Tag: #struggling

things I’ve learned during a global pandemic


People are incredibly stupid and selfish.


They can also restore my faith in humanity.

The amount of love and support sent to me and my coworkers in the healthcare system has been overwhelming.


My life didn’t change all that much. #introvert


Chick-fil-A is still the GOAT.


Quarantine makes weird things happen.


Life is short. Tell people you love them.


Health is important.


Toilet paper is important.

Grocery store workers are hero’s.


I can actually cook.


The world can truly change overnight.


I like to bake.


My husband and I have vastly different opinions on things.

Books will forever be my escape.


I will never again take my nail salon, hair salon, esthetician’s, etc for granted.


I can’t paint nails.


Music is healing.

Workouts are therapy.


The power of Jesus even when churches are physically closed.


There is a reason I don’t buy junk food.


The amount of Pringle’s my household can consume is embarrassing.


The things I’m possessive over.


I can and will cry if someone eats my Pringle’s.


Learning a new instrument is humbling.


How to channel my little brother’s worst case scenario question asking.

I’m angry. About a lot of things.


How important hugs are.

The controversy masks cause.

I love being an aunt.

Social media and news outlets lie.

The world is a scary place. I already knew this, but this global pandemic has reignited my apocalyptic survivor obsession. If I had my choice though- I pray I get taken out in the first wave. 2020 was supposed to be a huge year. I guess in some ways it still has been. Fear and unanswered questions has plagued my friends and family. Tragedies and unimaginable things have happened. Uncertainty, loss of jobs and income, social distancing and masks are the new normal. Even though my day to day life didn’t change all that much, I learned how much I took for granted. Quarantine changed how I envisioned the year, but it also brought me things I never would have had without this new normal. It’s challenging because there isn’t a clear end in sight. Things seem to be getting worse, not better (at least in my pessimistic outlook). I do, however, believe that there will be light at the end of the tunnel soon. I hope I can remember to stay flexible and be molded with the lessons I learned during Covid once I find the light again. To be brave. Selfless. Resilient.

And always buy wavy Pringle’s each grocery trip.

Xoxo,

Jojo

when you lose your best friend

When you lose your best friend…

Let me start off my clarifying- this is not a letter to my “ex best friend.” This isn’t some angry letter because of a fight or growing apart. Nothing like that, at least not in this case. This is the heart wrenching, can’t breathe, worst feeling in the world lose your best friend thing.

“Losing a best friend is like losing air. It’s painful and slow and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just watch the world disappear.”

Sometimes life just really sucks. One bad decision can ruin everything. One mistake in a moment of weakness can change everything. And that is what happened. My best friend did something stupid, and she is paying greatly for it. But that one moment caused a ripple that soon became a tidal wave trying to destroy everything in it’s path. One mistake shouldn’t define a person. One mistake doesn’t define a person. To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.

But sometimes, some people can’t see past that mistake. And you are forced to make hard decisions. You choose the option that you can’t live without. That option being losing you as my best friend. I wish we had a big falling out, or we simply grew apart. I wish we had an irreconcilable difference. I wish we had anger, because I can handle anger. But we don’t, that’s not the case. We both just have broken hearts.

“Promise me. That’s all I want. Just a promise that you will never forget me. Tell me I changed you somehow. Let me know that I had an impact on your life. Promise me that you will always remember me. You won’t forget our laughs, our jokes, our smiles, our conversations, our plans, our tears, our memories, our experiences. Our friendship.”

The best kind of people are the ones that come into your life, and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds. The people that believe in you so much, you start to believe in you too. The people that love you for simply being you. The once in a lifetime type of people. I’ve never had a friend that just clicked instantly- especially since it made no sense. For once in my life I had a friend that understood my anxiety and depression without having to explain. (and tummy issues). I’ve never had someone that just got it, because they struggled with it too. Every single thing about me.

I feel like I’m dying. I can’t sleep again. My anxiety is trying to consume me. I cry all the time. The only person I’ve ever met that just gets it from a single glance, I can’t talk to anymore. I feel so isolated and alone. I lost my person and I can’t even grieve the loss of that friendship without if effecting my marriage. It’s not that I don’t miss hanging out or all the stupid things we planned for the future, because I do. But I miss most having one person that understood and was there for the bad. My person that stood with me in my darkness.

“I know you’ve lost someone and it hurts. You may have lost them suddenly, unexpectedly. Or perhaps you began losing pieces of them until one day, there was nothing left. You may have known them all your life or you may have barely known them at all. Either way, it is irrelevant- you cannot control the depth of a wound another soul inflicts upon you.

Which is why I am not here to tell you tomorrow is another day. That the sun will go on shining. What I will tell you is this; it’s okay to be hurting as much as you are. What you are feeling is not only completely valid but necessary- because it makes you so much more human. And though I can’t promise it will get better any time soon, I can tell you that it will- eventually. For now, all you can do is take your time. Take all the time you need.” -Lang Leav

So I’m praying time will heal all the hearts involved and allow a third option to magically appear. I’m trusting in God’s timing and His plan. I’ll (try) to be patient in my waiting.

xoxo,
Jojo

Same man, same. 

Feeling Like A Stranger in Your Own Skin

Feeling like A Stranger in your Own Skin

Do you ever feel like you don’t know who you are? Like a stranger even to yourself? Like the blood flowing through your veins is alien. Do you ever feel like the pounding of your own heart is unbearable? Does your mind ever feel like the thoughts in your head are so loud you claw at your ears just to have a moment of peace? Do you feel so detached from the world that you can’t even bring yourself to cry?

I was sitting at my computer drinking some ginger ale because my stomach is feeling uneasy. Actually, it may be more accurate to say my whole being feels uneasy. I think I have a sinus infection or a cold or some other lovely ailment. I started writing a blog about weddings. My dad’s wedding, one of my best friend’s weddings, and my own wedding. I started writing and as soon as I did I had this bizarre feeling. It was like my body wanted to cry but I was physically unable to. I’ve never not been able to cry. I actually cry all the time. I cry in movies and TV shows, I cry writing letters, I cry reading books. I cry talking about my feelings, I cry when I can’t make up my mind on decisions, I cry when I’m happy, I cry when I’m mad, I cry because I feel like crying is good for the soul. But today, I can’t. I sat back and tried to access my mood, and I came up blank. I don’t have an adjective to describe how I am feeling right now.

I walked to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face and take a few deep breaths. I looked myself in the mirror and I just had this overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity and indifference.  It was like I was just detached from my own self. I woke up feeling a little off, maybe even a little sad. My morning didn’t get much better when I discovered my poor puppy got sick in the middle of the night and threw up five times all in different areas of carpet. But I’m a nurse so a little bodily fluid never tarnishes my whole day. My mood just got weirder and weirder throughout the day.

I should be happy. I should be dancing around in my beautiful wedding dress that came in the mail yesterday. I should be a lot of things, like I am most days. But today, I’m just not. My anxiety has been flirting with me lately. I’m not sure if that is where my mood today is stemming from or not. I’m not sad. I’m not frustrated. I’m not angry. Those things may be a little easier for me to grasp. I’m not familiar with this strange way I’m feeling, so I’m not sure what to do to snap myself out of it. A couple years ago, I could have popped a few pills or made a pretty little line on my arm and I could be brought back to my reality. My way of dealing with any and everything. Naked truth: sometimes I think life was so much easier then. I sometimes envy the girl I used to be.

Today I’m struggling. I don’t have any reason in the world to feel this way, but apparently, my brain didn’t get that memo. I usually feel too much. It is both a blessing and curse to feel everything so very deeply. My heightened emotions make the dark days seem all consuming but then allow more joy and happiness than I thought was possible for a person to have in one lifetime. And each day usually gets better than the next. But this is different, much different. I don’t know what it’s like to not have deep emotions, even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely. I don’t know what to do with that. So today, I struggle.

 

xoxo

Jojo