Adjusting Focus

I've spent the last couple months constantly on the move. Nannying part-time, trying to get 250 hours done for my internship, maintaining my physical health, and trying to find moments to myself have kept me busy. For the most part, I've loved every second of it. I was starting to feel fulfilled in life, starting to become a version of myself I was happy with. There was a sense of freedom and belonging I hadn't felt in a long time. Coming out and getting away from Rexburg was a huge burden lifted. But I write to you at 4am because I feel heavy. We all know the state of the world right now. Honestly, for the most part I've been pretty calm about it. I'm trying my best to do my part in flattening the curve, staying safe, keeping myself informed, etc,. Amidst all the chaos, I've found joy in the newfound hours I get to write and play the piano. All the memes make life a little more bearable and keep me laughing. I've been working out in my room to keep my bod...

Your body is a temple. It's a gift from God.  Treat it well.  Somewhere, somehow, at the age of probably 14, I decided my body was disgusting. It's a strong word, but it's exactly what I thought. I looked in the mirror, day after day, feeling like there was too much of me there. I wanted to be like the other skinny girls; I couldn't handle looking like the ones society labeled as 'big'. It set me off into a storm of tears and stomping on the scale.  I thought things were too tight on my body. I thrived when my guy friends would comment on how small I was. I loved when girls at school would say how good I looked. There was one morning I weighed myself and hated the numbers I saw on the scale. I sobbed and told myself I was too fat, that no one would ever like me, that I had to be better the next day. During my advisory period a boy told me I was skinny and I thought, "Oh, he thinks I'm skinny, so I must be. I'm doing okay." Followed by, ...

I've been spending a lot of my days at home, so to fill my time I've been playing the piano and writing a ton. I've been itching to write a new blog post, but I've been unsure of what to write about. I've played the piano for hours but left my laptop untouched because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, and to be quite honest there hasn't been a lot going on in my life to even write about... But one day I decided to dedicate a lot of my day to writing. 9 times out of 10 I'll listen to music while I write. I have a Spotify playlist dedicated to this work and then every so often I'll find some kind of "ambient' or "chill" playlist on Spotify to be inspired by and continue adding to my Writing playlist (this is seriously one of my favorite pastimes of mine). So, that's all one big introduction to the fact that the other night I was listening to some quiet music at around 5:30pm, sitting at the kitchen island feeling kind of inspi...

Wow. I sound like I'm writing a college essay or something with that title... Well, long story short, I decided sometime in early October that I needed to start doing physical activity if I wanted to be healthy. So I started running. I began just doing a mile and for a while I just tried to run a mile faster and faster each time. One day I learned that a 5k was about 3.1 miles. I decided that the next time I ran, I was going to just keep on running as long as I could, but at least try to get to 3ish miles. That was in November and my time was about 35 minutes. I signed up for a 5k and kept on running 3.1+ miles on the treadmill (which I realize now that there are better/more efficient ways to train for a 5k, but I really just went for it). Eventually my time got better and better, but, I was running on a treadmill where my pace was kept pretty steady for me. So when the weather got nice and I could run outside, I started to have a hard time. Eventually I just started off by runnin...