Hi again

So, um, I didn’t mean to take a month-long hiatus. (My overachieving self actually feels very guilty about letting that happen.) But life has really knocked my legs out from under me lately. My job has been grueling and chaotic, time for rest has been limited, and preserving that has further limited time for other things I enjoy. Last week I intended to write a post and then got horribly sick instead. (Apparently after too long of pushing my body beyond reasonable levels it revolts.)

I don’t have a grand lesson out of all of this. I’m still just trying to make it through to tomorrow, and then the next day. I’m trying to take care of my body the way it takes care of me. I’m trying not to measure my worth by how much I achieve or whether it’s A+ work. I’m trying to be honest without drowning in negativity. I’m trying to notice my fears and worries, and to hold them with an open hand. I’m trying to find peace in whatever brief moments I can.

It’s important to me that this blog not just die out because I got busy (I’m always busy). But it’s also important for me that there be some flexibility and room to take breaks as needed. So posts might continue to be a bit inconsistent, and that’s okay. I’m still grateful for all of you that read them, and love being able to write them.

I would also love to hear any topics that y’all would like to hear more about — on my own, especially when tired/busy, I tend to run repetitive. Let me know in a comment below or on Twitter @ohgrowup. Thanks for reading, and good luck adulting.

(Photo is a free stock photo because I’m not getting up quite early enough for these views anymore.)

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Calm the [bleep] down

Okay so we are 9 days out from my wedding (!!!), and while I am enormously excited, it seems like everything in my life decided to get really hecking busy at the exact same time. Literally all of ‘em. Work, wedding, the water leak in my apartment that turned into big holes cut in the drywall.

Luckily I’ve got great people around me and we are making do, making it happen, etc. in all areas. But that doesn’t make it magically not busy, or not stressful. Some of the things are worth getting a little worked up about. Last weekend was crammed with wedding stuff. Tuesday I woke up at about 7:10 and then remembered I had an 8 a.m. meeting at the office. Still, the adulting lesson I’ve been working on lately is that the stakes are lower for most of this than I often feel.

Being a Type A, organized-to-the-T, enneagram 1 person, my default mode is not what most would describe as overly chill. In a lot of ways, it’s really helpful. We’ve got a fairly intense Google Drive folder for the wedding, despite the constant stream of new adventures at work I manage to remain organized and at least decently on top of things, and I can usually find whatever I’m looking for in my apartment. The downside is that it feels like everything is urgent and that if it’s not done as perfectly as humanly possible, that the whole house of cards might come crashing down. Not exactly a recipe for relaxation.

Maybe I’ve finally started listening to my fiancé, or maybe I’m actually starting to grow up in this area, but lately I’ve been able to occasionally pause the stress, mentally lower the stakes, and calm down.

There is a balance that we each have to find of being chill/letting things happen and getting stuff done. But even when getting stuff done, not every single decision has to be fretted over and examined in excruciating detail. My job does not involve any life-or-death situations, so while there are a lot of urgent things going on right now, I do what I can, and then leave it be at the end of the day.

The wedding is very soon, and has involved a lot of big details and important decisions, but when it comes down to it, I’m just excited to celebrate with so many people I care about. The rest is icing.

Reminding myself that none of these situations include saving lives or rocket science — plus a few deep breaths and learning when to take a break — has proved incredibly helpful in the last few weeks, and I’m counting on it for the next 9 days.

Bonus thing that helps remind me to calm down is this scene in a show called Schitt’s Creek (seriously watch it if you haven’t yet) where David, one of the main characters is stressed out over potentially making a mistake and his sister Alexis just keeps telling him that no one cares. At first it seems flippant and dismissive, but he finally realizes that all she means is that it isn’t nearly as big of a deal as he believed it was, and therefore can finally relax and get through it. So on really crazy days you may occasionally hear me muttering, “No one cares, David” under my breath.

What helps you the most when everything starts to pile up? Let me know in a comment below, or on Twitter @ohgrowup! Thanks for reading, and good luck adulting!

 

P.S. I’m still going to try to get a post out next week, but after that I’ll be stepping away for 2-3 weeks while I’m on my honeymoon and actually relaxing, instead of just squeezing a little calm into the chaos.

(Photo is a free stock photo because just looking at it is like 10 minutes of deep breaths or the bliss of my weighted blanket.)

We should hang out soon

We’ve all said that one a lot and then never actually made plans. It’s normal. We’re busy. As an adult you no longer have the confines of school to encourage and facilitate social interaction. But it can be a bummer when we really do want to make plans with friends and it just doesn’t seem to happen.

This has been a particularly striking topic for me lately, mostly because I don’t have many friends in the area I’m living. I have roommates (who thankfully are also friends) and like one other friend. Three other old friends live back near my family, a couple of hours away, a few friends live in other parts of the state, and a lot of friends live in different states or even countries. It makes casual hangouts kind of hard.

That being said, carving out time to spend with friends is super important, and something I’ve been trying not to let slide. I got to see some friends from college a couple of weeks ago, which reminded me how much I missed being able to take trips and do things with a group of friends. And a couple days ago, an annual trip with a different group of friends got booked for later this summer, which I’m super excited about.

So what’s the trick to making plans with friends actually come together amidst busy and often very separate adult lives? The bad news is there isn’t one answer. But these are some of the things I’ve found most helpful:

• Group texts – Yeah, yeah, I know how annoying they can get. But they also keep us together, even if it’s just through sending memes
• Social media – I know we can’t always hang out, but I do like seeing what you’re up to (at reasonable levels of posting)
• FaceTime/Skype – Y’all, Google Hangouts are how my boyfriend and I made long distance work through 4 years of college. Now, I try to FaceTime friends on occasion so we have a chance to catch up even if it isn’t in person
• Meeting in the middle – Maybe a friend lives just a little too far to be a convenient quick trip, but you can always meet partway and spend some time together
• Offering food – If I’m inviting friends over to my place, I always sweeten the deal with food. We usually cook together, which gives us something to do, and then it’s a meal they don’t have to otherwise worry about
• Reunion trips – That’s the one I’ve got coming up this summer. It will be our sixth year doing the same trip, and every time is different but it’s always a perfect chance to hang out and relax, especially since we don’t get to see each other super often anymore
• Find an excuse – Maybe it’s someone’s birthday or something bigger like a wedding, but creating an additional reason to get together can help keep plans from falling through quite so easily
• When you say, “let’s hang out,” ACTUALLY MAKING PLANS – This is the one that I’m worst at. If we do not make plans right then and there, I will probably forget and we will probably not hang out anytime soon. So let’s set something up

What are your favorite ways to make sure you spend time with friends? Let me know in a comment below, on Twitter @ohgrowup, or Instagram @oh.grow.up! Thanks for reading, and happy adulting!

Go the heck to sleep

Good morning — how did you sleep? Hopefully at least pretty well, but I’m guessing not as long as you might have liked. I don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to getting enough sleep. It’s probably a safe bet that you don’t either. Especially when the National Sleep Foundation suggests those age 18-25 need 7-9 hours per night.

Emerging adults are busy. We’re tired. Many of us are overworked. Most of us have to make time for things we enjoy doing, which often means sacrificing sleep. College in particular is notorious for ruining any good sleep patterns us young adults might have been holding onto. Ridiculous homework problems, studying for exams, and writing papers — not to mention actually doing fun things — all pull away at our time until there’s not enough left for a good night’s rest. Junior year of college, I would get back from work at 4:30 in the morning, just in time to say hi to my roommate as she headed out the door on the way to her own job. Or I would get up between 5 and 6 to finish an assignment just as my boyfriend was texting me goodnight after finally finishing his homework. Of course these are extremes, but they’re not anomalies.

Staying up late and getting up early can feel like the only way to fit everything in; and sometimes, that’s true. But it’s not sustainable, and I am slowly being forced to admit that getting extra (read: enough) sleep at least helps with almost every problem I encounter during the day.

The obvious is just being tired. Sleep kinda helps with that. (However, this actually only works if I have a consistent pattern of at least close to enough sleep, and also don’t make a habit of oversleeping. For me, the ideal is about 7.5 hours.)

Appetite and energy. If I get insanely little sleep, all I want to do the following day is eat. But if I’ve been getting poor sleep for a while, it actually throws my whole appetite out of whack and I don’t eat enough. Following that, my body metabolizes food better and actually feels more capable when I get adequate sleep consistently.

Skin. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve struggled with acne for a long time. There are lots of things I do to try and mitigate it: drink lots of water, wash my face every morning and night, wearing makeup infrequently, etc. But I’ve realized that even if I am religious about doing all of those other things, getting too little sleep will override it all and cause me to break out. Which sucks. But it means that there is a straightforward, even if not easy, way to help.

Mood. It’s not a secret that people are cranky when they’re tired, and virtually no one is entirely immune to it. But prolonged seasons of poor sleep can aggravate more serious mood imbalances, and make it extra difficult to deal with things like depression and anxiety.

I fully realize and admit that sometimes more sleep isn’t a realistic option, or that something else takes priority. But your body can’t function on emergency mode forever. Different people need different amounts of sleep, and there are tools like the ones offered by sleep.org to figure out what works best for you. So whether it’s 6 or 8 hours a night, taking naps or going to bed early, it’s crazy what a difference a good night’s sleep can make.

Getting enough sleep may not make mornings fun, but for me at least it makes the day way better. Feel free to share thoughts in a comment below, on Twitter @ohgrowup, or Instagram @oh.grow.up! Thanks for reading, and I hope your day is restful!