The Year I Lost My Words

Word of the Year.

It’s been a tradition of mine the last few years. Choosing a word is a great way to select a focus point for that year. I’ve never liked New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because I just never seemed to be able to stick to them. But to choose a word to be mindful of throughout the year worked really well for me.
Last year I chose Writing as my word for 2020. I felt very motivated and ready for a year of writing, but then I got pregnant and felt so sick all of the time. And on top of that, Corona hit us, and when I thought that all of that would give me lots of time to work creatively and write lots and lots, the complete opposite happened. With the extreme lack of energy, traveling, and creative input of the outside world, I lost my words.
While watching the world getting sick and going mad while going through so many changes, I had a million thoughts going through my mind, but I was utterly unable to get them down on paper or screen. I tried again and again, but the few words I got out wouldn’t form into sentences. I would sit there and try until I got so discouraged that I gave up and went to do something else.
I’ve always known that writing has been a critical factor in my mental health, but I never knew just how much before I couldn’t write at all. It made me feel lost. I was already going through so many changes
that I didn’t quite feel like myself. I got worried, sad, and confused.

Who was I without my words?

I pondered over this while the world moved on. The virus kept spreading, my body kept changing, and the craziness of the world seemed to be escalating, and the words just wouldn’t come.
So, I decided to give my mind a break. I didn’t push the writing. I didn’t journal. I left my words alone and enjoyed other people’s words instead. For months I read and listened more than I usually do. I devoured fiction. Words upon words flowed through me as the world moved forward.

And then came October 24th, and little baby Noelle came into our lives.
The life we knew changed as we fell headfirst in love and into the baby bubble, surrounded by thick postpartum fog. Writing was the last thing on my mind, and I didn’t find much time for reading either.
But then something happened. Little Noelle had a phase where she decided she didn’t want to sleep at night, just take really short naps. And as I sat up at night while the rest of the house was sleeping, I had a lot of thoughts running through my mind. So I found an unused notebook, and on the first page, I wrote: “While You Weren’t Sleeping.”

I filled it with brain dump and poems about all of the thoughts, worries, and frustrations that my tired, sleep-deprived brain and body felt. And through all those nights, and all those tears. I found my love for words coming back. They started coming more quickly and more frequently, and the more I wrote, the more I started feeling like myself once again.

I still struggle a bit with getting started. Just this post had its first sentence written and erased about thirty times before I was able to keep going, but it’s progress!
I was worried that I’d lost my words forever, but they’re still here. I was waiting for them to find their way back to me, but I had to find them instead.
And now I find them everywhere, little by little.

Happy New Year! Happy New Writing!

Overwhelmed!

Overwhelmed is the word of the day!

As we are getting closer to our due date, sleeping through the night is getting harder and harder. To be honest, I can’t really remember how long it has been since I last had a night where I slept all the way through. I read somewhere that scientists believe that the reason why pregnant women wake up to go to the bathroom so many times at the end of their pregnancy is to prepare the body for irregular sleep patterns after the baby has been born. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Some nights I will wake up just a couple of times, and then there are other nights (like last night) where I had to get up four or five times. So, after that kind of night, my mind and my body were already a bit tired, and not in the best place possible when Mikael got up to go to work this morning. Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of getting up and starting my day when he goes to work, but today I just had to sleep in a little bit. I was so tired.

When I eventually did get up, I had a slow breakfast, showered, and made myself ready for the day. I had big plans to film a couple of videos and get some Instagram photos ready, but as soon as I was done getting ready it was very obvious to me that I had used the little bit of spare energy that I had left.

It started there. I started feeling down and overwhelmed by the thought of the things I had planned but didn’t feel like I would be able to do. And then my mind started to race everywhere. It went into full-on nesting mode again too, where I was starting to get stressed about everything I need to get done and ready for this baby’s arrival. And then I started thinking of all the things I worry about when it comes to delivery. And then I started to worry about delivering a baby in the middle of a pandemic. And then I started to worry about the pandemic. And so the spiral went, down, down, down, until I felt completely drained and even more overwhelmed than I had at the start of it all.

That’s when my mind went “Ahhhh! You’re doing that thing again where you don’t listen to your own body and you make everything worse for yourself. Allow yourself to have a human moment. Rest.”

So, that was the moment where I just let everything go and mentally removed all my plans for the day. I made myself a coconut latte and I started to write down what I was feeling instead, just to get it all off my chest. I definitely needed that.

The world is a scary and weird place to live in right now, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by that alone these days. So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, for whatever reason, I just want you to know that those feelings are so valid and important to listen to and process.
Take the time to rest, recharge, and have those human moments.
We all need them from time to time💛

And now I’m going to curl up on the couch with a good book, a snack, and just let today be what it is. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a little more productive and a little less overwhelming🌻

It’s not just a party when it’s in the middle of a pandemic!

I get that the time that we are living in now is uncertain and scary.

I get that sometimes you don’t know how to feel about it or what to do.

I get that you can feel helpless.

I get that you want to forget.

I get that you’re tired.

I get it.

I feel the same way.

💛

What I don’t get is the utter lack of consideration, understanding, and perspective.
You not knowing how to handle this pandemic does not give you the right to just ignore all the advice, throw huge parties, and risk people’s lives.

Now, let me be clear, the people that make me write this in total frustration and anger are not the few friends who meet up and have a good time while practicing social distancing. It’s those people (famous or not) who during a global pandemic decides to throw big parties and then have the audacity to brag about it on social media like it’s no big deal. Sharing pictures and videos of lots of people who are in no way socially distancing and partying like they don’t live in the same world as us where there’s a global pandemic going on!

I don’t get how some people can just ignore all the statistics. How some people seem like they think they are above all others. How they either don’t care or naively believe that they won’t get infected.
This virus can infect anyone, and most people are asymptomatic, so you might not be able to get an indicator of who has it or if you are carrying it around yourself.

There are families who haven’t been able to see one another for months, fathers/mothers who can’t be by their partner’s side while they are sick or are giving birth, people who are immunocompromised that have been isolated for months, partners separated by borders, and thousands of people dying every day!

What gives some ignorant people the right to just ignore that? I can’t even wrap my head around how they do it!

I know it feels like our lives have been somewhat put on hold for now, and if you feel sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, and/or unsure about everything right now, those feelings are completely valid. Blatantly ignoring regulations and advice to protect your own and everyone else’s health however is not!

Just another night in your life could mean the end of someone else’s life! Please remember that the next time you get invited to a big party!

Let the health workers, scientists, and politicians do their job. Save the partying for a later and safer time!

I’ll raise my glass in cheer when we can do so safely! Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and don’t act like a Covidiot!

The Need to Escape

This is a strange time to be living in. I know I say that a lot these days, and I’m definitely not the only one. And it is a strange time. We are going through something that we’ve never experienced before and that means we are in uncharted waters.

We had no idea exactly how we would react to something like this, and now we’re in the middle of it. I think most of us are trying our very best to do our part to keep people safe and healthy, and trying to stay sane at the same time. The latter can be harder than it sounds at times, and we all have different ways of coping with living through this pandemic.

As strange as I find this time, I also find it incredibly scary as well. I’m lucky and extremely grateful for living in a country where our leaders take the pandemic very seriously and try their best to keep us safe. I know many are not that lucky.
But even though we’re lucky to be here, this virus can take a hold on anyone. We’ve all heard about the healthy and young who gets infected and doesn’t make it through. Those stories stick with you, and they make you think about the risk and possibility of getting sick as well.

So, how do I cope? It varies from day to day, but one thing I’ve found is that I turn to books even more now than usual. It’s my way of escaping the reality that scares me. And let’s face it, we all need some escapism from all of this just to stay somewhat sane.

I’m so grateful for books and stories. For the written words that transport me into other worlds, universes, and lives, whenever I find this one a bit too frightening. And I’m extra grateful for them during this time.
Without the books that whisk me away, I believe I would’ve completely lost it.

So, don’t feel bad about not being super productive or creative all the time at the moment. Allow yourself to just escape through books, games, music, baking, dancing, or whatever gives you a break from all that is going on outside of your doors. We are only human, and now is the time to take care of each other, and our selves.

We will get through this, eventually💛

Hard to Read

As readers there are some books we instantly fall in love with, some we fall out of love with, some are slow at the beginning, some fades into nothing, some we power through, and others we give up on. 

There are also those books that are just hard to read, be that because of the language, the story building, our own interest, or something completely different. 

I’ve read books that are 500+ pages in no time at all, and then there are books that I use weeks on even though they’re just a couple of hundred pages. 

But lately, I’ve been reading some books that really take their toll on me. 

For those of you who’s been around for a while, you know that I love historical fiction and non-fiction based on World War II. I usually get through at least 2-3 every year, but for the last 6 months or so I’ve read a lot more of it. And even though I find the stories super interesting and I still enjoy diving into them, the stories of the Holocaust are so horrific and (often) graphic that it completely drains me. Some days I get completely engulfed in the story and can’t put the book down, other days I just need to read something completely different to have a little break. 

Why I need a break? Because reading about the cruelty and hardship of the Second World War tends to send my mind spiraling into a pretty dark place where I wouldn’t like to be stuck. 

It’s hard to place oneself in the minds of those who suffered, and in the minds of the people who were the cause of the suffering.

I think my interest when it comes to reading historical fiction and non-fiction about the war is the same as why I find True Crime so interesting. It’s something about trying to understand how people can get to a place and a mindset where they are overtaken by evil. A way of trying to understand how a mind like that works. 

Maybe it’s macabre, or just human curiosity, I’m not even sure. But the truth is that I’ve had to take breaks more often lately to read lighter fiction like children’s books or comics, just to get the darkness at a distance for a little while. 

That being said, I think that it’s extremely important that we read the stories that are hard to swallow. We learn from the echos of our history.

And even though some of the stories are extremely hard to read, they are amazing reads and I can’t wait to share some of them with you soon.

The Mist ● POEM

The monsters don’t hide in the mist

Beauty escapes into it

When the monsters get too loud

And when beauty returns

Changed by the mist

Beauty will fight back

With all the strength that beauty holds.

●

©Christina de Vries

Thanatophobia

I haven’t been feeling well for the last couple of days, and whenever my body is “out of balance” it seems that a little bit of my sanity goes with it. There’s just something about illness that makes me hyper-aware of my own mortality.

I am very much aware of the fact that we are all going to die at some point, and it is not the actual dying part that gives me anxiety (although I’m not particularly keen on that idea either), but it is knowing that one day I just won’t be here anymore. All that’s left will be whatever I leave behind, and the memories of the people around me that are still alive.

And when I think about that, I also start to think about what it is that I would be leaving behind, and the goals and dreams I want to achieve before the day that I leave.

This can either go two ways. The best-case scenario is that it makes me extremely motivated to get shit done, but the other scenario (which is the one I find myself in too often) is an overwhelming fear of not being able to get to it all. Fear of being at the end of the road full of regrets.

And then trying to wrap my head around that someday my thoughts and feelings will just turn into nothing, it turns into deep thoughts that I can easily find myself lost in.

Another aspect of death that scares me is the lives of all the people I love and myself to be taken away by someone else’s hands. We look at how the climate is changing, how the earth is getting fevers and getting angry, and most of all there are leaders with access to atomic weapons who shouldn’t be at a position of power what so ever. Looking at the state of the world when I’m already in a bit of a fragile place mentally, it can easily send me into a dark spiral of fear and sadness.

If I sit around and think about it for too long, I will eventually end up with a full-blown panic attack, and then end up isolating myself for a day or two to kind of reset my own brain. This is why I’m unable to watch movies about the end of the world. The sci-fi versions with aliens and so on are totally fine, but the ones that focus on plagues, the death of the earth or atomic war, it sends my mind into a very dark place where I don’t want to be.

The world is a strange, wonderful, and utterly scary place. I fear it at times, but I fear losing it so much more. I fear leaving it because I fear the ceasing to be because that is all I’ve ever known.

What I’m trying to say is that I often find myself scared, and embarrassed to admit it. So here I am, facing a personal fear by admitting one of my biggest fears.

Thank you for taking the time to read through my rambling of dark thoughts🖤

Dear Customer, You are Not Always Right!

Very early on in my career working in customer service, I was taught that the customer is always right! It took me a few years to realize just how far from the truth that was.
Let’s recap 10+ years of working in retail and customer service, devoting almost every day to pleasing other people.

I’ve had some pretty awesome people come my way. Customers with loving words, tears of joy in their eyes, flowers, chocolate, and even homemade apple cake.
I’ve also met a lot of smiles and compliments. I’ve even turned quite a lot of frowns upside down over the years. Sometimes it takes just a little, sometimes a whole lot.

Not to sound too cocky, but I’m good at my job. I know that. I’m not perfect, and I do make mistakes, as the human I am. But I do know that I do my best to try to give excellent customer service each and every day.

But there’s one type of customer that has me wanting to stop working with customer service altogether.

It’s YOU!
YOU who’s never worked directly with people or with customer service, so you have no idea what it feels like to interact with people as your job, so you walk all over us and expect us to meet your every need.

YOU who looks down on me because I don’t have a job that requires a degree (although I might very well have one for all you know) as if all my years in the business, all my training, all the hours, and all the hard work isn’t worth a damn thing.

YOU who think it’s okay to talk to me as if you own me. As if we have to do whatever you demand, no matter what your rights or the rules are.

YOU who think you can come in two seconds before closing time and demand that we stay over to help you, because your time is valuable, and ours apparently is not.

YOU who think it is okay to yell and be rude just because you are a customer.

YOU who keep saying things like “it’s just a retail job”, “she’s just a saleswoman” or ask us “so, when are you going to get a real job?”

YOU don’t have the right to undermine the talent of people who do the jobs that make your everyday life easier. The people that help you out are not yours to trample on like a dirty rug. So many of us do our job with pride, just as much as a lawyer or an accountant does theirs. And most importantly, we are no less human than the people with higher ducation, or the ones with millions in the bank.

We’re all humans who are living our lives, and we all deserve to be treated with respect.

So, to anyone out there who in any way recognized themselves as the YOU that I just described, please try to do better. Please try to not be the obnoxious person who makes talented workers want to quit their jobs.
And above all, just please, think before you speak. Try to picture how you would feel if someone said the words you are about to say.

There, I’ve vented my frustration and anger, instead of taking it out on someone who wouldn’t have deserved it.

Now, what can I do for you today?

The Word of 2020

With the change of the year comes the choosing of the word. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but instead, I choose a word that I want to define the year to come and what I want to focus and work on for the upcoming year. 

Last year’s word was Experiences, and I definitely had a lot of them. My life changed so much in 2019 that I found it a bit hard to choose one word for 2020. There’s so much going on, and so many things I want to do next year, but after having talked it over with my good friend Alex who had some good ideas, I finally landed on a word. 

My word for 2020 is WRITING.

Why? Because I need to really take the leap to get to where I want to be. Because writing is my passion, and I’ve wasted more than enough time on people and things that brought me nowhere close to my dream. Because it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Because I’m already a writer, and I need to commit to it!

I’ve been writing stories, essays, poems, pretty much everything, for as long as I can remember. There’s always a notebook in my purse or a writing app (more like 5) on my devices. I used to write scary stories (that wasn’t really all that scary, but did have ghosts in them) as a kid and gift them to my grandparents. And ever since that time, my biggest dream has been to write for a living. 

I’ve started countless stories, finished some, written a whole lot of poetry, sold an erotic short story, wrote post after post, and I’ve been collecting ideas for new stories that I want to write. 

This will be the year where my main creative focus will be to write, and write, and write!

2020, let’s do this! 

What’s your word of the year?

What the Freckle?

Last week I was reading the news on my way to work, and there was this piece that stood out to me. It was about a ZARA campaign with a beautiful Chinese model who had her face covered in beautiful freckles. This campaign apparently got such an amount of backlash that it ended up as news all over the world, because to most Chinese people freckles are considered ugly.

Nope, I’m not making this up! But I almost wish I was.

I know the beauty/fashion industry is filled with outdated “rules” and beauty standards, but I really thought that people, in general, were past the point where we just accepted one kind of look.

How dare some people to look at what’s natural on someone else and speak up to call it ugly? What makes them think that they have any right to?

It made me so angry, and so frustrated! Being a dedicated part of the body positive community, it’s so much more than sizes and shapes. It’s all about being happy and comfortable in the body and the beauty that we carry.

No one should ever be able to tell you that the way that you were born is the wrong kind of pretty! Let me put a truth bomb out there;

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS THE WRONG KIND OF BEAUTY!

We all have different preferences, but that’s not the same. It’s still beauty, even if it is a kind of beauty that might not tickle your fancy. But everyone’s looks, bodies, and beauty is not made to please other people, or to allow them to voice a dislike of it.

The beauty that is you, is perfect! It’s perfect because it’s who you are! You shouldn’t be a product of what media and industries want you to be! You being here is the most perfect wonder of all!

Don’t get fooled into the lies they try to push down your throat, just for them to make more money off of insecurities. You are more than enough! You’ve always been more than enough!

You are beautiful, and I dare you to tell yourself that every single day! Every time you look in the mirror!

I’ve always loved the way the sun brings out my freckles, ever since I was a little girl!

And to the people that feel like they have a right to say that freckles are ugly, my own freckles and I would like to say; SCREW YOU, and YOU’RE WRONG! Freckles are beautiful! I even add some extra from time to time, just because I feel like my own freckles deserve a little sparkle!

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