I’ll be honest, because I never want to be anything else with you guys. The thought of writing and publishing a post yesterday stressed me out. I had a million different things happening in my head, a ton of homework, a lot of people to pour into, and a lot of writing to do. The reality of putting up a post yesterday afternoon was really hard for me.
But then I realized that my subject matter completely contradicted the mental and emotional state that I was in. I was going to write about loving on and taking care of yourself in spite of schedules and conflict. Who am I to write about that and not take action on it? So yesterday I took care of myself and took things slow. Thus, now you have a properly done message about taking care of yourself.
During the first half of November, I wrote a grand total of 8,000 words. That’s not a lot for 15 days, especially when the target for the first 15 days is 25,000 words.
I’m just gonna say something that I don’t quite know how else to say. Can we just stop romanticizing the overworked lifestyle? The world needs to take a moment and just be still.
I never want to be the person who is defined by how little sleep they’ve gotten. I don’t want to be the person who treats busyness like it’s a competition. I mean, think about it. We go through these dialogues every day. “I have so much to do, I’ve been feeling so stressed out lately. I’ve got to finish cleaning and write a paper.” “I totally get it, but I have three midterms to study for and I have to write a paper and two speeches and fit grocery shopping in there somewhere and also I’m sick.”
So can we just take a moment to stop working toward an overworked lifestyle? Let’s start romanticizing self-love and taking care of your body instead of late nights and long projects and cups of coffee that are out of necessity instead of luxury. Let’s make long baths and strong cups of tea cool again. We all say we want to read more, so let’s read more. Let’s make an effort to spend time with people we love, rather than with people we feel like we have to like.
This Friday, I challenge you to stay. Show up for someone that you’ve been too busy for. Trust me, they’ve been waiting for you. I challenge you to meet up with someone and not talk about how stressed out you are. I challenge you to sit in a lukewarm bathtub and stay there until your fingers feel like raisins and just think about how lucky you are.
So that’s my point. I’m behind on nanowrimo because I’ve made love a priority in my life. I’ve been out of town a lot for various reasons, and during the time that I’ve been home, I’ve been intentional about loving myself and pouring into other people. Aside from that, I’ve been writing for the joy of writing rather than trying to meet a word count goal.
It’s November 18th, and I’m at 12,000 some words. I’m going to try to meet the word count goal, I’m going to push myself because I am devoted to my art. But more than that, I’m going to continue to fall in love with this story. And if being in love wit this story isn’t enough to push me to the 50,000 word mark by November 30th, then that’s the way it is. But it will be enough to get me there eventually.
So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some writing to do.
Make some tea. Maybe get some orange chicken. I don’t know, whatever you need to do. You deserve it. Please don’t forget to love yourself. xx
dear west coast 