Health update + the female orgasm

I always forget that when I first started this blog I barely had a job, and that’s why I had time to write 2500 word blogs every morning. Oh well, it’s a ENOUGH of a return to your regularly scheduled programming, let’s put it that way. The later half of this blog is about the female orgasm, partially from my personal experience, you’ve been warned.

Before all that, here’s some cute pictures of my cat:

She is so beautiful and silky.

Health + Fitness Update

UPDATE: This was written before I stopped giving a shit about weight, calorie counting, etc. Personally..I’d just skip over this section, but I’m leaving it for..proof of how far I’ve come?
Things are moving slowly on account of I got another sweet tatt on Friday and I can’t swim, or do anything that stretches my leg very much. “Well Heidi why don’t you do an arm workout or something?” HEY I didn’t come here to be judged, I’ll do an arm work out WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT. I did clench my entire body for 4.5hrs on Friday during my tattoo appointment and I am sore from that so. There you go, you can just lay around and get fit. Did I follow that appointment with half an edison’s pizza to the face? Yes, yes I did. But I was hungry, and Edison’s is a delicious treat. No regrets.

I’ve been down to the every other day of half a pill of zoloft for two weeks now and it’s going really well. No dizzy spells, no sadness outside the realm of normal. This is particularly exciting to me because August 26th of last year one of my very best friends got married and I spent half her wedding sobbing and hyperventilating in bathrooms and bank safes [don’t ask]. I was very underweight then because I could barely eat. Food had no taste when it felt like everything was pointless. For someone who really loves food, that was devastating.

Not having that problem anymore though! I like my new curves, I think it’s rounded out my shape in a very pleasing way. So I no longer feel this sense of urgency to lose weight, rather I’d like to just tone up all those curves. Be all strong and shit. So that’s the new primary focus. I’ve done nothing to actually focus on it besides think about it, but that’s a step in the right direction.

So far I still hate weighing myself daily because then I feel this insane amount of pressure to poop before I eat breakfast, but I need breakfast to poop so I end up basically not eating breakfast since it takes me too long to be ready to poop. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED NOOM!? GREAT JOB. I think I should just resign myself to the fact that most mornings I have to weigh myself and the poop. Sigh. What can you do.

I came up with a brilliant hack where I moved all my snacks to a shelf I can barely reach, and all my vitamins and health stuff to the former snack shelf. But then I realized I should fill my cereal containers with the PB cookies and white cheddar popcorn I love and those sit out on an open shelf that is within sight and reach. Long story short I ate like an entire bag of that popcorn and 8 cookies yesterday. Whatever, they are delicious and I don’t care. Noom only wants me to eat 1200 goddamn calories a day, are you fucking kidding me?! I try to stick to about 2000 and burn more than that. Why do I even pay for these apps, I just decide I know better anyways. Have I gained weight? Yes. So do I know better? Probably not. But I still think 1200 calories a day is deprivation and chaos.

So basically I haven’t made a whole lot of progress, last week was good, but things kind of went to shit by Thursday. Still I’m mostly putting lots of good things into my body, I’m sleeping well, and my pill tapering is going well. I feel good about all of that.

Pube update
They’re here, and they’re kind of soft, and they make sex more comfortable. No longer am I like “UGH MY PUBIS IS LIKE SWEATY AND FEELS LIKE I HAVE RUG BURN” maybe 10 min into sex. Instead I have this pleasant little cushion, albeit still kind of dry and itchy, but progressing well. It also defines the area in a visually pleasing way. It’s funny how these trends come and go. But comfort wise, this one is probably going to be here to stay for Heidi girl.

The Female Orgasm
My boyfriend and I have been talking about this A LOT for a while now. While on zoloft my libido tanked. But I’d had dry spells before where sex just didn’t seem all that appealing and I’d have to kind of talk myself mentally into a dirty place that made me feel like doing it at all, and hopefully climaxing. This place is delicate, no one can talk to me and I’m totally in the zone, aka completely detached from my partner. I also am like “just lay there and I’ll take care of this”. It’s like using a live dildo but it’s attached to a human who has thoughts and feelings and preferences as well. So, not ideal.

One of my main problems with sex has always been communication, in that it’s an actual turn off for me to provide direction during sex. It takes me out of my carefully curated fantasy and I also want them to figure it out, that feels more exciting. There’s no surprise if I have to carefully direct. However, it finally occurred to me, “hey you’re not climaxing anyways, what if you used this time to get over your stupid mental hang up about not directing”. Accordingly I signed up for OMGYes in hopes that it would provide me with some language to explain what it was that I wanted, because frankly I didn’t have any. I had insecurities that what I wanted was maybe “boring”, but when I logged into this website with videos based off tons of women describing what they like, I realized “NOPE I’m pretty normal”. So I sent the link to my boyfriend as well and let him know “these things, these are the things I’m into”. And he listened. And when he does them and it works I am very vocal about it, and if I need to guide him a little, I do. AND GUESS WHAT, last night I had two orgasms very close together. I’ve never had that happen before. One was just a lil guy and the other one was like a shouting to the heavens, laugh your joy out, earth shattering one. IT WAS GREAT. Afterwards we talked about what made it so great and that was great too. One of the things I did to help me stay engaged—and this might seem a little counter-intuitive but hear me out—was put on a sleeping mask and put in my earplugs during foreplay. I liked this because it cut off the senses that can sometimes distract me and take me out of it, and allowed me to focus solely on physical sensations. It also felt exciting to just give myself over to my partner and feel fully surprised by anything he did because I couldn’t see. So often I struggle with just relaxing and taking my turn, letting it be almost all about me, and trusting that my partner enjoys that too—and why wouldn’t he?! I enjoy giving him his turn. And then it was OUR turn. This sexual exploration has been really stressful but gratifying. It was hard talking about it all the time but now that it’s paying off it’s really wonderful. And it’s not like he was the problem by any means. Every person likes different things, if you don’t share what those things are for you, don’t be surprised when they do what has worked in the past for other people. It can be weird and awkward and take you out of it, but it’s so worth talking about until it’s right.

For more on the female orgasm, watch this: Explained: Female Orgasm.

This short episode is great for anyone to watch. Because it reveals how little we understand the female orgasm, and how little women are taught to do it, or are even exposed to what its’ like. There is no discussion of the female orgasm in health class. Now I’m not saying they need to get into teaching kids how to be good at sex, but shouldn’t I understand the mechanics of my vagina and all it’s capable of? We don’t even get what the muscles are doing during a female orgasm, BECAUSE NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE CARE. Just watch it, I won’t recap the entire thing, it’s like 16 minutes and there’s not one person who shouldn’t understand the female orgasm, besides maybe gay men. It probably won’t come up for you. But it’s still interesting.

Well that’s all I’ve got for today. Also I got my temporary motorcycle license, just a fun fact.

Love,
Heidi Girl

Wow, day 2. Can’t remember the last time I made it to day 2.

This Noom app is working already, it has check lists. I LOVE CHECK LISTS, I want to check them off. The only thing I don’t care for with the app is it wants you to weigh in daily. I don’t really mind doing that, I’m not afraid of my scale, I’m just not sure how helpful it is. I guess the point IS healthy weight loss, and that is a way to track progress..sort of, but if I do start strength training it’s not the most accurate reading. My scale has body fat percentage though so I guess that’s useful.

Anyways. Two goals I’ve been working on for a while now are water intake and sleep. I feel like I am surrounded by a circle of people who doesn’t exactly brag about not getting enough sleep, but they like make fun of me for succeeding at sleeping more, or act annoyed about it. I mean SORRY that I live alone, have no kids, and set my own schedule. But I’m not going to sleep less to make you feel better about your own dumb choices (jks). The other pet peeve I have is when I say how late I’ve slept, and people are like “oh wow well I’ve been up since like 4am”. Okay WELL, I was awake until 4am because I’m a night person. There’s still the math that shows we slept the same amount. But today you can scoff, because I went to bed at 1:13am and I woke up officially at 11:13am. According to fitbit 50min of that time was spent awake, but let’s just go ahead and call it what it is. I was asleep for TEN GODDAMN HOURS. Part of why I’m tapering off zoloft is it makes me v sleepy. It didn’t at first but now that I feel better I just think it’s overcompensating. However I missed my last two days because last night I couldn’t find the bottle of pills and I was too tired to look harder. So I don’t know why I slept that much. Maybe because I walked 6.7mi—and as my dad would say in his dad way, these dogs are barkin. Either way, I’m glad. I figure, I wouldn’t sleep that much if my body didn’t need the rest. I realize this isn’t possible for most people, but where possible I say sleep your heart out. As a nation we are pretty sleep deprived, and there’s nothing to be proud of with that. If you want to be better at your job, and have a better quality of life, you need to sleep.

Water is the other big one. I’ve been comparing it to restarting your computer when some inexplicable problem is happening. It’s so obvious, and works 90% of the time. Water is the same. Literally anything going wrong with you mentally or physically water will help. Just throw water on it, until you’ve drowned the problem. When I’m not drinking the booze I guzzle water, and I get hopped up on it. I possess an annoying level of energy and speak way faster than usual which is saying something. According to what my current weight is however, I should be consuming 97oz of water. Seeing as I can barely get in the recommended 64oz I feel like that goal is unattainable unless I am home all day. I have a small enough bladder as is, so I’m gonna try and stick to the 64oz and see how that goes.

The pube situation.
People don’t really care about this, is the general feedback I’m getting from the only person I talk to, Annie. But when has lack of interest ever stopped me from talking about anything? Never.

When I was 15 years old the marching band (I played saxophone) was going to Disney World. I was concerned about the fact that I now possessed a very sad bush, like a bush you might see in winter, all withered and what not. What if it hung out of my swimsuit? My friend suggested I just shave it all off. Now, it wasn’t that long ago that I realized I should be shaving the backs as well as the fronts of my legs so this was a terrifying revelation. And you know what? I talked about how weird it felt not to have pubic hair then as much as I’m talking about how FREAKING ITCHY IT IS to grow it out now. But if you do the math, I’ve shaved my pubis for 14 years now. That skin is delicate AF as a result. So these sharp, mean, hairs pushing their way through is painful and uncomfortable which is why I have continued to shave all these years. I make it about 3 days before I simply cannot take it anymore.

But I’m sick of it. That hair serves a purpose, to protect my vagina. And besides, if I’m basically in discomfort every day besides the day I shave anyways what good is shaving? So this time I did my research. I got a face steamer to open those pores, and use my massage oil to soften the skin and—it’s still really itchy and horrible. What can you do? Nothing. Hopefully in another couple weeks this conversation will be over. But when I’m in discomfort I don’t suffer it quietly, I make everyone know my pain. This is big for me, as big as when I realized I could go braless and nobody cared or noticed. Did that stop me from pointing it out to everyone? No. It’s the Heidi way.

Anyways, I’ve almost finished my noom list for the day, I had a banana/almond butter/macadamia nut smoothie, I’ve written this blog, and now I need to poop and do my job. Heidi girl out.

Love,
Heidi Girl

Journey to health, while zoloft tries to thwart me.

For those of you who have only been reading my intermittent sad blogs in the last year or so I would like to warn you that this will be a return to your usual scheduled programming—aka, unfiltered ramblings about whatever occurs to me. In other words if you’re a family member you may not want to continue reading as I tend to talk about vaginas and things of that nature. But maybe you should because who knows, you could learn something horrifying.

Most recent blogs are primarily concerning the mental break down I had last year riiiight around this time. It was an intense existential crisis. I was struggling with super casual topics such as, “why are we even here?” “how does life exist?” “INFINITY” “one day I’ll die!” “ONE DAY MY PARENTS WILL DIE AND WHAT WILL I DO?!”. In addition to that I was questioning pretty much every life choice I’d ever made and wondering if I had set myself up for the completely wrong life.

As cool as not being able to function, eat, sleep, read, watch, talk, or do anything really was, I decided after a month of this I probably needed something beyond my regular therapy. I started zoloft, and it was wonderful. I felt lightly buzzed and zen after a few days, which was desparately needed after weeks of sobbing hysterically. I was eating again! I was eating a lot. Like, a ton. Comfort food mostly, you know the kind—grilled cheese, mac & cheese, cheese crackers, cheese pizza..etc. Soon enough I no longer looked like I was starving to death, and too soon my clothes stopped fitting. Now my bras don’t even fit, which some could argue is a neat problem to have and truthfully the front boob situation I’m pretty chill with, it’s more so the skin flapping over the back strap I’m not a huge fan of. My butt is much rounder which is also v neat, and without clothes on I’m not mad about anything going on. That being said, I’ve put on a cool 25lbs since my depression, when I also happened to be in extremely good shape because I’d been working out HARD for four months. The thing is you can’t really exercise when you’re barely eating, and when I started eating again my relationship to food felt different, because I was like OMG I NEED TO EAT OR I WILL LITERALLY STARVE TO DEATH. But it’s super easy to form bad habits fast.

Recently I unearthed some other interesting information concerning the Zoloft who had once been my dearest friend. After you’ve been on it 6 months to a year (it’s been about 11 mo), you gain weight! WOO!! This explained why even after cutting out booze and walking a zillion miles a day for a month I lost zero pounds, in fact I gained pounds. And before you’re like “well Heidi that was probably muscle!” let me stop you, because no it was not. I was only walking. I wasn’t lifting shit. I am a deeply lazy person. But anyways, this new, frustrating information was a relief to discover, but also like..okay well now what?

Luckily I’d already started tapering off zoloft. I was on 50mg, about 2 months ago I went down to like 35, and now I’m at 25. I think I’ll start taking that half pill every other day rather than every day soon, and then eventually nothing at all. But a few weeks ago I started feeling existentially weird again which made me weary, so I’m taking my time. I’d rather be voluptuous and order a new bra then go through the crap storm I went through last year again.

I would looooove not to care, I really would. But I can proclaim self love till the cows come home and it wouldn’t change that I’ve grown up learning from sources all around me that how you look 1000% matters. So when I see a photo of myself hunched over like a troll gremlin I find it hard to be like, “well at least you’re smart and good at things!”. My therapist and I talk about body image but even if I ever leap that particular hurdle it doesn’t change the fact that I do want a good quality of life, so it’s not like taking steps to being physically healthy are going to hurt me. I just hope to eventually be doing it for primarily the right reasons.

SO. I signed up for noom [fitness app, reminds me of talkspace because a live person is my “coach”], and it costs money so if I don’t utilize it I’m going to hate myself. The goal is to lose 20-25lbs by Christmas. Which is a little over a pound a week I think. I’d also like to be off Zoloft by then, have grown out my pubes, lasered my arm pits/bikini line/b hole, be making 5k a month, paying off 1.5k of debt a month, and have seriously deep cleaned my apartment because honestly it’s been a while. So really I won’t be talking about too many offensive things unless you’re offended by having to hear about the growth of pubic hair. But I AM going to talk about it, because growing it out is a horrible process for my delicate pubis skin, and I don’t feel like me or my skin should have to go through it alone.

So there you have it, for the next several months I’ll be talking about my health journey and pube growth, and probably anything else relevant that occurs to me. Welcome back to a Very Heidi Time.

Love,
Heidi Girl

Death is.

A month or so ago I tried to write a post about managing anxiety and how I overcame my depression, but I got really side tracked writing about something else and then kinda let it fall to the way side. The truth is, I never got fully “better” from when I really lost it last August. I still obsess over my mortality, all the time. It’s just that the zoloft keeps me from having panic attacks about it.

I take 50mg of Zoloft every night. Since I started taking it I have seen a drastic change in my ability to manage my emotions. It’s not like it makes you delightfully happy—I’d say I’m as capable of the same amount of happiness as I was before—it mostly just helps me not to spiral out of control. I’m really grateful for what it did for me. Before I started taking it I spent two agonizing months breaking down. Getting hysterical in public places. Unable to see the point to anything. It was the lowest I have ever felt, and taking Zoloft really helped me dig my way out of that. But now I feel like I could probably start to ween myself off of it, except for the fact that even with it I still have this unshakeable discomfort with death.

I have talked to a ton of people about death. Every old person I see I want to shout at, “ARE YOU FINE?!” I NEED to know that people are okay with dying. Almost everyone I talk to is. A lot of people don’t think about it. Sometimes I am torn between not wanting to think about it, and leaning in hard. My fear with leaning in was that I’d spiral out of control again, and not find the peace that some people do, because maybe it’s just not in my nature. When I think about how someday I won’t be here I feel this weird sense of urgency to be cool with it, but it’s like time won’t slow down for me to feel that so I feel rushed, pressured and a little crippled by the odd sensation. That was happening earlier today, and I decided I needed to go outside. I barely move during the day and I’ve been trying to move 6 miles because I feel like a fat (I blame society). So I mapped out a 6 mile walk and set off. At first I had my music on but then I thought, “no, you know what? I don’t want to let this discomfort with death control me. I AM going to lean in,” and I searched podcasts about facing your mortality. I ffound a promising one (after accidentally listening to a spooky fictional one) called, “Rethinking Death”. It’s from TED radio hour on NPR.

I wasn’t particularly optimistic, I didn’t think it would upset me but usually the things people say to explain their feelings towards death don’t really help me. For example, I often hear that we should talk more about death because it helps us to realize our lives our finite and we should be living them to the fullest. Nobody has to tell me to live life to the fullest, I do. I have never done anything besides what I wanted to do, and if something is no longer serving me, I get rid of it—even if it takes me a little while. I like most women struggle with body image, but I genuinely do not struggle with self love. Or self care. The self care revolution to me is like, “um yeah of course you should relax and do things for yourself, and absolutely not feel guilty about it.” I travel, I have an amazing home, I prioritize my relationships, I am passionate about my work, I do my best to take care of myself, to continue learning and growing, and be a good human. Truly if I died tomorrow I wouldn’t be like, “BUT WAIT I HAVE SO MUCH LEFT TO DO”. If anything, I’d want to give or contribute more. But I know in my own way I contribute a great deal to my community and the people in my life. It makes me think that part of my problem is I have the recipe for happiness pretty much figured out, and it makes death feel imminent. What else is there to do that will add to my satisfaction? We are programmed to never feel fully satisfied so that we continue to try at life. But I am deeply satisfied in most areas. My issue with death isn’t any of that, it’s just like, death is weird. How can I just not be here one day? Time passes so quickly, it feels like I could wake up tomorrow and be dead and I don’t like that. I find I’m not as panicky about the other questions anymore, like, how does life exist in the first place? That’s just too big of a question that I’m intelligent enough to ask, but not intelligent enough to ever understand. So in general I try not to go down that road.

Anyways. This podcast didn’t disappoint me. It actually made me rethink death in a way that was reassuring, educational, thought provoking, and overall comforting. I’m not going to get into everything that was said but here were my take aways:

We should confront death, we should talk about it, think about it, and view it for what it is. Death IS. It’s a part of an ongoing cycle, a moment in the phenomenon of being alive. We return to the earth and become the nutrients we were nourished by, if we are disposed of properly, which brings me to a section deserving of it’s own subhead, where I am going to get REAL into it.

The Infinity Burial Suit

We SHOULD NOT be cremated or buried in the traditional way. The former blew my mind. Cremation is bad for the environment, like 5,000 lbs of mercury a year bad. I literally had never thought of that before. I just was like “decaying bodies are weird, please just burn me.” But also, I kind of hate the idea of being on fire. I can’t believe my cat was burned into ashes. A thing that I loved, that I held, that was alive—just burnt up and put into a box. Bizarre. But then, the artist who was explaining this went on to further explain that our bodies themselves are full of toxins, 219 pollutants to be exact, and that if we are just buried even without a casket we are harming the environment. Like we hadn’t damaged it enough while we were alive. Add all the chemicals and things we do to bodies to make them seem alive at funerals + a casket, and it’s even worse. Thankfully she had a solution. A mushroom burial suit, designed by Jae Rhim.

This suit, also known as the infinity burial suit is available for purchase through her company Coeio. It does the following:

• Cleanses the body and soil of toxins that would otherwise seep into the environment.
• Delivers nutrients from body to surrounding plant roots efficiently
• Restarts life around the body faster than normal

  On top of leaving the environment better-off, Infinity Burial products:

• Are made of all natural, biodegradable material
• Use no harsh chemicals, preservatives, or processing
• Reunite the body with the earth and the ongoing cycle of life

You could just watch her Ted Talk but here were some of the most important take aways (to me):

We are both responsible for and the victims of our own pollution. Our bodies are filters and store houses for environmental toxins. So what happens to all these toxins when we die? The short answer is: They return to the environment in one way or another, continuing the cycle of toxicity. But our current funeral practices make the situation much worse. If you’re cremated, all those toxins I mentioned are released into the atmosphere. And this includes 5,000 pounds of mercury from our dental fillings alone every year.

And in a traditional American funeral, a dead body is covered with fillers and cosmetics to make it look alive. It’s then pumped with toxic formaldehyde to slow decomposition—a practice which causes respiratory problems and cancer in funeral personnel. So by trying to preserve our dead bodies, we deny death, poison the living and further harm the environment. Green or natural burials, which don’t use embalming, are a step in the right direction, but they don’t address the existing toxins in our bodies. I think there’s a better solution.

And most important for helping me rethink death:

I realize this is not the kind of relationship that we usually aspire to have with our food.We want to eat, not be eaten by, our food. But as I watch the mushrooms grow and digest my body, I imagine the Infinity Mushroom as a symbol of a new way of thinking about death and the relationship between my body and the environment. See for me, cultivating the Infinity Mushroom is more than just scientific experimentation or gardening or raising a pet, it’s a step towards accepting the fact that someday I will die and decay. It’s also a step towards taking responsibility for my own burden on the planet.

Oh my god. How cool. The idea that there is a safe way for me to decompose and become a part of the earth in a safe and nourishing way. When I pause in the woods and think how much comfort I feel from being there, how vital and alive it all feels, I can’t help but think, “it would not be so bad to be at this stage in circle of life”.

What I also realized, is that planning my death is actually appealing to me. A lot of people avoid it, and by avoiding it you have no control in the ultimate unknown circumstance. I do everything else with so much care and pride, why not plan my death in the same way? I keep my apartment clean when I travel so that if anyone robs it they’ll be like, “omg, she keeps such a tidy home.” So imagine the pride I’d feel when they open up my death plan, a beautifully designed, perfect bound book I’d imagine, with photos and a sound track, and say “goddamn, did she have her shit together.” My grampa left the world this way. He thought of everything, so none of us would have to. I imagine one day he was like “ah, all done, now I can die.” And felt the same measure of rest I feel when I actually manage to deep clean my apartment to my satisfaction (it takes five days, haven’t done it in years).

That was something else I was pleased to have confirmed from the NPR talk. Another guest who is an EMT and often with people in their last moments said that pretty much everyone accepted their deaths when he told them there was nothing more he could do for them. THAT IS REASSURING.

This anecdote I’m about to tell will seem disconnected, but it isn’t, just bear with me.

I remember when I was like 18 and I was terrified of what would happen if my boyfriend at the time moved to Seattle like he said he was going to do. I’d think about it all the time, because I knew I wasn’t invited (before you judge me, remember we were EIGHTEEN, I couldn’t spot red flags in a relationship that had my virginity, gimme a break). Anyways, one of my co-workers, said “dump him, just break up with him now, there’s no point if he’s just going to move”. I remember not being ready to hear that. So I just fretted about it every time he mentioned that goal for a solid two years instead, and you know what? He never moved to Seattle. And we broke up anyways. I often imagine swooping in on little 18 yr old bebe Heid and being like, “oh dear, if you knew that this wasn’t even going to happen you’d realize how silly it is to be worrying! Stop wasting that energy!”

Worrying is awful, it means you are experiencing the thing you’re worrying about every time you worry about it. Still, easier to know it’s foolish to worry, than to actually stop doing it. But I want to remind myself that old Heidi would probably smack current Heidi and tell her not to worry, because like most things we dread, death is not as awful or frightening as I’m imagining—it’s just that I’m not ready for it yet. I do actually have things left to do, like figure out how to stop blocking myself from orgasming lately (I also blame Zoloft for this, but that’s a different blog). And I haven’t even been to Europe. I have 4 more continents to check out. I want to have a drink with Clem on her 21st birthday, and with Josie on her’s. I want to meet Savannah’s kids. I want to fully embrace my status as the “cool aunt, not like other aunts”. I have a lot of tattoos left to get actually. And other stuff I’m sure. Who knows, I’m losing steam.

So I guess what I’m rambling on and on about is that this podcast did help me rethink death. It helped me to realize I should plan my own, that I can leave a nourishing mark on the world, that by not worrying so much I could embrace life better and not feel a sense of urgency that it’s finite, but still take full advantage of the magic of existing at all. I was lucky enough to be born into privilege, I have money, security, a home, I live in a mostly free country, I can do pretty much whatever I want. It would be pretty stupid to continue to dread what’s next, rather than embrace that as well. After all, “to the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure” —Dumbledore, obviously.

Love,

Heidi Girl

P.S. to whom it may concern,

DEATH PLAN SO FAR

• Infinity burial suit, I think I maybe have to train mushrooms to eat me also.
• I don’t know where these are allowed to be buried yet, so…location Tbd
• I do NOT want to die in a hospital, hopefully there will be some cool modern assisted living/hospice where I can die in my home, and my body won’t be rushed out and everyone will cover me in flowers or something. Or greens. I like eucalyptus and rosemary. And cilantro. and herbal essences shampoo.
• I want annie to bake a pie and eat it beside my body while she cries. No one else can have any pie. It’s my death pie.
• I want to be buried with my baby blanket.
• I want all my equipment to be donated to hopeful designers/photographers who can’t afford their own.
• I want all my possessions to be either claimed or disposed of in an environmentally safe way.
• I’d like someone to keep a small suit case with things that smell like me so they can smell me when they miss me like I do with my grandparents. Probably savannah, if she even knows what I smell like, and if she outlives me.
• I want everyone effected by my death to plan a small trip, one they wouldn’t normally take because of X, Y, Z. When they are on that trip I want them to eat a good meal, have a good cocktail and get a pedicure.
• People always say “I want everyone to party at my funeral!” I think that’s probably not realistic, but I do want everyone to have good cocktails, good food, and look at a slide show of the images I captured in my travels. Maybe that’s narcissistic, but they’re special to me, I’m proud of them, and I hope they’ll inspire some of those people to get out there.
• That’s all I can think of for now, I’d write letters. Maybe I should do that every 10 years, because who knows when I’m going to get run over on my bike.

My rant about the internet, our shrinking worlds, and my frustrations with the realities of my profession.

Let me preface what is about to be a rant with the fact that I love the internet, I really do. I love that it spies on me and tells me exactly what I want and need so I don’t have to spend hours searching for what I want and need [I do anyways].

But the internet causes everything to cycle so quickly that it makes my job, which I also love, kind of annoying at times. I am SO SICK, of the campaigns/copy writing that originate and then get copied over and over. I’m annoyed by the language that starts out annoying, then becomes ironic, and then quickly annoying again.

As a designer who now needs to know about marketing I find it debilitating sometimes. I encourage all of my clients to not sound like everyone else on the internet, but that’s hard to do because someone will see it, copy it, and it will become overdone just like everything else.

Right now I feel like everyone is being encouraged to be authentic, because only presenting your perfect life is annoying as well, and also makes other people depressed, but the version of authenticity that is being presented is inspired by a bunch of other authentics and everyone feels exactly the same. HOW DO I MAKE PEOPLE ORIGINAL IN THIS SOCIAL MEDIA CLIMATE?! How do I keep them from feeling repetitive and irritating like everything else?

On a more personally relevant note, I used to blog about my woes and I often did it in a comedic way, not like I was the originator of that, but now that seems to be exclusively how people talk about their woes or in the other extreme it’s like “don’t sweat the little things because tomorrow you could be DEAD”. Jesus okay, first of all the problem with that is if you live every moment like you are on the edge of death you are going to be an anxious mess. I know this because for the last quarter of a year I’ve been obsessing over the fact that I will one day die. And when I get to lose myself in an activity like organizing my kitchen, and decided it’s really important, I feel amazing. On the flip side with everyone joking about the hard parts of life it’s hard to tell if anyone is actually sharing your struggles. Currently I turn to anything and everything for reassurance and empathy that what I’ve been going through is normal and that people have good ways of dealing with it, but I’m becoming convinced everyone is a complete fucking disaster and we’re all just walking around laughing about it. Which is fine to an extent, but nothing really gets solved that way.

In theory this is an amazing time for my career. Everyone and their mom wants a personal brand, people finally appreciate good design and **sort of** see the value in it, but it also means a lot of people are rising up with the advances in technology and self education and claiming they can do what I do, which they probably can. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little anxious. I often wonder what advancements we’ll see in the next decade that will require me to completely re-educate myself. My dream job was never crafting tons of content for social media, figuring out work arounds for obnoxious algorithms, or determining what and when to share but I’ve accepted that about 50-75% of my job is just that. I don’t mind it, I honestly enjoy problem solving, but it means I’m balls deep in digital media everyday frequently debilitated by pinterest paralysis and irritation that everything is starting to feel kind of the same.

Part of why it feels the same is that social media is a sounding board for your own views and world. We are shrinking our influences instead of expanding them but it doesn’t feel that way because when someone has millions of followers you feel like you’re tapping into a larger and different community than your own. But the reality is that my world becomes increasingly gentrified, and I become further away from understanding and learning from other cultures in a way that isn’t just me (or the general white) taking and appropriating without really understanding. I try to avoid this by seeking out videos on things like “what black people hate that white people ask them” [arguably the whitest search ever] or “polyamorous people answering common questions”, etc.  I’m passively trying to expand my world but I know I’m barely scraping the surface and that it will get increasingly difficult as the internet forces me into a bubble of more me’s—and it’s hard to fight the presentation of everything you love right at your finger tips even though it turns out that’s preventing you from experiencing other influences that you could use.

This is a self gratifying, semi-pointless rant because I’m trying to build my own brand and services, and one thing I’m not worried about is appearing different. I’m not going to be different in what I offer, sure I have a unique perspective and style but I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m the ONLY ONE who can do what I do. Tons of people can probably. My goal is to inform truthfully and accurately what I offer, and make sure people get what I’m like so that they aren’t like “wow you’re an asshole why did I hire you!” instead they’ll be like “wow you’re an asshole, I want to hire you!” I also want to continue trying to present a truthful front anywhere I’m representing myself. Like, I’m not posting stories because I think I have cool things to share, it’s because I had a lonely day and it feels nice to know someone is following along with it even though they probably don’t care that much. Although, the hand held clippers I featured in my story yesterday ARE pretty cool, but I could just tell that to people who will find it relevant.

I don’t want to make it seem like I have this wonderful, perfect, enviable life, and I also don’t want it to seem like I think that I don’t. I think I have a really decent life, mostly by chance. I was born to an upper middle class family with liberal views, I’m white, I have good genes, I had a grandfather who financially planned well and consequently dug me out of several holes, I have access to health care, healthy food, a great support system of friends and family, an amazing job + boss, a wonderful boyfriend, and it’s all really great. I also experience anxiety that very occasionally triggers depression and existential crisises, but unless there’s an apocalypse or I have a physical health crisis it’s extremely unlikely that my world will ever go to shit. I mean we all die, I don’t get to claim that as my own personal struggle. And sometimes things that look and seem like they’d be great and amazing weren’t completely amazing, and I have a hard time and get sad for no reason. I’m starting to ramble here, but my point is I hope that whenever I shout into the void I’m shouting things that are true, and not annoying or ignorant. But everyone is annoying so that’s probably a futile hope.

Anyways, that’s my rant for the day, back to figuring out how to craft unique and original brands that aren’t annoying.

Love,
Heidi Girl

Relapse

I relapsed this weekend in a major way. All my anxiety and depression came back, not quite as bad because I expected that it might. I knew it wasn’t totally gone.

And it feels awful.

There were a lot of triggers. I still can’t really pinpoint just one, because there really wasn’t. But I’m a problem solver and I want to solve it. When Aaron came over last night it didn’t bring the comfort I hoped it would. I tried to fall asleep next to him but I couldn’t. I went and laid on the couch and I felt this burning, aching sensation in my chest. I admitted it to myself, what if I have fallen out of love with Aaron? We spent almost a full summer apart. No alone time together. He didn’t call. When I visited him in California I struggled with helping with his daughter and he made dumb jokes that pushed all the wrong buttons. When we went on vacation he lost his temper with me because I was accidentally being an asshole. Then he went to London for work and left me behind. I’m disconnected. And I am the connected one. He’s the logical, rational, stable support system and I’m the one with the huge feelings and big love. He loves me, but it’s in a quiet way. And right now I need to be loved bigly, HUGELY.

I don’t think about the future usually. It’s just not helpful. Right now I’m doing my best to focus on one single moment at a time and failing miserably. But for a long time I assumed any problems Aaron and I had we’d simply resolve. I love loving Aaron and I wasn’t planning to stop. He became an abstract part of my future, something I could count on. And last night I allowed myself to fully imagine that that might not be the case. Before we fell asleep I tried to talk to him, ask him what he felt for me, what he hoped for our relationship, etc. And it overwhelmed him. He asked, “why do we have to talk about the relationship? Can’t we just be?”

At that time I felt so let down, so deflated. But then I realized he was right. I can rarely let anything be. I need that momentum that conflict creates to feel motivated. I need problems to solve. Right now I don’t know which problems to solve and I feel like I’m simultaneously drowning and drifting away. Like I’m not an active participant in my own life. I can’t bring myself to be excited about the plans I had in place before. Training for a triathlon for next summer, getting into the best shape of my life, really taking control of my health and wellness to improve my quality of life, reading new books, watching new things, creating new art, learning more about mixology, exploring Columbus with Aaron, planning new trips…all of that feels sort of scary and pointless at the same time. All of those things sort of hurdle me towards the future and I don’t feel comfortable with the future. But I also hate feeling like I’m stagnant and wasting time not being me.

This morning Aaron pulled me into his arms in bed and I told him I was afraid that maybe I’d fallen a little out of love with him this summer. And that I needed some time to rebuild our connection, because I still loved him. He let me lay there and rubbed my back and said he was just trying to be nice. And he’s being SO nice. If he said something like that to me I’d probably want to jump out the window. But I guess that’s the perk of dating a semi-disengaged person. I’m really not sure, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. But my mom told me that being married is falling in and out of love with the same person over and over, but you stick out the parts when you’re out of love because you still love them. I’m not married to Aaron but I treat our relationship with the commitment as if I were.

Also I don’t feel like me right now, I don’t feel like any of my relationships feel right but you don’t tell your parents or your siblings that you fell out of love with them and want to see other relatives. You can realize whatever you’re feeling is separate from them. Or at least not going to effect your relationships long term. Unless you hate your family. I like mine.

So I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m going to try and separate my depression from reality. It’s not rational, it’s not me. I need to figure out how to resolve it independently of what’s going on in my relationship. It’s always important to be able to stand on your own, because sometimes things do end. And frankly I’m used to being able to manage my own happiness, it doesn’t feel great to need. But I’m so grateful that everyone is rising to the occasion and taking care of me. It’s time to figure out how to take care of myself again however.

I got a prescription for zoloft. I haven’t started it yet because my relapse coincided with the start of my period and I feel like maybe I should give it a couple days before I try it. However I think I will. Maybe it won’t work, but maybe it will and I’d give anything to feel semi-normal again. To feel passionate and like life has meaning and what I’m doing in mine is significant. I know it’s not, but it’s too distracting to be aware of that all the time. All we can do is live and do things that suck the least and hopefully bring joy to ourselves and others.

So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m trying to blog again because it used to really help. And when I reread a bunch last night I was like “man you are crazy” but it was comforting to read words that came from Heidi Heidi, instead of depressed Heidi.

Life is weird sometimes, real weird.

Love,
Heidi Girl

 

The depression was (is?) happening, and here’s how I’ve been coping with it.

I’m writing this while I feel good because frankly that could go away at any moment so much so that I don’t even want to tell anyone I feel better for fear of thinking too much about it and letting it all go to shit.

So I went/have been going through a bout of anxiety and depression. When I feel calm it’s hard to believe how intense it felt. In sharing a conversation she had with my little brother, Savannah said she hadn’t realized how bad it was until she saw me, and felt like she was talking to a shell of Heidi. Even writing that now I start to tear up because that’s exactly how I felt. Detached from all the things that make me me. The things I enjoy, the things I am passionate about, the causes I’m invested in, the foods I eat, the drinks I drink, shows I watch, books I love—none of it brought comfort. I was with people I loved but I felt alone, and scared. It felt like I had submerged and might never resurface despite my mom’s continued reassurance that I WOULD get through it.

She was right. Feeling that way isn’t sustainable. Our most base inclination is to survive and live. This is not to say that people who suffer and struggle to fulfill those basic instincts do not question their existence and mortality, but in general having time to experience existential dread is often a luxury. Or maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what it felt like. And that felt even worse.

I don’t particularly want to get into the particulars of why everything came crashing down and felt so terrible because I’ll just start over thinking again. For me it was because everything around me was changing and I felt like I was standing still. Some of the changes I’m honestly not sure about, they could lead to more changes, changes that would effect the trajectory of my life which makes me think “what is the trajectory of my life? what do I want?” and so on and so forth. So yeah, what those particulars are don’t really matter, the point is they sent me into an existential crisis where everything felt simultaneously pointless and terrifying. I’m not used to feeling that way so I exhausted all my resources, some things helped, some didn’t. It also made me think about how I’ve managed to (sort of) manage my anxiety up until now through controlling my environment and life in general. So I thought I’d write a blog about what helped, things people said that made me feel a spasm of relief and some bleak realities. I know depression is different for everyone so this is what helped me specifically and it may not apply to everyone.

• First and foremost, these spells don’t last. Even in speaking to my friends with clinical depression they assured me that the worst of it will pass. I’m not going to quote anyone by name out of respect for their privacy but in reference to this I was told, “the routines of life will get you through it”. I personally couldn’t follow any routines at first, but that’s because I set my own hours and schedule, as soon as I forced myself to work I felt if nothing else calmed by the normality of accomplishing tasks.
• Because I was blindsided by bad feeling and hadn’t experienced it much before I wanted it to be OVER. I would sit, sobbing to my mom or Aaron saying “I just want not to feel like this”. Welp, bad news is you have to. You have to let yourself feel what you’re feeling, and in the words of another friend “hunker down until it passes”. I was bad at this. Really bad at this. I couldn’t sleep, eat, or do anything really to allow myself some relief so finally I took a sleeping pill. I non habit forming one because my brain needed to be able to shut down. I did this a few different nights and it was helpful. Because there’s nothing you can do really, that feeling isn’t rational which brings me to my next point.
• You aren’t being rational. There were so many moments where I said to myself “you are at your MOST sane right now and that’s why everything feels awful.” I get what I was trying to say to myself, that by acknowledging the nebulous nature of life I was being sane. But it’s not sane to feel pointless—see earlier when I talk about what our most basic instincts are.
• What I determined my main point is, is human connection. To quote Aaron: “You have to choose to prioritize the immediate experience of life for you and the people you care about. That’s the only way we have to engage with the world.” He was right.
• I used my online therapist A LOT, here’s a link if you’re at all interested: https://www.talkspace.com/invite/249301. I wrote her daily, multiple times, crazy things, constantly. Video chatting with your therapist is usually an additional cost but she set up video chats with me anyways, left me voice messages, trying to offer me relief as immediately and comprehensively as possible. There was no relief for a while, but I felt reassured that I had a mental health professional on my side.
• I told everyone. I’m not sure this is totally advisable because then everyone keeps asking how you are doing which reminds you that you aren’t doing well but every single person was sympathetic and wanted to drop everything and help me pretty much. I told my family, my boss, my friends, strangers, clients, everyone. Particularly with work this meant I was cut some slack so I could take some time to get back on my feet. My family was just there. My mom came over and promised me that life had passed slowly enough for her, she brought me to her home and put me in a hot tub and got me to eat the first full meal I’d had in days. My sister came over and was just with me. Then when I insisted she leave and I’d be okay, she still paid for an uber to bring me back to her house later that evening where a childhood friend came over and stroked my hair while telling me about getting through her own depression. Aaron was with me for 6 days straight just being next to me, even through me questioning whether we’d have to split up. He told me I’d get through it, he talked to me like I was a normal, he didn’t feel sorry for himself or project or anything. He was just there. People wrote me messages, called me, checked in constantly. Even though I felt nothing, somewhere in my mind I knew this was important. I knew I had people who wouldn’t let me drown alone. And every time one of them told me it would be okay, I had a moment’s relief. I am so grateful for my support system, and I can’t emphasize the importance of having one and leaning into it HARD even if it feels pointless.
• I forced myself to eat. I let people know I was having trouble eating so they’d make sure I forced myself to eat in case I decided to stop completely. With my meals I tried implementing some natural supplements to help with my anxiety and depression. I take a magnesium calming powder in the morning with water. I try to take it in the evening too, or a sleepy time tea. I have holy basil, cayenne pills, and vitamin D to take with food. Food is medicine, I wasn’t really using it that way because honestly I just needed to eat whatever didn’t make me gag but in general diet matters for that reason. You can make your body and mind feel better when you take care of yourself.
• I eventually had to abandon exercise because of the last bullet point, but I have immediately gotten back into it with the return of my appetite. Endorphins make you feel better, they just do. I hiked for an hour yesterday and did weights for 20min today, it’s not much but it’s something. If I’m going to be alive, I want that to be quality.
• This blog is for highly sensitive people but I feel like it has a ton of great tips in general for mental wellness. So check it out: 43 Self Care Tips for Highly Sensitive People.
• I stopped drinking. Drinking made me feel better in the moment but it made me feel worse later.

• Don’t make any decisions or drastic changes. I am quoting a friend who quoted a sermon so I am going to butcher this but when you set off on a long journey you charter that journey first, and when your ship hits a storm you don’t recharter simply because you’re like HOLY SHIT I AM DROWNING, you wait for it to clear and then reassess.

• Get bloodwork done. Sometimes it’s your thyroid, or a vitamin D deficiency and what is the point of feeling like a trash person when it might literally be your physical health and totally treatable.

• Don’t focus on how you feel, just allow the feelings to be. I am terrible at this, a total overthinker. But if I think about how bad I feel I just feel worse. And if I notice that I feel good I start to overthink that too. JUST STOP IT.
• Medication is an option. If we treated physical illness the way we treated mental illness it would be absurd. I’m trying some anxiety medication at such a low dose I can’t notice much of a difference, and if this persists I may try something stronger. I don’t feel bad or concerned about it. If I don’t like it I can stop. So many people walk around with anxiety and depression and don’t even entertain the idea of medication because of stigma, but I have talked to a crap load of people who love their medicine. They get to feel normal, connected and happy because of it. Don’t write it off. You aren’t a failure because you take medicine. I’m not like “I AM A FAILURE BECAUSE I CAN’T BEAT THIS HANG OVER HEADACHE”, I take advil and go on with my life because my head is no longer pounding. It allows me to do what I need to do. So really, who cares. 
• BREATHE. Technique from my therapist:
  • This technique can be used in conjunction with anchoring or on its own. Anchor first. On your next in-breath, count up to 6 as you breathe all the way in, and then on the out-breath, count up to 10 as you breathe all the way out. This technique has the effect of lengthening both the in-breath and the out-breath, slowing down your breathing. It also lengthens the out-breath more than the in-breath, forcing you to release more carbon dioxide, slowing your heart rate, calming you down and restoring emotional equilibrium.
  • Make sure you fit the numbers to your breath and not the other way around. If 6 and 10 don’t work for you, find another ratio that does, as long as the out-breath is at least two counts longer than the in-breath. If it’s too hard to continue breathing while counting, count for one full breath, then take one normal breath and count the next one.
  • If you feel very panicked and can’t manage the counting, say “in” to yourself as you breath in, and “out” as you breathe out fully, trying to elongate the out-breath. Then again, say “in” on the in breath etc. Keep going for at least one minute but go for as long as you need. I have used this technique very successfully myself to ward off impending panic attacks in the middle of the night.
• Techniques for staying present:
  • Focus on what’s right in front of you. Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses. Just look at what’s right in front of you right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel.
  • Focus on your breathing. Take a couple of dozen belly breaths and just focus your mind on your inhaling and exhaling. This will align you with the present moment once again.
  • Focus on your inner body. This is a bit similar to focusing on your breathing. In both examples you focus on what’s inside you rather than the outside. What is the inner body? Well, I guess you could say it is energy inside of your body. How your body feels from the inside.
    A practical way to do this just to focus on your hand. To just put your focus there and feel how the hand feels to you and how the energy is flowing through it. This may sound a bit weird to the mind. But if you actually try it a few times you’ll probably find that inner energy within your hand.
  • Create a reminder. Being present can be really difficult and sometimes you need a little (or big) nudge to remind yourself to stay in the moment. So create different types of reminders: sticky notes, desktop backgrounds, alarms on my phone, etc. Creating these is simple enough and it’s so helpful when it comes to staying on track.

I feel like this was kind of all over the place but these are the things that helped. I still feel weird, it takes a while to shake off an existential crisis and I’m sure it’ll happen again but now I feel better equipped to handle it.

HOPE THIS HELPS.

Love,
Heidi Girl

This is about depression.

I have experienced depression severely twice in my life, once when I was 20 and now. I don’t remember how I got over it when I was 20. I do remember lying curled in the fetal position and sobbing, unable to grasp the enormity of the universe and infinity which I won’t get into or I’ll freak out again but I know I climbed out of that hole eventually.

This time feels different I think, I’m not sure. Before there was some relief from being with family, with others. This time there’s no lasting relief besides maybe falling asleep if I take a sleeping pill. I feel completely disconnected and isolated from everything that brought me joy a mere few weeks ago.

There has been a lot of change lately. My dad moved 10 minutes away from me, my brother is moving into our childhood home, my boyfriend’s daughter moved to Columbus and now he, her mom and her are all settled there after months of knowing this was going to happen. I miss his apartment in Cleveland, and the routines we had there. I miss our bubble where he honestly didn’t feel like a dad because he had to go to California to be a dad. When his daughter came here I was beside myself with excitement, delighting in creating special experiences that I hoped she’d cherish as she grew.

Now I feel freaked out. There’s a constant burning sensation in my chest. I have no appetite and have lost 6 pounds in a week. Being around people often makes me feel like I have to go panic, and I have quite a bit. Am I in the right place? Will these new routines ever feel normal? Am I maybe not cut out to date a single parent now that he’s fully engaged as being a parent?

I have positively bombarded everyone with my feelings. Yesterday I cried in public and a barista hugged me. The advice is the same. Do not make decisions right now. Stop searching for a solution. Ride out these bad feelings. This won’t last forever.

BUT IT FEELS LIKE IT WILL. Aaron has been endlessly supportive and understanding, even noting that maybe this isn’t what I signed up for and possibly I need more out of a partner. But I’ve always said I didn’t want kids or marriage and I have lived my life accordingly. The idea that possibly for the last 30 years I haven’t been setting up the life I want to live is terrifying. But I don’t even know that I want any of those things! I’m afraid I will wake up one day and feel lonely if I don’t have them however. But you don’t typically throw away what usually makes you happy because you may suddenly change your mind.

Something about having a kid in the mix, not a toddler but a walking, talking human with big thoughts and ideas and changes in her own little life has woken up something inside me again. That awareness of time passing and a fear of regret. I have invested so much love, time and emotion into this family that I’m a part of and what if that was a mistake? What if I have to walk out on all of them? That idea is abhorrent to me. My system immediately recoils. Life without Aaron? It’s the only thing that feels more pointless than how everything feels to me right now.

I am trying to go through the motions, talking to my therapist, being with people, but it’s tough. The things I enjoyed aren’t soothing me. I can’t really read or watch anything to zone out. Exercise is hard because I am weak with hunger even though I’m forcing myself to eat. I keep telling myself STOP SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION because I don’t want to make the wrong choices, but I’m proactive and it feels impossible. My therapist suggested I journal so I am.

I see a light at the end of the tunnel in all the people who have reached out and been there for me in spite of how disconnected and detached I am. I know I’m not alone even though I feel terribly alone and isolated. It will get better. But in the meantime HOLY SHIT I JUST WANT THIS TO BE OVER UGGGGHHHHHHH. Looking into short term anxiety medication, and I really hope it helps. Because this is the worst. I just want to feel like a person again.

Love,
Heidi Girl

Being a person is hard: Trying not to care vs. caring too much

Today I messaged Aaron that my weight and body fat percentage had increased from my weekend shenanigans and he said “you monitor that stuff too closely.” To which I replied,

I can’t help it, I am equal parts motivated by my success, self loathing and numbers.

As much as I hate being motivated for the wrong reasons I can’t deny my desire to eliminate my stomach has had a powerful impact on my dedication.

I don’t really feel like we live in a time that allows women to feel good about their bodies. At the right angle, in the morning before eating and after I’ve gone to the bathroom I sometimes like what I see. But I don’t think I have ever felt satisfied with how I look. And enough comments have been made to let me know other people notice the problems I notice too. I try to keep these unhealthy thoughts to myself because I don’t really think there’s anything that can be done at this point but aim for as close to the ideal fitness as possible. The current fitness movement has just given me brand new ways to feel inadequate. My butt never occurred to me as a problem until the last few years. It’s sad and awful but at least it makes me take good care of myself which is equally important to me. I want a good quality of life. I’m sure men experience this too.

That’s a really sad, true paragraph. I don’t know how not to care about how I look, I don’t even know how to WANT to not care about how I look. I am vain. I sometimes think, “thank goodness I came out with potential because I am too vain for the alternative”. I’m embarrassed of these thoughts but I am sharing them anyways, because I don’t think I’ve met a single woman who was like “oh my gosh yes, 100% of the time I love my body no matter how it looks and I don’t think there’s one single improvement I want to make.” To be fair—I don’t think there’s a man who feels this way either, but in general it seems more accepted by women when their significant others “let themselves go” than it is by men. It’s also acceptable to date much younger women, and far more common though I think we will see a shift with that trend as women become increasingly confident and empowered. For the most part, I feel that women before the current generation of children were raised to feel like the way they looked was important, and to hear a constant barrage of jokes about getting old, aka turning 30 or 40.

I am afraid of death, I am afraid of getting older, I am afraid of my body sagging and losing its good quality. All of that frightens me. So living in a society where women stop having as much significance past a certain age is alarming. I am lucky to be alive during a time where that is changing. The show Grace & Frankie is the first show where I really felt women who I do consider “older” at 77 and 79 were continuing to have lives. They look great, they’re dating, they’re inventing, they’re living life as if it isn’t time to kick the bucket because they’re past a certain age. I found so much comfort in watching that show in a way I never felt watching the Golden Girls which if anything intensified my fears of growing older. They still experience the downsides of aging, but in a way that no longer makes me feel terrified for the future.

Weaving in and out of all these fears are concerns about the way I look. My goal now is to take care of myself in a way that eliminates my stomach, cellulite, and any preventable aging. If I just apply enough moisturizer—but wait, what’s the natural kind I should be putting on? Oil? Rose hip? I don’t know but I’ll take vitamin E to help, and I’ll make sure I wear enough sunblock but then of course I’ll look pale and like I’m dying, maybe I’ll just get a bit of sun-splashed look to me, but no because wrinkles aren’t worth it. Whatever I will simply work on my body until my butt sits high like a shelf and you can see my triceps and bulging quads because that is what’s hip right now. Strong is the new skinny. Real women have curves though. But also I do kind of want to be thin. And flexible, I should probably do yoga. I can’t even stand upside down yet, what a failure.

OH LORDY LORD THERE’S SO MANY WAYS TO BE. And on top of all these fitness movements we are also supposed to not care. Who needs makeup, who cares how we look, let’s shed all our clothes and just be who we are and let all that inner beauty shine! But wait, I don’t know if I’m smart enough, successful enough? AM I A BOSS BETCH!? Am I living my best life? Do I travel enough? Am I impressive enough? Do my food and apartment both look beautiful enough to be in a magazine? Am I supporting the right movements? Am I feeling sorry enough for other parts of the world and exerting the right efforts? Am I politically aware? Am I putting self care first because treat yoself? Am I enough? Am I? AM I?!

I constantly find myself at war with trying to be the right kind of woman, the right kind of person who cares about the right things and doesn’t focus on the wrong things. But this dichotomy of not caring vs. caring too much often places me at one extreme end of the spectrum. Either I don’t care at all, I stop worrying and grow increasingly apathetic OR I care to the point where it’s not exactly healthy. I feel competitive with myself and others, extremely concerned with my body, apartment, and talents and I succeed as a result. That’s why I can’t find it in myself to want not to care when I’m busy caring. I like being motivated, but how can I be motivated by the right reasons? I am genuinely not convinced that I can be. I am concerned that the society I was brought up in combined with unhealthy mental practices I’ve had since I was young has made healthy self love + improvement an impossibility. And the nagging thought that “if I could just be perfect, everything wouldn’t be so hard” is always there. Because I don’t have the problems of someone in a third world country I have the ability to reach close to “perfection” by American standards. I CAN have it all and so I feel like I should, not like I deserve it all, but like if it’s possible I have to go out and achieve it because other people will work twice as hard and get half as far simply because of circumstances outside of their control. Then I feel guilty about how the world is and start down a whole new worm hole.

It’s really hard to be a person sometimes. I talk about how it is for women but I feel this way for men too. They aren’t granted some of the gender fluidity that we are. Remember how women didn’t used to be able to wear pants and that was so weird and sexist? Can you HONESTLY say that you wouldn’t find it bizarre to see a straight man suddenly donning a dress in the same casual way we wear jeans? Would that not seem sort of radical? Or, can you imagine being a girl who found two guys making out as hot as many men find two girls making out? Would you genuinely be cool dating a straight man who experimented with his sexuality? Does it not have more significance for a little boy to want to play with dolls, dress up, love “girly” colors and activities than it does for a girl to be a tom boy? Being a tom boy is kind of a cool thing, where as boys aren’t given that same flexibility which is unfair to both genders. I’ve talked about this before. We aren’t raising men to be able to experience the same range of emotions we can, we insist they’re just idiots, and that they can’t multi-task, or do things women can and how is that any different then men asserting there are things men can do that women can’t? There is no difference.

And I feel like we are talking about all of it TOO much to the point where everyone is just straight up confused about how to be and what to say, and we are all feeling super sensitive and unheard. The ideal world is one in which everyone isn’t commenting on things outside of our control, or deciding which genders can like what, or where we are confining to social norms defined ages ago. I compare it to this: when I first got an apartment all I had was the furniture I had been given or found. So I made it work for many years. I enjoyed these limitations because I could only be so perfect within them. It felt safe. Then one day I woke up and realized I could save money for furniture I might like better, that there wasn’t one right way to arrange a room, and that I hadn’t been thinking innovatively at all. This was overwhelming, there were now so many ways to design my space “wrong” but it also opened up a world of possibility. I constantly ask myself, “what works for me? Think about the solution that makes sense, instead of the solution you’d automatically go with because of previous experiences.” This is how change happens. And it should probably not be noteworthy change. We have a lot of real issues that we should talk about, and the individual is perhaps getting too much attention resulting in a lot of self deprecation.

I kind of digressed from my initial topic which is that I’m overly fixated on caring about how I look. So I’m just going to abruptly transition back to that. I can tell you every single instance where someone made me feel insecure about my body. I round them up every time it’s time to exercise. And it’s ABSURD. I carry around a lot of rage and bitterness that these things were said to me because I can’t un-know them. I can’t pretend “no one notices” when they did notice. I use it, I use it to fuel my fire and workout harder so I can look the best I ever have. And when I post a photo of myself in my new swimsuit and get more likes on it than anything I’ve ever posted OoOoO do I feel validated. So what’s the solution, that people should also not comment on how good I look? Fuck that, I didn’t work this hard so no one could notice. I don’t know how to not feel bad if I’m not being told I look good, and so I don’t know how to not care. That’s why it’s important to me now that when I compliment children it’s about things they have a choice over: outfits they put together (style!), things they made, thoughts they had, the stuff that I’ll have control over when I’m old and I no longer look “good”. Instead I’ll probably age and hate it like everyone else, but darn if I’m not going to try and contribute to a society where that is no longer a thing.

I’m just ranting about the way things are right now and have been and might continue to be. I’m not looking for people to reassure me that I don’t need to care. I know that by normal standards I have a great figure, and me feeling badly about it is unfair to people who are working very hard at their own dream figure and may not have some of the genetic advantages I do. I feel shitty feeling bad about my body for those reasons, but I don’t think it’s my fault because I still hear negative comments about my body, and it’s pretty dang hard to shake those off as I’m sure we can all agree. But I’ll keep doing the best I can to love and nourish it for the right reasons.

Sometimes our society is sad and dumb, when I complain about things like this I definitely feel that. And then I feel dumb for contributing to it..and so on and so forth….

Love,
Heidi Girl

My brief stint with full time, unnecessary, parenting and just how mentally unhinged it rendered me.

The past two weeks I have been in California visiting Aaron and his daughter. She and her mom are moving to Ohio but she has to finish school so he’s out there for a while and I figured I’d go out and “help”. I found this trip to be not eye opening exactly, but a reinforcement of things I knew about myself,but didn’t necessarily have any recent tangible evidence for.

My whole life I have pursued every whim I’ve had. My parents like any parents came with some flaws, but overall they had a very hands-off approach when it came to our interests + goals that was pivotal in my opportunity to get to know myself in an unhindered way. I honestly cannot picture ever asking for help on homework, I thought kids whose parents essentially did their projects for them were…less than, for want of a better term. I didn’t want help on anything. I could barely get myself to focus in class because I wanted to go home and read the text myself and do it on my own time. I knew that if I paid attention it would be easier but I’ve always struggled with being on another person’s time table, especially when it comes to work of any kind. I prepared my own lunches, planned out my outfits for the week, had a detailed schedule hanging in my closet by age 12 of how I wanted to spend each waking moment. I struggled with merging different friend groups because I liked the freedom of flitting from one group to another, allowing certain parts of myself to come into sharper focus, and not wanting to sacrifice that versatility with overlap.

I was, and will always be extremely controlling. I believe I have suffered from mild OCD and maybe more than mild anxiety most of my life—but no one has ever deprived me of being able to control my environments, activities, career, and even my meals, in a way that prevented me from utilizing my many coping mechanisms to great effect.

This is great in so many ways. Not having my choices questioned I’ve had relationships where I had plenty of space, I’ve almost always lived alone, I have never had a traditional 8-5 job which I believe would be the death of me, I haven’t had an interest in marriage or children, I’ve traveled whenever I fancied, etc. My entire family has accepted my way of life completely. They never even prod, “are you sure you might not like to be married? to have kids?” My grampa observed, “I don’t think Heidi will ever get married.” He didn’t say it like a criticism, he just acknowledged this simple truth that so many people struggle with.

So when I started dating someone one who had a child I never presumed I’d fill the role of “step mom”. I wasn’t looking to be a mom, or even a mother figure. This wasn’t some void I needed to fill that his daughter conveniently could. Once I was old enough to realize that college > marriage > kids wasn’t the only route to go, I assumed I’d take a different one. I couldn’t imagine a world in which I was able to relinquish my control enough to invite a small, dependent little being into it. This particular child is a part of someone I love, and I choose to love her back. She is my friend, we share similar interests [for now], we have fun together, even take comfort in one another from time to time, but she has an incredible mom and she doesn’t need another one. However, it is uncomfortable for people not to be able to categorize me in relation to her. I have felt flattered when people have said “well you’re kind of like her step mom!” But it wasn’t until this trip, this concentrated dose of “this is what it would be like to have a kid around full time in the same space as your boyfriend” that I was like “HOLY HELL WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY BRAIN.” I literally lost my mind, I think I cried every day—besides yesterday and today—multiple times. I was in someone else’s home, conforming to someone else’s parenting methods [incidentally not the same as my own based on babysitting, and let’s face it..mine are probably superior], dealing with the brutal honesty of a child who trusts your love for them enough to take you for granted, and feeling like I was supposed to be filling this role of mom type figure while her mom was out of town. GUESS WHAT, I don’t want to, and she doesn’t really want that either. It took me over a week of having complete mental break downs to realize what the problem was. Other people’s need to put me into a step mom role had subconsciously taken root and left me feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied by the connection between myself and this kid.

I was also painfully aware that any hint of step mom talk made Aaron uncomfortable which introduced a new problem in my head. “He doesn’t want me to be a part of this family, he doesn’t want her to feel that about me, he and her mom are partners and I’m just some outsider” on and on. We discussed it openly, and that’s all true actually. Well, besides the family thing. I am a part of this family, but as something new and modern that doesn’t have a title and that’s okay because the title makes us both squirm and is something we are only dealing with because he happens to have a kid—something that has put a lot of pressure on our relationship bench marks. I’m not dating him because he’s a dad, I’m dating him because I like him. He is my favorite person to have fun with, share experiences with, be with for the most part and part of who he is is being a dad. He wants to share that with me, and that’s special. I matter to his daughter, will influence her and would go to many extremes for her, but it’s its own unique thing that I am satisfied by. And he and her mom are and should be the partners in raising their daughter, they don’t need outside help [although I offer tons of unsolicited advice and Aaron, bless his heart, receives it un-defensively which I find very impressive]. As I thought on this more, the idea of partner—the modern way of describing your significant other— I realized..I don’t want a partner. I don’t want someone who has a say in my choices. Bounce ideas off one another? Consider one another when we make choices? Sure. But at the end of the day I do not like the idea of two becoming one. I do not want to live with him. In fact he spent like two weeks kinda living with me while he was in between apartments and by the end of it I was like “YOU GOTTA GO”.

I think this baffles a lot of people. Not having the final goal of at the very least living with your “partner”, but when you realize you don’t want a partner it simplifies things quite dramatically. I don’t want to make decisions about decorating with someone else, are you joking me? I don’t want to have to not sing Moana songs at the top of my lungs in the comfort of my own home. This is my safe space, and anytime Aaron comes over I want to be choosing that, I want him to be choosing it. It doesn’t mean he’s just not the right person for me, this would be true of anyone.

What’s confusing is that people question this, outside of my family and closest friends, people have always questioned and challenged it, giving me those patronizing looks of “oh sweetie, you poor thing, you’re going to change your mind” often going so far as to vocalize that sentiment. This is a thing that women experience far more than men. We just do. People have so many questions, opinions and judgements about our choices. And as much as you tell yourself “who cares, I do what I want” you can’t help but store all those little voices of doubt in your head that you might be doing the wrong thing. I can’t help but think that if everyone kept their opinions to themselves it would be much easier to pursue what’s healthiest and most sensible for an individual. My family did that, and it worked. Society will not do that, and it makes me actually go crazy.

So, I spent two weeks with the object of my affection and his offspring and I am POSITIVE that I am not going to be a mom. I get that it’s different with your own child, but I’m not denying a connection and love for the kid I just spent most of my time with. I love the shit out of her. I’m acknowledging that I do not want to give up control in my life. We have kids because we want to grow our families with more people who love us. It’s not a bad thing at all, I am not questioning that choice, but it is an equally selfish one to choosing your needs over the needs of unborn humans. The world isn’t wanting for more humans, at all, the only reason I’d have kids is for myself. It is a huge decision, one that requires a great deal of sacrifice and I am 100% confident that it would be devastating to my mental health. I do not feel like I am missing out on anything, I have love in my life, I LIKE living the way that I do and for christ’s sake..I cannot wait to get home to my own apartment, with no one who needs anything from me, where I will sleep..for a thousand years.

To all the single parents out there, I would like to say: you are amazing, and the fact that you aren’t all serial murderers because you can’t even go for a walk at night due to child is a miracle. You are super humans, even if your kids go to school with food on their faces, pants on their heads, and your house is a disaster area. I do not, and cannot understand how. HOW.

Love,

Heidi Girl