March Check-in

Hello again!

I really am trying to get better about this. I think I'm already topping 2017 so progress!

March goals include:

1. Basic body care: drinking at least 48 oz of water a day, washing my face 2x/day, and eating at least twice a day. You'd be shocked how often that last one falls off.

2. Garden: Plant seeds/seedling, check daily, and weed at least 2x/week.

3. Mental Health: keep attending therapy and note each session in my bujo.

Yeah, I use words like bujo now. That's the kind of asshole I am. Honestly, all three of those general areas will probably stay on for the rest of the year, but the execution should change as I make progress. Let's do the check-in part of the check-in and see what progress I've already made! From February, I was working on:

1. Research skin care options and start investing in them (including drinking water). I'm still working on the water part, but I have a decent routine established now. I'm doing a 10-step Korean system, or at least working my way up to one. I've got both cleansers, a moisturizer, eye cream, toner, and some masks. I just ordered my first ampoule and my sunscreen. And a mom-bud is sending me some exfoliator samples. I haven't noticed any difference yet, but that's not so odd.

2. Explicitly target my mental health by finding a therapist. Found, and I've been 3 times!

3. Improved sleep hygiene: develop and implement a nighttime routine one step at a time. One of the biggest things I wanted to do was to stop sleeping with my phone. I ordered and now use and actual alarm clock that has sunset/sunrise simulations designed to help with more natural sleeping and waking. It's hit or miss whether I bring my phone to bed or charge it elsewhere. I'm also still pretty inconsistent about a decent bedtime, but I have been getting to work an hour earlier so the net effect is what I was hoping to achieve! At least until I die from sleep deprivation.

4. Make my peace with turning 30 (therapy should help). In my 3 whole sessions, we haven't had time to talk about this much yet. I'm still pretty hurt, especially considering that all the same friend group who blew me off are out tonight celebrating someone else's birthday without me because I had no idea there was anything planned until a day before and got stuck with baby duty.

Since we're already approaching the end of March, I'll go ahead and break that down a bit as well. I'm very inconsistent about the water and eating thing, but I've done pretty damn well with the skin care. You might point out that of those 3 things, skin care is probably the least important. You are not wrong, but I don't really care about or like myself and I'm not suuuuper invested in my own survival and skin care is the only one that is somewhat entertaining. I swear I'mma do a post soon about the details of my (current) routine. I have tilled our not-so-little garden patch - bonus! it was a good workout - and planted a few things in pots indoors. Next weekend is a long weekend and should put us past the worst of these steep temperature drops, so I'll be transitioning some pots outside and planting the remaining seeds.

Therapy... well that's a whole special beast. I have done well about documenting sessions but there's only been 3 so still plenty of time to screw that up. Shockingly, it turns out that I have anxiety, depression, PPD, anger issues, and PTSD! There is a lot of overlap in all of those things so probably the most salient is PTSD. Theoretically, once we address my trauma at least some of the others should diminish. I personally suspect that my PPD is a result of my PTSD as childbirth can be traumatic for assault victims. It was. Also shockingly, one of the reasons my PTSD has been so long lasting and severe is that I have difficulty connecting to people! Who would have thought I'd have trouble trusting and confiding in others with my interpersonal history? (Is the sarcasm clear in these statements? Should I italicize?) I've got a ton more to say, but we'll save that for another post. Fingers crossed we make it to two this month! I'mma try to be proactive and type it now. Come yell at me to get to work if you want.