Just Hold On

It’s 3:30am and I’m lost down a YouTube rabbit hole. We’ve all been there. This particular one was One Direction related. I’ve listened to a handful of their songs for a year or so, but my sister and I have recently gotten more into their music and found some new-to-us gems. I was watching interviews and fan edits, and then I saw this interview with Niall. The title mentioned him commenting on “THE Louis interview”. I was curious as to what the infamous interview was so I clicked. After watching I immediately googled the interview; I needed to read this myself.

I was about to experience something I believe is one of the most painful moments I’ve lived through so far. Unbeknownst to me; I thought I was clicking on an article with a little drama maybe. But no. This hit me hard. And I can only make guesses as to why.

As I mentioned I’m a new fan so I don’t have history with them as a band. They were already on “hiatus” when I first listened to them. I don’t have the emotional strings a lot of other people have. But man this article. It hit me near home. I suspect that the reason it hit me so hard was because I could see myself in Louis. All I wanted to do after reading it was go and give him a big long hug.

I cried my way throughout the whole thing, not able to fully cry, but tears leaking out despite. The article mentioned his live performance of his song, “Just Hold On” that he did for X-factor just days after his mother died from leukemia, and I remembered that I’d never watched it. I’d seen it around on twitter of course but I’d never seen it myself, so I looked that up as well. It was…something else. I almost couldn’t watch it because I was so afraid it would break me. I’m glad I did, but I’m not sure it didn’t do just that.

I’d already noticed before reading the article that his twitter bio is the only one that still mentions 1D.

Nothing against the other boys, but it made me wonder how much Louis had wanted them to disband. Then in the interview he confirmed my suspicion. And that broke my heart.

I thought that Just Hold On was incredible, beautiful and meaningful before. I didn’t realize how much more so it would become after reading that interview. Listening to it afterwards it had a whole new meaning. I imagined where it was coming from inside him, and even if I’m wrong it still wrenched me. I thought of the song in a new context, and it brought up old pain inside me that I didn’t know was still accessible.

I felt like someone had grabbed my chest and torn me open. The physical pain I felt in my body was so strong and real it was unbelievable. I’ve only felt pain this deep a few times in my life. I was writhing in my bed, and I’m not being dramatic here. Silent screams came out of my mouth, as my brother and sister were sleeping nearby so I couldn’t fully scream. Finally it settled down into a dull heartache. I finally fell asleep, knowing that whatever I had just experienced was going to be a moment that went down in history.

I woke up feeling much better. The heartache was gone. I went through my email, read some blog posts, and then I saw the tab with the interview was still open. I’d left it open so I could share it with Hannah later. My heart sank into my shoes and the heartache from the night before returned. It’s still here. I have no appetite. It’s actually slightly scary. And from the outside, it looks like an extreme overreaction.

And maybe it is. But I think that I could not only feel how he felt, but since I related to some things he said so much, it dug out my pain and added it on top of his. Obviously we are two VERY different people. But there is something that connects us. A similar struggle, a hurt that binds us together. Not just me and Louis. Everyone.

In Just Hold On, it says,

“It’s not over ’til it’s all been said
It’s not over ’til your dying breath
So what do you want them to say when you’re gone?
That you gave up or that you kept going on?

What do you do when a chapter ends?
Do you close the book and never read it again?
Where do you go when your story’s done?
You can be who you were or who you’ll become.”

To me he’s saying, no matter how life disappoints you, and how many things don’t go to plan, don’t let that hold you back. You have a choice; to be who you were, or who you were meant to become. To give up when the chapter ends, and let that define your life, or to keep going anyway.

Listening to it last night, I imagined a line of people, strangers – people who’ve never met or even conversed – arms across each other’s shoulders, making one long line. Holding on. Making each other stronger. Being who we were meant to become. And opening our books and reading them again. Just Holding On.

(P.S. I’m sorry for coming back from not posting with this random post. I haven’t felt like blogging, but I needed to get this off my chest. And maybe this is what my blog will become. A place to dump my heart out when there is no other place I can do it. Who knows. Hope you guys understand. If you read this, I appreciate you. ❤️ It’s been a long time, so I don’t expect anyone to really read this, but I’m glad it’s out there.)

Is There Such a Thing as a Night Person?

Short answer?  Yes.  I am one.  Trust me; I know what it’s like.

A lot of people are might disagree with the above statement, and that’s fine!  This post isn’t written for you.  This post is for my fellow night owls, and for morning people who have night owls in their life and don’t understand what it’s like, but want to know.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so if you disagree with me, I’m not saying you need to leave (although you can if you want!), I’m just saying that I’m not writing this to start an argument.  I’m just #thinkingoutloud, and I thought it could also be helpful to some people.

Also, I want to say that since I believe there is such a thing as a night person, I also believe there are morning people.  I am related to several, some of whom it’s very drastic and obvious.  There’s probably also people in between!  Every kind is just as valid; I’m not trying to turn morning people into night people.  I know there’s a lot of articles on the internet to convince night people that they can be morning people if they try hard enough, and this is not the opposite of that.  This is me telling you it’s ok if you’re a night person, and that you don’t need to change if it’s working for you, and your priorities are being met.

For the longest time, even I fell for the whole line that you are what you choose to be.  And while I do believe you can make your body *adjust* to any schedule, I also believe that no matter what you do, your body is wired to operate one way or the other.  (Who knows, my opinion on this could change at some point; I do my best to keep an open mind to being wrong.)  I’ve always identified as a night person, but at the back of my mind, I thought I could change if I wanted to, and believe me, I tried.  (More on that later.)

For the last couple years I had an average sleep schedule. I’d go to bed around 10:00 or 11:00, and every now and then I’d be up till midnight if I was up late.  I’d get up around 8:00, and I was convinced my body needed at least 9-10 hours of sleep, because I couldn’t function well on any less.  Even still I felt really sleepy all day long.  I thought maybe it was what I was eating, but I experimented around, and nothing changed my energy levels.  (I can’t drink coffee because it makes me feel light-headed, and I don’t drink any other sort of energy drinks, either, so that’s not a factor here.)

Then, more recently, probably around the new year, I started staying up much later.  Basically what happened was, I made it a goal to do yoga every day, and to be more consistent with my bible reading.  I love doing yoga at night, and don’t really feel like doing it during the day, so I do it before bed.  (I did Yoga With Adrienne’s Yoga Revolution, which was amazing!!)  But I didn’t like sacrificing my late night time hanging with my family, or doing other things, so I just tacked it onto the end of my night, causing me to stay up extra late.  I started going to bed at 1:00, then 2:00, and now it’s closer to 3:00.  (I really want to get it back to 2:00, though.)

It wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that everything clicked for me, and I realized how much better I felt.  You know how sometimes when you get a cold, and then get better, but you’re coughing for weeks afterwards; then one day, you wake up and realize you haven’t coughed in the last couple days?  That was what it was like for me.  One day, I remembered how I used to feel all sleepy and draggy all day long, and now I feel so much more alert!  I can’t even describe it.  I ask you, who in their right mind would go back, unless you had a really good reason (work, baby, significant other, etc.).  None of which I currently have, so…you better believe I’m going to live this part of my life feeling great and staying up til 2:00.

While I’m here, though, I feel like I have to address something.  I didn’t intend to write a post centered around it, but it makes sense to talk about it here.  I saw this in an article called 25 Best Habits to Have in Life, and it not only irritated me, it doesn’t even make logical sense.

The author doesn’t seem to know what it’s like to not be a morning person, because the instructions they give are instructions on how to wake up earlier, not on how to become a morning person.  Being a morning person is being someone who functions best in the morning, and I don’t know how that is teachable. Even when I have a baby, I’ll be up early, but I don’t think I’ll be a morning person, unless, of course, my hormones change that.  Being/getting up early in the morning does NOT equal being a morning person.

I used to get up at 5:15 am.  It didn’t help my productivity; in fact, it hindered it.  I would work out, eat breakfast, and then laze around doing a whole bunch of nothing because I was useless.  No matter when I get up, my brain doesn’t work well until after 12:00 noon.  So, I can either sleep during that time, or be up and waste that time trying to do things and getting nothing done well.

Remember what I said about how I do my best to keep my mind open?  Well, when I get defensive, that’s my number one sign to evaluate.  Maybe I’m hearing something I need to change about myself.  And sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not.  When I first read this, I thought maybe this was one of those things I should change.  But not anymore.  Not right now, at least.  I feel so much better, and I’d 20x rather feel better than look like I have my life together by sleeping “normally”.

It bothers me that our culture values being a morning person as some sort of moral accomplishment, which is just silly.  It also sees it as a key to success, which I firmly disagree with.  But disagreeing changes nothing, and I’m afraid that until something dramatic happens, us night owls will just have to let comments like the above roll off our back.

Also, the world is just as quiet and peaceful while everyone is sleeping at night.  It works both ways.  Just saying.

Are you a night or a morning person?  Or someone who feels like they’re in between/neither?

How do you feel about this subject?

Girl Talk

Guys are welcome to read this if you want; I just wanted to give fair warning to guys and also to girls who aren’t into talking about periods, because that’s what I’m writing about today!  To each his own!

When you consider some of the horrendous things some girls have to deal with when they’re on their periods, I feel like I am pretty lucky.  Especially when I first got mine; for example, I didn’t ever get cramps.  Ever.  For the first several years, it was basically just the bleeding, maybe being a bit more emotionally sensitive and that was it.

About six years later, I went on a diet, which basically shut my entire body down, and although I lost weight, it was not good for my body.  I lost my period (big red flag, btw!  That’s not good.), and eventually went to the doctor.  The diet was what caused me to loose it, but another part of the problem was, I had hypothyroidism.  We worked to get my period back, mostly by treating my body in the way it should be treated, but also with supplements to make up for the hypothyroidism.  When I did get my period back, this time it came with more traditional symptoms.

To this day, however, I forget about that part of the deal until it comes upon me, and then I feel like a baby, because I’m not used to getting periodical stabs in the gut as I go about my day, and I usually gasp or moan.  (Remember what I said about being lucky?  I know other girls have it way worse, and I feel for you.)

Every period is different for me, and my symptoms seem to change with time.  Just when I get the hang of one, I guess, my body decides to change it up.  Keeps me on my toes!  Another thing that I find a bit odd, is that most of the time, the symptoms are only on the first day (with the exception of cramps…those don’t go away, although for me they’re completely sporadic.)

For a while there, on the first day of my period, I would feel nauseous all day, unless I had just eaten, so I would end up basically just snack all day long rather than eat “normal” meals.  It was just better than feeling sick all day.  (I would a lot of times just take as much of the day off as possible. #YouTubebinges  I don’t have a regular job yet, so don’t worry, I wasn’t calling in sick or anything.)

Then things transitioned to having this weird tight/achy feeling in my spine, like I needed to stretch it out or get it adjusted or something, but no matter how much yoga, stretching or cracking my back I did, nothing but time would make it go away.  (The yoga felt really good in the moment, though! )

I have a theory that winter is throwing my hormones off, because my periods started getting late (plus it happened last year as well), and so I randomly decided to take some vitamin D, because if it was winter causing the problem, that was the only thing I could think of that was the difference (besides the temperature, obviously).  I don’t know if it’s helped or not, especially since I’m not the best at remembering, but I think it might have?  It’s come back at least.

Anyway, this latest one I didn’t have any of my above usual symptoms, but it hit me really HARD in the emotional camp.  Like, ever since I got it back, and have had a more traditional period experience, I’m always more emotional during my period (I think…?), but this time.  Maaaannnn.  I can’t even describe.  It’s bad.  But at the same time, I kind of like it?  Is that weird?

I think it’s because I like to feel emotions deeply, and when I’m emotional because of my period it’s like having a megaphone that’s not available to me at other times.  I’m a pretty emotional person inside anyway, and although I can feel like I’m feeling things deeply when I’m not on my period, when I am on it, I’m like, no, this is the real thing.  Of course it’s not.  It’s basically being high on natural hormones, lol.  But yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with it.  You know, I think what’s annoying about it is because I feel like I can feel more deeply, but I can’t really control what I’m feeling, if that makes sense.  And I like first part of the deal, but not the second.

My period really played with my feelings this time, and it pulled from so many different areas.  It was almost like I could feel strings being pulled, which sounds super  weird, but it was literally like I could almost feel an internal marionette being played with, and all I could do was watch and enjoy with a morbid fascination.  Let’s just say, yoga was super helpful.

Anyway, enough of me waffling on feelings.  Sorry if this was TMI for any of you (girl or guy!).  I know this is very different than my usual style of post, but I just felt like writing about this.  I blame my period.  Ok, I’m shutting up now.

How do you feel about emotions/getting emotional?

If you’ve gotten your period, and are comfortable with sharing, what’s your weirdest period symptom?

Camera Roll Catch Up – Scenery & Artsy Shots – October 2016

Please take “artsy” loosely.  Some are legit artsy in my mind, but some are just ones I thought looked cool.  Not necessarily art.  Just wanted to get that out of the way.

The scenery on the way down was starting to change, and I got excited by the organized trees.

The sun & clouds were just so pretty & mysterious…plus, flat country!!

Can you see why I love it so much?  I just find it so refreshing.

I don’t remember what body of water this was, but I think we passed it on the way to San Francisco on our driving tour.  (Maybe it’s the bay?  Idk, it’s just pretty.)  California is just so photogenic!

We drove down Lombard Street (well, the famous, windy part of it)!!

I was trying to take a picture of the street, but our car was so dirty that it focused on the dirt.  Total fail…except when I was going through my photos, I thought it kind of looked cool in it’s own way.  Maybe it’s just me and my whacked artistic sense, and if so, I’m sorry.

This was the view from the Legion of Honor parking lot.

If you read my last post, you might remember we stopped by the beach on our driving tour of SF, and I couldn’t resist taking some sand pictures.

And then this kind of sand…(any beach smart people know why it does this?)  It almost looks extraterrestrial or something.

The ocean itself…so beautiful!  #takemeback

Seafoam… (why is that a greeny-blue color, by the way?  It just occured to me that it really would make more sense if it was a white!)

Several people had their dogs on the beach (one even came over and said hi to us!  It was a Rhodesian Ridgeback, which of course made me think of Will.), and I thought the paw-prints in the sand were just so cute!

This was where we pulled off to look at the Golden Gate on our driving tour.  I had already seen it, and although I did take some more pictures of the bridge itself, I also wanted to take pictures of the things around that were just as pretty.

I took an unofficial panorama of the area, and I really wanted to include them all, but I thought that would be a bit excessive, so I trimmed it down to two.

To be fair, I could stare at most of these pictures all day, but maybe it’s not the same for the rest of you.  (I’m jealous of everyone in the Southern Hemisphere who is having summer right now. )

This was on our way home, and I thought the city looked really pretty as the sun was setting.  (I believe it’s actually Oakland or close to, not SF.)

Taken on the ferry on the way into SF the second time of the trip.  I love the American flag against the water.

Brace yourself for some pictures of the Bay from the ferry.

We walked along the piers for awhile, just poking around and taking in the city.  We stopped to take a look at the ENORMOUS cruise ship that was in port, and we just so happened to be outside this restaurant/diner.  These stools were calling my name, so even though I felt a bit silly, I took a few photos.  I feel like I could have done a bit better, but it’s fine.

We decided to climb the HILL up to Coit tower, and to get there we took a shortcut through a beautiful park.  This actually wasn’t in the park, this was just along the sidewalk!

I love these trees!  It’s so random, but it makes me think of California, since we don’t really have trees like this in Washington.

This was the view from the top of Coit tower hill!  (We didn’t end up going into the tower itself because you had to pay/reserve or something.)  We had to climb so. many. stairs to get to the top!  (<-link to our vlog if you’re interested in seeing that!)  It was probably the most stairs I’ve climbed in one go, as well as the steepest.  It was actually quite mentally straining, almost as much as physically so!

Can we just say that going down was SO much easier than going up?  It was still surprisingly challenging, though.  There were these beautiful flowers at one of the levels, and when I see a pretty flower, I can’t help but take it’s picture.

I wasn’t going to include this, but I just thought it still looked cool.  I’ve always loved macro photography, and I always like to see how macro I can go with my iPhone.  It’s usually never quite enough to completely satisfy me, but this time I think it worked well!  I also have a random thing about wood.  Therefore, I bring you, our lunch table!!  (Also the lighting in SF…)

Besides the pigeons, we had this bird for lunch company, which I believe is a Starling.  (I always ask Hannah because she used to study birds for a period of time in her teen years, so she remembers that sort of thing.)  I feel like I didn’t like this bird, but I don’t remember why now.  Did he steal some food of mine?  Was he just being rude?  All I know now is, I like the picture.

This was the Bank of America building or something like that.  I don’t remember.  The little park outside it was beautiful, and I loved it.  (The park, not the building.  I mean the building was alright, but that park…)

How cool would it be if this was your Target?  It’d be lit, that’s what.  And I don’t even use that word.  I’m so jealous.

We saw this fountain on our way back to the ferry.  Some of us got a little too into trying to figure out how it worked, and got told off.  (To be clear, it didn’t say not to touch it, and we were being respectful.  Also, I wasn’t doing anything, because I was pretty sure it would be frowned upon.)  It sure was pretty, though!

Those are my good looking siblings in the foreground…and my dad & uncle even further ahead.   But I took the picture because I loved the architecture!

That’s the last picture from SF.  This was taken at a school nearby my aunt’s house (where we were staying), where they walk Kuma.  I was walking Kuma for them this time and it was so pretty, I had to get a picture, even though it doesn’t do it justice.  Why is California always so much prettier then Washington when it rains?  I mean, it’s not my favorite, but even I can appreciate how this is beautiful in it’s own way.

More pictures from the hike as promised!

I kind of like this house…it kind of surprised me, but yeah.  Soirry if this is your house.  I’m not a creeper!  I just thought your house cool & unique and thought the area was breathtaking.

The top of the hill…again I had an unofficial panorama, but I just picked a favorite so I didn’t swamp you with six pictures.   Like I said, INCREDIBLE view!!

Aaannnnd we came home to the picture on the right.  I took the picture on the left three days before we left, because it was pretty out, and then when I got home, I was amazed at the change that had taken place in 2.5 weeks, so I decided to recreate it so I could put them side by side.  Blegh, so wet & soggy.

That’s it!  See you soon with the next installment!!  I think we’re almost done!

Camera Roll Catch Up – Vacation Photos # 2 – October 2016

Have I ever told you that I love San Francisco?  Because I’m not sure you know that yet.  I fell in love when I was there in December (I promise I’ll come back and finish that series sometime!), and the only way you would know is if you follow me on social media.  So this is me telling you!  I was lucky enough to get to go twice when we were in California in October, once on a driving tour, once on a walking tour.  Our tour guide for the driving tour was my aunt’s mom, who grew up in the city, and so knew a lot of fun anecdotes.

On part of our driving tour, we stopped at the Legion of Honor building, and it had this fountain out in front.  Bunny had the idea of having me pose so that it looked like the water was coming out of my mouth.  I never think to take these kind of classic, touristy type photos, but it was a lot of fun, and I love the picture!  It makes me laugh every time I see it, because it makes me think of Bunny, and she thought it was the funniest thing ever, which it kind of was to us! 

Camera Roll Catch Up – Vacation Photos # 1 – October 2016

The title of this post is a bit of a lie, as I do have a few photos from before we left on vacation, but whatevs.  In the whole scheme of things, it’s mostly vacation photos, so it’s not really a lie, is it?  (Btw, I did split October into (hopefully) three parts: two general vacay posts and one with scenery & artsy shots. )

One *SUPER* exciting thing that happened in the two weeks of October before we went to California was, I WENT TO A CONCERT!!!!  My very first, actually.  It was for one of my favorite bands of all time, and the very first that I remember wanting to see live, Casting Crowns!  They were preforming with Matt Maher and Hannah Kerr, neither of whom I was familiar with before the concert.  (Matt Maher sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn’t listen to his music.)  My two favorite songs from those two are Glory Bound by Matt Maher and Warrior by Hannah Kerr.  Highly recommend checking them out!

Camera Roll Catch Up – August & September 2016

Are you bored yet?  I’m just going to keep chugging on assuming that you’re not.  Let’s go!

September:

Um, hi.  I’m just a unicorn, nbd.

I took this randomly one night right after the filter on MSQRD came out, and so I was playing with it again.

Happy New Year!!

I was going to write something to acknowledge the new year, and one day I had this great post idea, but then promptly forgot what it was, and couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.  So, after spending a week trying to remember it/get around to sitting down and writing something, here I am. 🙂

So yeah, Happy New Year!!  Hope you had a great time with family/friends.  2016 is not about to win any sort of prizes from me, and although I had some great moments in 2016, I’m not at all sorry to see it’s back and start fresh.  Let’s kick 2017’s butt, shall we?

I posted this on Instagram on NYE at about 1:00 am, and I thought I’d share it here as well.  It’s may be a bit personal to some, but that’s how I roll. ❤

Camera Roll Catch Up Pt. 2: June & July 2016

Ok, guys strap yourself in for lots of photos.  Like. Lots.  I don’t know how many, but there were TONS more that I wanted to share with you in the summer months than there had been from the spring.  Partly because the 4th of July happened in there, and I love revisiting that!  I’m all ready to do that again now, but I have to wait SEVEN WHOLE MONTHS.  Idk why I love it so much, it seems so random, but I do.

Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, because this will be long.  You might want to grab a hot drink of your choice, and find a heater vent to stand over.  Or a fire if you’re lucky.  But I thought it would be unrealistic that anyone would start their fire just to cozy up and read my post, whereas I stand over the heater vent and read blogs all the time.  Just me?  I also didn’t want those without a fire to feel left out. 😜

Camera Roll Catch Up: January – May 2016

I wanted to catch you guys up on what’s been going on in my life since *cough* the beginning of the year, and I thought that I could do that by going through my camera roll and sharing some unseen photos!  As expected, as we get further into the year, there’s more pictures that you haven’t seen.  To keep things somewhat organized I’m doing it in a month by month format, rather than just everything thrown in at random.  I’m not including my first trip to California, because I’m hoping *fingers crossed* that I will be able to come back to that once I’ve caught you up on the rest of my life.  I hope you don’t mind if it’s outdated by like a year. 😐

*By the way, before I get started, I thought I’d let you know that I updated my about page!  It was needing an update in a bad way, and I’m kind of ridiculously proud of it.  It’s shorter (although it’s still long for most people), better formatted and just more me.  I kept my old one and linked to it in case anyone was curious.  Feel free to check it out!  I’ll leave a link at the bottom as well in case anyone wants to read the whole post  and read my about.  Don’t feel obligated, I’m just doing for you what I would wish the blogger had done if I was reading!*