tabitha(logy)

A friend of mine shared this with me today. It’s chock-full of reminders to live a healthy, productive, and practical life. Some of the stuff is advice I’ve given to friends. Others are things my mother has harangued me about doing (or not doing, as it were) in my life. And still others are things that I really value, but haven’t thought of in far too long. It was a good way to start the day, and remember that when it comes down to it, I’m living this life for me, and I owe it to myself to be as happy and healthy as I can be.

1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.  If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you.  You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot.  Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth.  And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2. Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on.  No, it won’t be easy.  There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them.  We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems.  That’s not how we’re made.  In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall.  Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time.  This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3. Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself.  Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.  Yes, help others; but help yourself too.  If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else.  Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you.  Don’t change so people will like you.  Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.  Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success.  You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us.  We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past.  But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.  Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive.  But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either.  You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.
11. Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place.  Evaluate situations and take decisive action.  You cannot change what you refuse to confront.  Making progress involves risk.  Period!  You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises.  Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely.  It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.  There’s no need to rush.  If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet.  Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you.  But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others doing better than you.  Concentrate on beating your own records every day.  Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16. Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own.  Ask yourself this:  “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you.  You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough.  But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past.  You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation.  So smile!  Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18. Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart.  You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate.  Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.”  It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.”  Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself!  And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too.  If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.  Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it.  If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.  Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things.  The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23. Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done.
24. Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile.  Don’t take the easy way out.  Do something extraordinary.
25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while.  You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well.  You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears.  The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life.  When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out.  But making one person smile CAN change the world.  Maybe not the whole world, but their world.  So narrow your focus.
28. Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy.  One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time?  Three years?  Five years?”  If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen.  Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story.  If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30. Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life.  Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.  Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.

From www.marcandangel.com

- Waking up this morning to sunshine and warmth (and not the sound of my alarm)!

- My students’ wanting to draw a flower on my wrist with henna today during tutorials, and respecting my request for them to later put it away.

- Rocking out in my car to Katy Perry’s “Firework” while driving through Seattle.

- Mike’s kissing my hand while we sat at a red light.

- Wearing yoga pants and cuddling up on a comfortable couch to watch some more Grey’s Anatomy.

Good!

- M and I have made some really great and important decisions about our relationship. Nothing is official, and there is no pressure, but I’m feeling great about where things stand.
- I’ll be living with Mike this summer - within the next three weeks, we’ll be together again after nine months of maintaining a long-distance relationship.
- My subletter is good to move in on the 28th, and is taking my apartment furnished, so my move will be much less stressful than those of the past.
- It’s a bit late to update on, but at work my coworker and I had been planning a huge living tribute in honor of a local Holocaust survivor who has had a great influence on our Center. The tribute went off without a hitch, and was wonderful.
- I’m down to my last month!
- I’m creating a unit plan for one of my classes, and am currently creating a thematic plan that focuses on “Identity in Literature and Writing.” The texts will include The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Catcher in the Rye, and Shakespeare’s “12th Night.” The writing will also include memoir.
- I’ve been watching the Shiba Inu puppy cam for the last four weeks. In hard times, adorable puppies have kept me going.
- I created a video for my Instructional Technology class. It’s not very good, and absurdly nerdy, but I’m also kind of proud of it.
- One of the members of my cohort created a really fun fall cohort t-shirt. They’ll be coming in around finals week. We’ll all be going our separate ways starting after this quarter, so it’s fun to have a bit of a souvenir.
- I don’t know if I updated about this already, but I’ve been back on my anti-depressants since March, and I’m so glad I did that for myself. I should have taken responsibility of it long before then, but the panic attacks have stopped, and the anxiety’s been greatly reduced. It’s fantastic being able to fall asleep again.

Meh

- M would really like to find a house to rent, but we’re under time and financial constraints. My hope is we’ll simply move into a bigger apartment, but the house hunt itself has been stressful.
- I’m living in limbo: my weekends starting this month are entirely in Seattle, my weekdays are spent balancing school, work, sleep, and whatever else happens at my apartment. My place is a mess because I’ve been sorting through stuff in preparation of the mood, and because I leave my place every few days, I haven’t properly gone grocery shopping in ages.
- Still struggling with diet and exercise. I joined a zumba class, which is fantastic, but haven’t gone at all this week because I’m trying to just spend as much time home as I can. Overall, I think I’ve lost about 15 pounds since last summer, but I’d still like to get a bit more in shape. Diet, though, is the main thing I need to work on, especially given the whole “I haven’t properly gone grocery shopping in ages” thing.
- I’m having a hard time motivating myself to go to my classes. Of the four that I’m taking, one is mostly worthwhile, one is somewhat worthwhile, and the other two are only marginally so.
- One of the girls in my English methods class is one of the most irritating individuals I have ever met. Ever. She has a whale tattoo, and got choked up this morning when someone criticized Disney. She also made some semi-racist remarks about being frustrated by the need to teach multicultural literature when the Anglo classics are the “building blocks of our culture, of who we are as Americans.” (Then she said nothing published after 1950 was worth reading, and then she complained about not having a list that will help her find good books.)
- Allergies.

The hard stuff
- Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of M’s father’s death. It’s hard to think about and process.

The Good:

- New quarter started last week! It looks as though this quarters’ classes will be far more intentional: I’m already seeing very thoughtful assignments, versus last quarters’ weird clash of lethargy, apathy, emotion, and tension that I felt riddled each text. And, though I’m not in a classroom for a practicum experience, I’m running around far less.
- With the new quarter comes the realization that I’m halfway through my graduate classes! I’ve got one more quarter of classes in the fall, then I’ll be student teaching in the winter and spring. I’ll have to take one last class in the summer, which I can take online, so as of September 2012, I should have my degree!
- Went to an improv show last night, which was really fun. Was able to hang out with M, plus a friend of mine from school and her fiancee. It’s nice blending worlds a bit.
- Had a lovely dinner date with a friend on Friday. She’s one of the people who has been keeping me sane throughout the graduate program: I’m always able to talk with her, and though we have ridiculously different backgrounds, we also often feel very much in sync with one another.
- Found out within the last five days that three of my closest friends have decided to move back to Washington. They had left after undergrad for various reasons, and are now, for various reasons, returning to the area. I’m thrilled, selfishly, because it means that my main support system will now be back within my immediate community.
- I’m back on medication for the depression and anxiety, which is important in and of itself, but I’m also happy that I don’t feel like I’m medicated. I didn’t have much of a transition, save for the first two nights of fitful sleep, after which I started taking it in the morning. I’m glad to be back on the “taking care of myself” track, and not in the “I’m depressed and don’t want to do shit about it” one.
- My spring break, though it feels like it was already a long time ago, was wonderful. Spent time on the Oregon coast, spent a few days with my parents, and was able to lay around and read, read, read. Thanks to Kindle’s free books and my awful addiction to cheesy romance novels, I think I read no less than nine books that week. Literary orgasms abound.
- I’m a program leader at a youth writers studio in town! I’ll be one of two interns leading the Teen Writers Club. Last Sunday we had a writing workshop. Three girls showed up, ages nine and ten, and we wrote about gorillas and flashlights and statues and all sorts of fun things.
- Had an Advisory Board meeting for work the other week, which my coworker and I were stressing out about. It went well, though, and everyone was receptive to our ideas and impressed by our work. Yay!

The Bad:

- The distance has been really tough with Mike. I don’t feel like nightly phone calls are cutting it any longer: we’re both tired from school/work, and it’s hard to feel like we have to dredge up things to talk about. Overall, we’re both getting better about having shorter conversations, but getting to actually speak with him for six minutes a night makes for an odd sense of disconnect.
- I still find that I struggle with living alone. I love the privacy, and I do love my apartment, but over the last few weeks I find myself just getting super restless and lonely in the evenings.
- Working very hard on losing weight, but I’m doing so unassisted, and it feels like it’s the one step forward, two steps back process.

The Ugly:

- I think I’m getting a cold. Ugh.
- This month’s schedule at work is going to keep me far busier than I’d like to be: I have a feeling I’m going to be in treading water mode from the 12th until the 27th.