Yesterday was a big day in my process towards becoming the happiest and most fulfilled version of myself before my 30th birthday. I started out the day by loading up my friend Mikey's truck with trash and clutter and recycling that I had removed from the house and the front porch. It was a lot of stuff that had been in my way, items that no longer served me that were literally blocking my path from my front door to my porch to my steps leading to my car. When I had only a scooter, I had no way to take these items away, and then once I had a car again, it grew to be more than I really thought I could fit in my car. Finally last week, I reached out to Mikey and asked if he would come help me haul it all away in exchange for a night of babysitting his daughters.
So much came up while I was loading everything into the back of the truck. I had a lot of anger sneak up on me. A huge portion of it was his stuff, his trash, his cans and bottles that needed to be recycled. I was feeling resentful for having to pick it all up and clean up another person's mess. Then I realized I was actually really angry at myself for allowing it to sit there for so long....for allowing it to be something that stressed me out every single day I saw it.
About mid-way through the process, I picked something up and a wasp flew out of it and stung my right hand. It is so swollen right now that I can't bend my finger or move my hand very well. It is my middle finger, so if you see me around town today, please excuse me in advance for flipping you a bird. It isn't intentional. There was something that felt very symbolic about the wasp sting in the middle of this giant purging process...I haven't quite worked that symbolism out yet though. Maybe it was to pull me out of my anger spiral? Although I've been reading that it is important to allow yourself to be angry when grieving. In the
Codependent No More book, she writes that we have to stop thinking of anger as being a bad feeling or something that is wrong to feel. You are allowed to feel anger. You just shouldn't let it consume you, and you aren't allowed to dwell in it for too long. I am not an angry person, so it has been a challenge to allow myself to feel this particular emotion. Maybe the wasp was meant to rile me up even more, so I couldn't stop feeling angry, so I'd
have to walk around with a big swollen middle finger to the world for a few days? Ha.
So, we got everything loaded and drove it to the recycling center, and what couldn't be recycled went to the dump. As we drove out of the facility, I let out a deep sigh. I felt like I had just lost 300 lbs. Why hadn't I done that sooner? It doesn't matter. What matters is that I did remove all of that stress and those things that were blocking me from feeling my best.
Then I went and dropped off my beautiful antique diamond engagement ring to a private estate jeweler that I bought it from. She is doing me a favor and selling the ring for me, and thinks she can get me all of my money back! (I paid for the ring. Don't worry. If I hadn't, I would have done the right thing and returned it.) I have to admit, that felt like a huge moment in this whole process, and it wasn't easy to hand her the ring, but after I was walking back to my car, I felt another release of stress and knew I was moving in the right direction.
On Saturday I started drinking some great herbal teas blended specifically for me by a local herbalist. (I'll write another blog about these soon.) One of them is a metabolism boost tea. Yesterday I also started a superfood smoothie/juice detox/cleanse. I normally eat really healthy and live a healthy lifestyle, but I've felt for a few years now like something was just off with my body, with the way I've been gaining weight and having low energy, etc. Yesterday my favorite thing I made was this blend: strawberries, blueberries, hemp protein, flax seed, spirulina, kelp, udos oil, almond milk, keifer (for probiotics) and green tea. I wasn't sure how it would taste, since I just made the recipe up, but it was delicious & I've lost 2.5 lbs since yesterday! This just might be waking my body up and pushing me in the right direction.
There are exactly 7 weeks until I turn 30!
(Pictured above is my morning smoothie today 8/3/11...next to a plant....next to a jar of quinoa.)
A little vintage cactus shaped dish that holds some important stones, a vintage deer lamp, my new back scratcher (a must if you live alone and like having your back scratched), a tiny tea light candle made by my friend Ayesha, my Fit Bit, a ball jar with a little bit of herbal tea left in it, a tube of cortisone cream I bought today in a desperate attempt to get the swelling on my hand to stop, and a stack of three books.
