A New Start ✨

Let’s talk about the last year and a half. To say that it’s been a weird and challenging one would be an understatement.

The pandemic hit shortly after I found out that I was pregnant. By that time, I was already on sick leave from my job because I struggled with extreme nausea. I already felt slightly isolated at home, and then we really did become isolated. I felt very anxious about the fact that researchers had no idea how COVID-19 could affect pregnant women and their babies.
So we were extra careful, and we limited the people we met down to almost zero. In a time where I could’ve needed my friends and family more than usual, I suddenly couldn’t see and hug them like I was used to. It wasn’t the kind of pregnancy I had hoped for. I tried to focus on the beautiful miracle of the whole thing but found myself struggling with staying positive in the middle of it all. I was so scared all the time.
I was sick and lonely, but I was also very aware that I had it better than many other people in this world.

October came around, and little Noelle came into this world. Mikael could stay by my side through the whole ordeal (many other pregnant couples weren’t as lucky), and she was healthy and perfect. I wanted to share the joy with friends and family. We were lucky enough for the restrictions to have lifted a little bit by then so we could spend a little more time with family. That helped.

Christmas came, and it felt like I was on the right track to get back to my creative self, but then disaster struck. Our rescue dog became extremely jealous of the new addition to the family and tried to bite Noelle. After two episodes of obvious jealousy, it became clear that it wouldn’t work. It was so painful and sad. We had to say goodbye to a best friend, a member of the family. Luckily we had the option of him living with my ex and good friend, so we can still visit and see him. But not having him around was heartbreaking. When it came to creative projects, I had nothing to give.

2021 came around, and we found out that we had to move. The apartment we were renting had water coming up through the floorboards whenever it rained, and it would take quite some time to fix. We looked at new places in Oslo, but everything was so expensive, and we didn’t want to spend all of our income on rent.
The family reached out to us and gave us the option to live with my mom while we saved up some money and figured things out.
We were (and still are) very grateful for that!
It meant coming back to my hometown, closer to both of our families. And if there’s one thing that’s become painfully clear throughout this pandemic, it’s how much I craved being closer to my roots and my family.

We ended up living with my mom for three months. It was challenging for someone like me who needs their space and quiet time. And it was challenging for Mikael to live with someone else’s family for so long. I totally get that. We craved a space of our own and time to ourselves.
We now have that, and I will share more about that in a post soon!

But that’s not what I wanted to write about now. Instead, I wanted to share that the last six months have especially been really hard. I found myself in dark places of sadness and worry way too often, and I was slowly slipping into a bit of postpartum depression. More often than I wanted to admit, I found myself questioning all of my life decisions and beating myself up for not reaching all of my goals yet. There were a lot of tears, anger, and fights. I was not in a good place. We were not in a good place. The darkness was swallowing me, and the negative voices got so loud that I struggled to hear anything else.

But finally, after months of challenges and darkness, it feels like I’m slowly finding my way back to myself. It’s been hard, and I’m still working my way through a lot of stuff, but I’ve come to a place where I feel motivated to work creatively again.

I look forward to sharing more of what’s going on with you, lovelies! I’ve missed this!
So, I’ve gone back to the writing board, and I’m making plans for lots of content. There will be some changes, and there will be testing of new things, so bear with me while I figure this thing out. It feels like I’m starting from scratch once again, but I’m excited about this journey!

Any and all feedback is more than welcome and appreciated.💛 If there’s something you’d like to see more of, or you have any suggestions for future posts and themes, just let me know.

Take my hand, and let’s wander into the unknown.✨
And to all of you who’ve been patiently waiting for me, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart❤️

It means so much more than I am able to put into words!

I can’t turn it off…

Do you know what I miss? I miss the time when I could pick up a book, disappear into it, and leave the troubles of the real world behind for a little while.

And before I say anything else, I am very aware of the privilege it is to allow oneself to escape. A lot of people in the world don’t have the luxury of doing so. And the trouble that a lot of people face every day is a lot worse than what I’m writing about here. But I just want to share my thoughts today because I feel like my brain is boiling over soon.

For the last four days, I’ve been feeling anxious, worried, stressed, and sad. My energy levels are just extremely low and my body is making it hard to do anything but to stay put. And while I know that there’s a perfectly good reason for the physical limitations I’m going through right now, it feels like it is just making everything else escalate and get worse in my own thinking box.

I’ve been trying to read for the last few days, but my mind wanders to all the news and worries that are popping up. It’s like a horrible Jack in the Box that constantly keeps popping up, but instead of some weird clown, it’s showing me all the things that are going on at the moment in the world that we are living in and it scares me. To be honest, I would rather have the clown popping up any day!

I read about and see people who just blatantly disregard the regulations and recommendations to try to get control over a global pandemic. People are mourning close friends and/or family taken away from them because of a virus, injustice, or both. Leaders of certain countries are allowed to keep on leading even though they outright lie and disrespect the people that they are supposed to protect. People who treat other people or animals like they’re not worth anything. Women and men fearing to be honest about who they are or what they feel.

There’s so much sadness, madness, and injustice in this world. Usually, I’m able to reroute my focus over to the beautiful, wonderful, and positive things in this world, but in the last few days, I’ve really been struggling to do so.

It feels like my mind is filled with noise and dark imagery and I can’t turn it off!

I know that I’m very lucky to have so much love and so many wonderful souls in my life, I don’t think I would be able to cope with all this without them. And I know that I will get through this dark fog and come out on the other side to find the sun shining on all the good things once again.

But for now, I’m just trying my best to take the time needed, to not feel guilty about all the things I don’t have the energy or headspace to get around to, and to not be afraid of reaching out to the loved ones around me.

These are challenging times for all of us, and we don’t have to act strong all the time, even though it’s hard.

I love you guys for taking the time to read and watch what it is that I create and put out there💛 It truly means the world to me, and it makes the rough days so much easier to get through.

You are beautiful! You matter! And it’s okay to not be okay🌻

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🌻

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams 📚 BOOK REVIEW

Candice Carty-Williams

I read a hardback edition of Queenie.

Genre: Contemporary fiction, romance.

Publisher: Trapeze

Originally published: March 19th, 2019

Pages: 400 (hardback)

Audiobook length: 9 hrs and 45 mins.

Synopsis by the publisher:

Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.

My thoughts:

When I shared pictures of me reading Queenie on Instagram, I got a couple of DM’s from people asking me if it was true that Queenie was a lot like Bridget Jones’s Diary. I wasn’t aware that the two were being compared before that, but when I finished reading it, I saw that mentioned more and more.
I have to say (even though I think Bridget Jones is good fun and all that) that to compare the two is incredibly unfair to Queenie and to Candice Carty-Williams. Why? Because the two characters are so different! And the two stories are so different! Just because both books are about single women in London, doesn’t make them the same kind of stories.

Queenie is such a complex character and what she’s going through in this book when it comes to mental health and racism goes far deeper than the struggles Bridget Jones was facing in the fear of becoming an old spinster. I’m not saying that loneliness isn’t a subject that can be complicated and emotional, but Bridget Jones is not a book about mental health, at least not in my opinion.
And the big difference between the two is also that in Queenie we have a story that goes to some quite dark places, and that was something that I really appreciated with this story.

Dating in this modern age, with people walking around with all their own kind of bagage and own sets of issues, it can be difficult, challenging, hearbreaking and just downright frustrating and (at times) impossible to wrap your head around.
I’ve been there, and I know a lot of people have, and that’s why I think so many fall in love with Queenie and relates to her character so much. Even though you haven’t gone through the exact same experiences as she has, it is still easy to fing emotions and frustrations to relate to.

Queenie and her friends will make you frustrated at times when you read about the choices that they make (like having lots of unprotected sex and choosing dating partners that clearly isn’t a good match), but that is also what makes these characters feel more real. They make mistakes, they are imperfect, and they are trying so hard to navigate through a complicated and weird time in this world and their lives.

Queenie is a book with lots of humor, cringe worthy moments, diversity, exploration of mental health, friendships, love, and relationships for good and for bad.
It explores darkness and brightness and is also extremely entertaining! You can’t help but root for Queenie!

I would highly recommend Queenie to those readers out there who likes more complex and complicated contemporary/romance fiction. But it is not for the faint of heart! It was quite sexually graphic, and as I mentioned, it does go some pretty dark places, so that’s something to be aware of when going into this story.

💛If you buy via my affiliate links, I get a small commission 💛

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💛

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🖤

Here’s what I think about mornings!

Most days I wake up with sleep still lingering in my eyes, and my body feeling heavy from the trip back from dreamland and into reality. But I also wake up being grateful for the fact that I get another day. I’m usually excited about what’s to come.

It took me a lot of years to realize that every morning is a new beginning. And every day is an opportunity for anything to happen.

On the days that I have to leave early for work, it makes me extra happy to see the sun come through my window to greet me. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t love to stay in bed for a few more hours, but when I actually do get up, it’s rare that I do so without a hint of a smile on my face, even though it is a sleepy one.

On the weekends, I love waking up to the sound of rain. Knowing that I have nowhere to rush off to. I can turn up the music, dance around in my pj’s and just enjoy the moment. Or, I can crawl out of bed, get comfy with a book on my couch and just stay there. Sometimes I even go so far that I get out of bed to make my morning coffee, just to bring it back into bed and stay there for as long as I feel like it. Because even though I love new experiences and adventures, I also love to spend a day doing absolutely nothing remotely productive at times. Well, except for reading of course. And that in itself is kind of like going on an adventure. So maybe they’re not so far apart after all.

During the summer I like to bring my morning coffee outside, together with some fresh fruit, and just sit and listen to the birds. It’s a wonderful thing to just enjoy the morning as a new beginning to what is yet unknown.

I like to think about what I am grateful for in the morning. If I have the time, I will write down five things that I am grateful for in my journal. If I’ve snoozed for too long, I try to make a mental list instead.

Those are most of my days. But there are other days. Other mornings. Once in a while, I will wake up and feel overwhelmed by the world. On those days the morning does not feel like an exciting start to a new adventure. On those days it feels like the morning is a heavy demon that sits on my chest and refuses to move. I can ask it nicely, scream at it, fight it, but it just won’t budge. It will stay put, looking down at me and start whispering all the things I don’t want to hear.

Those days are hard. Getting out of bed is a challenge on days like that.

Whether you’ve experienced the same thing or not, I just want you to know that it’s okay to have tough mornings as well as the good ones. Life is hard. It’s challenging and it will test us. Not every morning can be filled with singing birds and gratitude lists. Some mornings will suck, and that’s okay. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let the bad days define you.

But I’m also here to remind you to be extra mindful of both the good and the bad mornings. Take notice of your feelings, and of what is going on in your life. Listen to your body, and to your inner voice.

Cherish the good morning! Learn from the bad ones ❤️

You Can Miss Someone and Not Want Them Back

“I miss him.”

“Why? He broke your heart? You know he’s no good for you!”

Sounds familiar?

Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s perfectly okay to miss someone and not want them back! If you need it, then I hereby give you the total freedom to miss that someone. Just try to not get completely lost in it, and make decisions that you know aren’t good for you out from that feeling. Because the missing someone, we can’t really control, no matter how much we’d like to. But we are in control of our actions based on the feelings we feel.

And even though a relationship ended for all the right reasons, or all the wrong reasons, there is a good chance that you can still look back on that relationship and see some of the parts that was good about it. You’re allowed to miss that. Often it isn’t really about missing that someone anyways, it’s usually about missing what that someone made you feel.

How you smiled more, how your heart skipped a beat, how you impatiently looked forward to the next time you would see each other again, and how your body reacted to that other person’s touch, sounds and/or smells. It is only human that when someone or something that took up so much space in your everyday life, suddenly just doesn’t, that it takes some adjustment.

I believe that we find ourselves again after every breakup, and that someone we find is naturally different from the one we used to be.

Because who are we are tend to change when you and I turns into we, and as a couple we tend do evolve together as well as on our own. And when that evolved entity breaks apart, we are left with a part that feels unfinished. We feel broken, and after the grieving and the worst of the pain we start the search, not for the one, but for the one we want to be. And that someone isn’t always the one we used to be. Sometimes it’s someone entirely different. Sometimes it’s finding a whole new you.

Well, I guess everyone’s path to walk and way to process is different, but this is how I usually experience going through a breakup.

And even though I am very grateful and happy or all the experiences that I’ve had, and how much I’ve learned from them, I still find myself missing the good parts of relationships that obviously wasn’t meant to be.

I used to beat myself up about it, but I try not to do that anymore. Instead, I let the emotions go through me, then I remind myself of the thing that I don’t miss, and afterwards I make a mental list of what I can take away from the experiences. What have I learned about the things I want (and don’t want) in my life and in my relationships.

Life is a constant education, and we have to try our very best to make the most of it. Because life is short and love is precious. People can be cruel, but they can be pretty awe droppingly amazing too.

So, don’t beat yourself up for missing someone you don’t want back. Acknowledge the fact that after everything you’ve gone through, you’re still able to see the good things in all the hurt. You love yourself enough to miss the warm feeling of your own happiness.

Give yourself a big hug (or imagine that I’m giving you one) and then get out there and make some new memories.

You deserve that happiness❤️

Sometimes Friendships End In Breakups

Friendship is a funny thing. Some last for years and years, while others for only a shorter period of time. Sometimes those who start out as acquaintances turn into friends, but other times it goes the other way around. Friends are so important to us all, but we also live out our own separate lives outside of the friendships that we have, and the time we spend with our friends will vary depending on how much time and energy we have on our hand.

Sometimes we will spend more time with certain friends than with our own family. Sometimes our friends become our family. Other times we are so wrapped up in work, kids, projects and such that we don’t get to see our friends nearly as much as we’d like to. There are even times when we don’t have what it takes to see them. When the state of our mental health is at a place where social interaction with even the people that we love the most feel like a struggle. And all of this is completely okay. It might be hard to deal with as the friend on the other side at times, just as much as the friend who’s struggling.

One thing that I find to be really hard is when I can’t really tell if a friend wants to stay a friend, or they want to move on. Just as romantic relationships sometimes come to an end, so do friendships at times.

But telling the difference between having a friend that’s just super busy, and a friend that maybe wants to move on without you, it can be hard. Maybe it’s mostly hard because it’s hard to let go. Especially when there’s a friendship that’s taken years to build. It’s hard to come to terms with all of that just going up into smoke.

Even so, there are times when the only right thing is to do exactly that; to let go.

It doesn’t mean that you would never let that friend back in, but when you’ve tried and tried again to keep the connection alive, there comes a time when you have to say;

“Look, I love you, but it feels like you’re not that interested in staying in touch at the moment and I don’t want to have to feel like I’m the only one trying. So now the ball is in your court. I will be here if you ever feel like doing something, but you’ll have to let me know if and when you want to.”

It might feel like a breakup. It might even be a breakup. But your life is short, and your time and energy is so, so valuable! Make sure you do not waste it. Set boundaries, and be honest while still being kind, not only to others, but to yourself as well❤️

Why I Deleted My Dating Apps

So, it’s been three years since I had my last long term relationship. Three years of self-discovery, dating, heartbreaks, experiences, new friends, lost lovers and dating apps.

But over a month ago, I deleted the dating apps on my phone, and today I’m going to tell you why.

But first, let’s talk about dating apps in general.

Did you know that a university in Texas did research on dating apps and mental health? And what they found was that a steadily increasing number of users experienced feeling less satisfied with their face and their bodies after using dating apps!

Dating apps have also been linked to depression and increased levels of anxiety.

And the worst part about all of this is that I’m not even a little bit surprised.

I’ve had an on and off, love/hate relationship with Tinder for the last three years. I’ve lost count of how many times I have deleted the app, just to end up reinstalling it a week later after a couple of glasses of wine and then finding myself swiping my way to sleep.

Now I’m not going to say that Tinder is all bad. I’ve met some amazing people through the app and had some incredible adventures. I also learned a lot about myself and what I’m actually looking for.

But the increasing dissatisfaction and lowered self-esteem, I felt that too.

After several let downs by people who claimed to be looking for something serious and later admitting to not be ready for something serious (which is a bullshit excuse to try to let someone down easy instead of being honest), ghosting, and downright weirdness, I was starting to feel my self-confidence drifting away.

I found myself feeling lonely and down more often. Going on first dates no longer felt exciting for a possible good outcome, but more of a complicated track to a potential letdown. My positivity to love and dating almost disappeared completely. And when I found myself not having a natural skepticism to new people, but having the expectations of them going to hurt me in one way or the other, that was the time when I knew I had to make some changes.

To be completely honest with you guys, the night I deleted my Tinder, I sat on my kitchen counter eating peanut butter straight out of the jar and crying my eyes out because I felt lonely. I poured myself a glass of my favorite whisky, started writing down a list of things I wanted to focus and use my energy on, and then I found my phone and deleted Tinder and Happn. I felt so relieved!

And because that was a low, lower than one I had ever reached because of dating, there was a feeling of that choice being more permanent than any of the other times I deleted the apps.

So, what happened after that night?

Firstly, I haven’t been tempted to reinstall it once!

Secondly, I felt my confidence and happiness levels slowly and steadily rising again.

And thirdly, my creativity flourished!

I found myself focusing more on the things that I truly love. And without the mood swings and hours wasted on trying to search for connections, I got so much more work done than I had in a long time.

To stop pursuing dating was the best decision I have made in a really long time!

Now I’m not saying that I will never date again, but I’m not spending my time searching for that next first date, the next potential connection. I’m done with dating being a way to pass time by swiping left and right. Life simply is too short for that!

So instead of spending time on dates that goes nowhere, I’ve traveled more, written more, and met some freaking amazing people! I’ve started taking myself on me-dates again like I used to do. I’ve found my confidence back, and I find myself smiling for no reason so much more often, just like I used to. I feel like I’ve found my way back to the me that I love, and to the creativity that I’m so passionate about.

I know a lot of people find their partners through Tinder and other dating apps, and I think that’s absolutely fantastic! The world needs more love!

But I have found that my life is better without dating apps in it❤️