter, pre-internet time–and I will look back on those evenings with fondness in the future, I know.

As the days got shorter and a brisk chill entered the air, we moved our gatherings inside. Masked at first, but as time went by, we just stopped wearing them. Our social circle was still quite small. A week passed between each visit, so there was plenty of time to develop symptoms and avoid contact if necessary, right?

We were still being safe, right?

But then the case numbers began surging again–worse than they were when we first began touting “flatten the curve.” Worse than the worst projections of an incompetent and corrupt administration. I began to wonder if we were really being all that safe or smart. The whole reason we decided to split the family was about reducing the risks. Our indoor meetings, even though they met the state guidelines for gatherings, started to feel wrong. As if I were saying, “I know you have a severe allergy, but I only put one or two peanuts in this recipe. It’s not like I used a whole jar of peanut butter.”

Then came the widespread discussions about gathering for Thanksgiving–and I found myself telling friends and neighbors planning to travel to visit family that it was a really bad idea. But were we really being any smarter, safer? I was no longer sure.

Then there was the recent conversation I had with friends–all of whom believe in the necessity of vaccinations–and the unlikelihood of seeing widespread vaccination when we can’t even get people to wear masks. We aren’t going to even begin to get back to some semblance of normal without widespread vaccination against Covid-19… and I just don’t see that happening in large enough numbers to make a difference.

When I read Chuck Wendig’s Twitter thread about the widespread sense of entitlement we as a nation have these days, it was both depressing and infuriating. He spoke of people who would tell you in one breath about a social life scarcely any different than the one they lived before the pandemic and in the next breath say how serious things were and how careful they were being. Um, no you’re not. Not really.

It didn’t help much to know that my husband and I realized we weren’t being careful enough and that–at least for the time being–we needed to go back to only meeting outside wearing masks and truly keeping our social distance again. Because though on a smaller scale, we’d been behaving much like the people Wendig took issue with.

I have to pause here and say there isn’t any virtue in remaining virus-free. It isn’t because of clean living or moral superiority. Perhaps that’s the fatal flaw in our attempt to shame people into wearing masks because I do think on some level, both sides of the argument try to make this about virtue. It isn’t. It’s about science and the spread of disease. It’s about taking precautions and understanding that even under the best of circumstances, precautions can fail. But that doesn’t mean you don’t take them.

I found a measure of comfort in this excellent post by Linda K Sienkiewicz on Setting Limits in a Pandemic. She had some wise things to say about walking the fine line among friends and family who disagree with the perimeters you set for yourself in this perilous time.

It made me more comfortable with the conclusion my family came to this past weekend, and reinforced our decision to be stricter with our interactions instead of lapsing along with so much of the rest of the world. So this is my declaration of intent to continue to self-isolate. Yes, there are members of my extended family that we would love to see–seniors that may not have that many more holidays who want to see us too–and I’m planning for the day when we can visit them again. But not now. Not any time soon. I’d rather be overly cautious out of love than too lenient for the same. If that sounds like I]m assigning virtue to the decision, I don’t mean to do so. We’re just trying to make decisions we can live with. Literally.

 

Give Yourself Permission to Self-Protect in Uncertain Times

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TW for brief mention of election anxiety

 

 

 

Tomorrow is Election Day in the US. For many, it’s a referendum on Democracy as an institution. A matter of life and death when it comes down to civil rights, health care, climate change, and more. Others treat it more like a football game: my team against yours. Still others embrace their party’s ideology and leaders with a fervency that borders on cultism and speak of defending their side with violence if the election results don’t turn out the way they wish.

We are a nation divided, and that division not only stems from radically different ideologies, but also from outside forces fomenting anger and division on almost every topic you can name. I never held much with conspiracy theories in the past, but when we have Russian operatives seeding dissent on everything from vaccinating your kids to the Star Wars fandom, it’s hard to know what’s real and not real anymore.

We are constantly being gaslit. Not the least of which by our own government.

Side bar: I’ll never forget seeing a TV report in which a young Russian boy was receiving an award for his excellent knowledge of geography. Putin asked the child to name the borders of Russia and the kid began listing the various countries, only to have Putin interrupt him. With a shark-like smile, Putin said, “Russia has no borders.”

It was the most chilling thing I’d ever seen.

I know this much: we as a species are not wired to deal with the magnitude of constant, unrelenting stress we currently face between the pandemic, the growing spread of fascism, escalating, devastating climate change, fears for democracy and for our future. The very uncertainty of all of it–the fact alone there is no end date for the pandemic that we know of–makes it hard for many of us to maintain a level of awareness we need to keep ourselves safe. Even if we were taking things seriously, we have to go back to the car because we forgot to put on our mask or we forget to wash our hands. We’re like the person who knows they should eat broccoli for dinner but we’re tired and unhappy and we just say screw it and order pizza anyway. Except making a mistake now could have serious consequences for ourselves and everyone around us, much more so than a single night of dietary indulgence.

I also know something else: the people who keep saying don’t worry, everything will be fine on November 4th can say that because very little will change for them. They will still have access to health care. They won’t have to worry about being denied birth control coverage by their employer or fear being fired for their sexual orientation. They can go shopping or jog in their neighborhood without fear of being targeted, assaulted and killed because of the color of their skin. It’s easy for someone in a position of power to tell everyone else to calm down.

Most everyone I know is expressing an increased level of anxiety right now. I mean a seriously increased level of anxiety. And I’m here to say, give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to get you through these next few weeks, as long as it doesn’t bring harm to yourself or anyone else. Write inexplicably fluffy fanfiction. Binge-watch all twelve seasons of the Great British Bake Off. Play video games all day and into the night. Someone sent me this on WhatsApp and I immediately embraced it. Yes. THIS. Invite possums to a tea party if it makes you happy.

I’m currently posting photos of action figures doing book reviews to my Instagram account because posing the figures with actual replicas of itty bitty book covers calms my mind in a way I can’t achieve doing anything else. It’s silly, but you know what? I don’t care.

DON’T belittle someone else’s efforts at self-calming and self-protection. I’m one of those people who believe the holidays should be celebrated one at a time in good order, but if this year someone breaks out the pumpkin spice lattes in August or wants to decorate their home for Christmas before Halloween, I say more power to them. You know what? I never took down my indoor Christmas lights this past year, and turning them on at night soothes my soul in a cheap, painless way.

I’m seriously considering paying for the Hallmark channel this year because I love holiday movies and I can’t get enough of them. I could start watching them now until March and I’d be okay with this. And if watching improbable movies with ridiculous plots because there is snow and fairy lights and no one dies and the GUARANTEE of a HEA is what gets me through the weeks to come, that’s okay. If I’m wallowing in books from the Golden Age of Mystery and not doomscrolling on my phone, that’s more than okay. That’s smart. That’s healthy.

I’ve done all I know how to do for my country at this point in time. I’ve donated to candidates, encouraged others to vote, have voted already myself. It’s out of my hands now. I need to take the advice I’d give others with regards to getting through the coming weeks. Practice self-protection and self-care. Which doesn’t mean tossing making healthy eating choices or getting enough sleep out the window, tempting as that is. Believe me, I’ve eaten Cap’n Crunch dry out of the box before and called it dinner. But making yourself sick with garbage food isn’t helping matters any.

This uncertainty is part of the reason I’ve been stalled in my writing for months now. I normally hit a little lull when I finish a story, and the business of launching a book sidetracks me with all the marketing and promotion of the new release. This time I’ve been much slower to start working on the next story because I’ve been long on anxiety and short on hope. There frequently seems little point in telling my silly stories when it feels as though the world is coming to an end.

But it occurred to me this morning that my intrepid heroine would take a dim view of this inaction on my part. Part of dealing with the world at large is creating a universe of my own in which I control the outcomes. In this next installment of Redclaw Origins, Rhett faces the equivalent of a Doomsday Scenario. By giving her the strength and wits to deal, I find a little pocket of peace for myself. Sometimes when dealing with some daily trauma, I ask: What Would Rhett Do?

Let’s find out.

Last night I put on my “bracelets of power” and sat down to the keyboard for the first time since I typed “the end” on Bishop’s Gambit. Perhaps I am just re-arranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. But the world isn’t going to save itself, and Rhett could use a little help.

We Need to Respect the Power of Words More Than Ever

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Photo by Designecologist from Pexels

(trigger warning for self-harm)

 

Back in 2004, I went to see a movie called What the Bleep Do We Know!? with a friend of mine. It was a weird combination of quantum mysticism (along the lines of The Secret and other ‘law of attraction” books that claim to grant you all your dreams if you put them into words with intent) and pseudoscience that sounded good. I remember leaving the theater thinking, “It’s all my fault.”

That every bad thing that had ever happened to me was because I brought it into being with my thoughts. Every goal I failed to achieve, every dream I shelved, was all my fault because I didn’t believe in it hard enough. 

Holy Tinkerbell, Batman.

The notion didn’t stick with me for long. I had some real issues with the movie–not the least of which was the fact the main character was depicted popping anti-depressants like candy and then chucking the whole bottle in the trash in the end. No, no, and no. That’s not the way anti-depressants work and you should NEVER stop such medication cold-turkey unless directed to do so by your doctor.

Photo by Gerd Altmann from Pexels

But in 2006, The Secret came out, sold millions, and generated a brief revival in the law of attraction theory. If you’re not familiar with it, the law of attraction is the theory that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences into your life. There’s nothing new about this concept. Normal Vincent Peale popularized it in 1952 with bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking. Like The Secret, this book was received poorly by the scientific community, and touted changing your life through positive affirmations, but with a Biblical twist.

I wrote about this same subject last year (ironically, about this time), and many of my thoughts on the subject are the same–though I am laughing like a hyena right now at the memory of my sister’s astrologist’s predictions for the coming year… Suffice to say, I think her astrologist might not want to give up her day job.

But back to this philosophy: these books have a powerful attraction for us as consumers (see what I did there?) because they promise something that is within our control: we can achieve our wildest dreams if we only believe in them hard enough.

Failure only means you didn’t believe hard enough. It’s not the fault of the philosophy itself. It’s yours.

I have a real love-hate relationship with this kind of thinking. On one level, I think it’s all bunkum. It doesn’t matter how much I want to be an opera singer–if I can’t carry a note in a bucket, I’m never going to perform at The Met. I might dream of being an astronaut, but be incapable of performing the upper level mathematics. And so on.

On the other level, I do believe in “putting it out there in the universe.” Of stating a desired goal, be it ever so seemingly out of reach, in the hopes of putting wind beneath the wings of that desire. I believe in making affirmations. Each December I enjoy picking a word to be my intention for the coming year. I believe in making talismans for myself.

Where I differ from the quantum mystics is that when I put my desire out there in the universe, I do so because articulating it makes it clearer in my own mind. Stating a specific goal makes it easier for me to take the steps necessary to achieve it. Many times, left unspoken, the desire remains unformed as well. It’s difficult to race toward a finish line you cannot see.

When I create talismans for myself, they serve as reminders to focus on the word I want to be my motto for the year, be it fearless, or audacious, or persistent. The power isn’t in the bracelet or charm itself. It’s in the reminder its presence serves. Sometimes glancing at the particular talisman offers a kind of mental grounding. It’s not magic. It’s a means of creating focus.

But there are times when I can point to something I did with the law of attraction in mind and my results exceeded expectations. Was it because I clearly imagined the outcome I wanted over and over again until it came true? Possibly. Who knows. I certainly don’t discount the law of attraction entirely as a result. But I am so skilled in self-sabotage there are many times when I don’t want the law of attraction to hold any validity. Otherwise we’re back to how I felt leaving the movie theater in 2004. All my failures are as a result of my negative thinking.

One thing I can say is that I firmly believe we assimilate what we tell ourselves over and over again. Even more so if this internal statement has received outside validity. It’s one of the reasons we get trapped in the stories we believe about ourselves: if someone important to us told us we weren’t smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough, good enough, chances are we’re continuing to tell ourselves these things, whether or not they’re true.

I struggle with this because if you ask me to write down positive affirmations about myself, I can’t do it if the affirmation seems too out there. I have to change the wording to accommodate my beliefs, which kind of defeats the purpose, I think. It’s hard for me to “dream big” (which is one of the reasons I include these words when signing a book). I’m far too good at coming up with negative things to say to myself–that ugly soundtrack plays 365 days a year and I have a lifetime of ‘unlearning’ the lies I’ve told myself.

I know this to be true: you are what you tell yourself.

So a cold shock ran through me when I recently caught myself with a new “negative-speak” I must erase. Just this past week, I realized there were two things I needed to stop saying, both to myself and aloud.

The first is started out as a self-defense mechanism when I got challenged by anyone for taking the pandemic seriously. I’d explain that I had high-risk family members, but too often people in my area challenge our decision to remain curbside service only and to wear masks. So I began saying I was high risk as well, and that if I got Covid, I would die. As an argument, it tended to shut people up. But what a terrible thing to be telling myself!

I’m moderately high-risk, I’m definitely high-stress. I’m not in the best of health. But a 113-year-old pensioner has survived while people in their thirties have died. There are so many factors that determine mortality–including virus load at the time of exposure–that my contacting Covid isn’t an automatic death sentence. Not unless I go around thinking it is.

My response these days to people who scoff at my mask-wearing? “I’m a scientist. I know how viruses work. I want the people in my community to live.”

The second thing I have to stop saying is, “This job is killing me.” While it’s true that most days I feel like I’m at the breaking point, that I’m on the flash-point of burnout, I need to STOP SAYING THIS. Because I don’t want to bring that repetitive thought into reality.

And the funny thing is, if I can point to these extremes and recognize the harm I’m doing when I tell myself these things, it becomes easier to recognize the much smaller nicks and lacerations I’ve been inflicting on myself for as long as I can remember. Some people cut themselves with actual blades. Others do it with thoughts and words.

I’ve always been one for words.

I need to wield them with more care. We all do.

Be safe. Be well. And most of all, be kind to yourself right now.

 

 

 

Re-Inventing Yourself at Any Age

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“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

Photo by Anthony from Pexels

I have a unique opportunity at the moment. I get to decide who I want to be.

You might say we get to decide that many times at different stages of our lives, and it’s true. But I’m talking about something a little different here today. See, I get to decide what my legal name will be.

When I got married, I didn’t take my husband’s last name for various reasons. We were both older, and had no intention of having children together. We were both established professionals as well, and changing my name would have meant jumping through a LOT of legal hoops with a number of professional organizations. It was simpler to keep my own name, and though I considered making the switch, in the end, I decided not to.

But a little wrinkle came up recently, and now the name situation is front and center again. See, I went to the DMV to register for that Real ID thing that’s required now and I brought all my documentation with me. And that’s when I hit a snag. I don’t spell my name the way it’s written on my birth certificate. I guess when I went to school, my teachers assumed my name was spelled in the more traditional fashion. Like Allison instead of Allyson, or Katherine instead of Katharine (leave it to Katharine Hepburn to have a non-traditional spelling of her name!). Anyway, my teachers assumed it was spelled a certain way and they taught me to write it the same. My parents never noticed–or if they did, never bothered to correct it.

I was 12 years old before I learned of the difference. At the time, I was entranced with the idea of a different spelling and I decided I would spell my name that way from then on. A different spelling felt as though I could become a different person, and the child I was at the time would have loved to be anyone else. In fact, I often fantasized about having a different name altogether, which is probably why I took to the pen name thing for authors so readily. But after six months of trying to change my signature to the “correct” spelling, I gave up and went back to the old, incorrect signature. And from then on, I never gave it another thought. Work forms, graduate degrees, tax documents, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, and yes, my marriage certificate… I signed for all of them with the spelling I’d used for most of my life.

Only when I went to get the Real ID, they refused to issue it to me. The name on my birth certificate and the name on all my other legal documents must match. And now I have to go to the courthouse at some point and rectify this if I want to fly on an airplane ever again. Now mind you, I have no intention of flying any time soon–not until we have a reliable, safe vaccine for the coronavirus. My driver’s license was up for renewal and I thought I might as well get the Real ID while I was there. (Don’t get me started on the stupidity and unnecessary regulation of the whole Real ID nonsense. That’s a rant for another day…) I’m not going to start that legal name change process until after the November elections, either. I don’t want to do ANYTHING to jeopardize my ability to vote in the next election.

But it opens up the possibility of changing my name altogether. I have to file for a legal name change. I could take my husband’s name now. I could change my given name altogether. I could leave behind the tired, dated name I was born with and chose something edgier that I liked. I could take on my pen name if I wanted. I could be like the bored, repressed housewife Cathy Palmer in American Dreamer, who gets hit on the head while vacationing in France and suddenly believes she is the brilliant, sexy, and extremely fictional international spy Rebecca Ryan. Because Cathy believes she is her favorite fictional character, she becomes Rebecca Ryan–so much so that the people that meet her are completely taken in.

I think most of us have wanted, like Cathy, to let our inner Rebecca Ryan loose. Or maybe it was just me. I adore this movie.

And I see the possibilities here now.

I know a simple name change won’t wipe away the past or make me thinner, younger, wittier, and give me back my strength of purpose. Change takes hard work and comes in small increments over time, neither of which feels very plentiful in my life right now.

But it’s tempting. Very tempting. The thought of changing my name is a siren call promising me a better, happier, more fulfilling life. Even though I know that despite becoming an Allyson or a Katharine or a Rebecca, I’d still be the same old me underneath. 

Who would you be if you could wave a wand and become someone else? Would you do it? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Nail Envy: From Brittle to WOW!

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I am not, nor ever have been, an attractive woman.

I’ve had a few things on my side, such as an active lifestyle and a decent metabolism, which meant I could eat pretty much anything I wanted until I hit my mid-forties. Don’t envy me, however. That just set me up to be the kid who made straight-As without trying in high school, who never learns how to study and therefore struggles when the course work in college gets much harder.

But I’ve always been a bit vain about my hair and nails.

You see, if I were a superhero, I’d be Keratin Woman. Hairdressers would comment on the sheer weight and volume of my hair every time I went to the salon (and invariably tried to thin or tame it in some way). My mother was told to stop putting “Miracle-Gro” on my hair when I was a child. Strangers commented on my nails in line at the grocery store. People would ask me if they were real (they were). I could open pull-top cans with my nails. I could crack the tartar off a cat’s teeth with my nails. If I did break a nail, the fragment shot across the room like a ricocheting bullet. It was gratifying, especially since I wasn’t a girly-girl. Instead, I was a tomboy who rode horses and worked cattle. And I had the nails everyone envied.

Like most things one takes for granted, there came a day when this ceased to be true. Be it stress, a poor diet, or changing hormones–or all three–my hair started to thin and my nails became brittle. The slightest activity caused them to split and peel. Don’t get me started on my hair–that’s a post for another day–but I found myself incredibly angry about losing the only things I was even remotely vain about.

In retrospect, the anger was symptomatic of much bigger problems–such as the stress and grab-food-on-the-go lifestyle that probably corrupted my nails’ integrity. I was angry at my body’s failure to keep up with the demands my work and mindset demanded of it. How dare my body begin to show wear and tear? How dare it demand I take better care of myself on almost every level?

Oh, the privilege of health. It’s not until it is compromised that you realize just how much you take for granted.

And so I began having my nails professionally done. First with artificial tips until my own poor nails could grow out some, and then short, neat, and professional for work, but with nearly indestructible SNS powder, which lasted for weeks and protected my nails.

Or at least, that’s what I told myself.

I became addicted to having manicures done. Such high-powered nail polish required soaking in professional-strength acetone to remove it, and scheduling salon sessions had to be done every 3-4 weeks to keep it up. I told myself it was a little luxury I did just for me, and turned a blind eye to the expenditure. The day job was hard on my hands. With a professional manicure, I got my “old” nails back and could feel good about my little vanity again.

Then Covid-19 hit.

I saw the writing on the wall in late January, and cancelled all of my usual “upkeep” procedures: haircuts, manicures, chiropractic care, massage therapy. By Valentine’s Day, we made the decision to divide our household into high-risk and essential worker. I began buying extra items of the things we used most with every shopping trip and when the Great Toilet Paper Crisis hit, we were in good shape.

See how simple that is, Mr. President? But I digress…

When I managed to strip off the SNS powder at home, I got a good look at how damaged they were without another masking coat of polish to replace it. I began looking at products that promised to restore the health of your nails As Seen On Instagram. There were a lot of products out there. Each time I ran across an ad, I’d check out the reviews online, which were usually disappointing. Many also required continuous auto-shipping of products that were difficult to cancel. In the end, I went with none of them.

I’d been taking hair and nail supplements sporadically for several years, and consistently for at least a year by this point. I decided to step up my game. I will state for the record, I’m not a dermatologist or cosmetologist or any kind of beauty expert, and you have to remember I started out as Keratin Woman, so your results may vary.

This picture was taken in February of this year.

If you look closely at the middle and ring fingernails, you can see the splitting at the tips. The weird shape of the pinky nail is as a result of the pressure of the SNS powder as the nails grew out–I had a tendency to push my manicure appointments to the 4 week mark. Also, you can see the line of demarcation at the midway point of each nail that indicates the how much has grown out since I stopped having manicures professionally done. I’m wearing clear nail polish here in a desperate attempt to keep the nails from splitting.

I wish I could say I cleaned up my diet and reduced my stress, but given the world events, let me just laugh hysterically here for a moment. If anything, my stress levels shot through the roof and I began eating like a six-year-old left to her own devices. I put away a box of sugary cereal every 48 hours and turned into a baking fiend.

But I began taking vitamins and supplements on a regular basis:

The vitamins were mostly about strengthening my immune system: if you don’t know it, they’ve shown that people with Vitamin D deficiencies get sicker with Covid-19. I had a Vitamin D deficiency a few years back and have taken a supplement since. Did you also know the widespread use of sunscreen (which is necessary) increases your risk of Vitamin D deficiency? Talk to your doctor.

The supplements were for my hair as well as nails. I’d been disappointed in the efficacy of previous supplements touted as improving hair and nail integrity, and after some research, settled on these:

After the first few months, my panic levels stabilized, and while I still struggle with the need to carb-load to get me through the workday, I’m no longer running on pure sugar.

As for the nails themselves, once a week, I removed the clear polish (sadly with an acetone-based remover, I still need to get one that’s milder) and then put on a base coat of either Orly’s Nail Defense or OPI’s Nail Envy, followed by a coat of Sally Hansen’s Hard as Nails Extreme Wear Clear and a quick-drying top coat of clear by Live Love Polish, which is a fabulous site if you’re addicted to polish. My only rule was that I had to keep them all of similar length, so that meant if I had to cut one nail back for breakage, they all got cut back.

And after five months of this combined treatment, I realized today my nails aren’t in such bad shape anymore. Okay, they’re still brittle compared to what they were in their heyday, and I wouldn’t attempt to dig off a label with them or open pull-top rings without taking some care, but they’ve grown out semi-normal looking again. Better than when I first began going for manicures, that’s for sure.

Why does this matter? I don’t suppose it really does in the grand scheme of things. Things are bad the world over, but especially here in my country, and it looks as though we can only expect it to get worse. That’s why it’s okay to celebrate the little wins.

Sometimes we need proof that we can make things better, with time and perseverance. Maybe small steps are better than big ones we never take. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll get that diet and exercise thing right, along with the whole life balance thing too.

In the meantime, be safe. Be well.