day 37: real talk

I'm trying this new thing where I acknowledge my perceived inadequacies, but without any immediate pressure to fix them. Yes, of course, I'd like to make progress--and I am working to do so--but I constantly have to remind myself that it won't happen overnight, and I need to stop beating myself up when it doesn't.

It's amazing the relief provided simply by verbal confession, even without any kind of proposition, or solution. Just breaking the silence, forming the words outside of the cockles of my mind does wonders.

I am anxious.
I have insecurities.
I am afraid of failure.

I'm ashamed.
I'm shy.
I want to be liked.

As much as I hate to admit it (because it's not "cool"), indeed, yes--I care what people think of me. Or just that they think of me.

I wish I didn't. But that's not what this is about. This is about acknowledging my true self (rather than the self I project to the world), but without the burden of trying to correct it right now.

I have body image issues.
I have doubts about my goals.
I have doubts. Period.

I thrive on appreciation, but am too self-conscious to properly receive a compliment.
I seek out approval (read: validation), but mostly via social media so I can remain somewhat inconspicuous and anonymous (how very Millennial of me).
I long to be special, to be held in higher regard, but find ways to avoid the work or the spotlight required to occupy such a status.

I could go on...but I won't.

There is a part of me that isn't any of these things. A part of my true self has already figured out how to overcome this ineptness, this mediocrity. The part of me that is aware enough to acknowledge them.

She comes out now and then (I call her Lola, my alter ego).

When I started weightlifting, she came out a lot more, because my body confidence is closely tied to a lot of these other things. Some of that applies now too because feeling and looking healthier (thanks to the Whole30) boosts my confidence as well.

I've said it before and I'll reiterate it here: I am a work in progress.

Some of these things are unfortunate consequences of the human, mortal condition. That's not an excuse to be crippled by them, however.

The path I am on right now is one of awareness, acknowledgment, and conscious change. It's a sliding scale and I will spend the rest of my life striving to be the best version of myself.

A work in progress, yes. But also a masterpiece in the making.

day 36: why my life is a Rogers and Hart song

I get too hungry for dinner at eight.
I like the theatre but never come late.
I never bother with people I hate.

Let's see--yes, yes, and a thousand times, YES. We can just stop here, actually. This is my anthem.

I don't like crap games with Barons and Earls.
Won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls.
Won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls.

Okay, so I had to look up what "ermine" was (it is a fancy white fur stoat) but yeah, definitely wouldn't go to Harlem--or anywhere--wearing that. And "dishing the dirt" = "stirring up drama." No thank you.

I like the free, fresh wind in my hair, life without care.
I'm broke--it's oke!
Hate California, it's cold and it's damp.

All true thus far. (Except about hating California. That's false. I love you, California.) Also, in case you were wondering, "oke" is "okay" in this instance.

I go to Coney, the beach is divine.
I go to ball games, the bleachers are fine.
I follow Winchell and read every line.

Never been to Coney Island, but I love the beach in general, as long as it isn't over-crowded (see previous line about "not bothering"). And the cheap seats at a baseball game are basically the only thing that is great about America these days. Winchell was a gossip columnist way back when--but I mean, if we're being completely honest, I love that juicy celebrity gossip as much as the next girl. However, now instead of getting it from the newspaper, I glean if off of Refinery29 or Bravo.

I like a prize fight that isn't a fake.
I love the rowing on Central Park lake.
I go to opera and stay wide awake.

I would've gotten into the huge boxing match last weekend had it not been utterly ridiculous on all accounts. Bodies of water are my jam, clichéd Central Park included. And don't get me started on the opera. I sang that stuff in high school and college. It's legit.

I like the green grass under my shoes, what can I lose?
I'm flat--that's that!
I'm all alone when I lower my lamp.

Mmm-hmmm, guilty on all charges.

Don't know the reason for cocktails at five.
I don't like flying, I'm glad I'm alive.
I crave affection, but not when I drive.

Happy hour is just an excuse to drink away the misery and emptiness you get from your day job. Flying gets a bad rap (thanks, Homeland Security), but I could take it or leave it. And I prefer driving alone so I can roll all the windows down and turn the radio way up and sing.

Folks go to London and leave me behind.
I'll miss the crowning, Queen Mary won't mind.
I don't play Scarlett in "Gone With the Wind".

I've always harbored a deep desire to punch Scarlett O'Hara in the throat.

I like to hang my hat where I please, sail with the breeze.
No dough--hey, ho!
I love La Guardia and think he's a champ.

(La Guardia was the mayor of New York City. I'll refrain from commenting on the current mayor of NYC at this time.)

Girls get massages, they cry and they moan.
Tell Lizzie Arden to leave me alone.
I'm not so hot, but my shape is my own.

(Lizzie Arden is referring to Elizabeth Arden, the cosmetics mogul.) There's an entire feminist agenda in three lines here. Take that, Meghan Trainor.

The food at Sardi's is perfect, no doubt.
I don't know what the Ritz is about.
I drop a nickel and coffee comes out.

Sardi's is that restaurant in Times Square where all the caricatures of celebrities are hanging on the walls. Wouldn't be caught dead there. Hate that touristy stuff. Ain't nobody got time (or money) for that.

I like the sweet, fresh rain in my face.
Diamonds and lace, no got--so what?

So what? The perfect retort. The perfect song. The perfect summation of my life philosophy.

And that's why the lady is a tramp!

day 35: miss independent

"Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet."

No, I didn't see that on a bumper sticker, or in swirly frilly letters in an "inspirational" graphic on the internet. Someone actually said it to me--ironically, I hope! (Right, Joey?)

Blech, the statement is physically revolting to me. Say it, and I cringe and shudder like Whoopi Goldberg the hyena and you just said "Mufasa!" Maybe it's my generalized social anxiety. Maybe it's my overall discontent with the masses. Maybe I'm just a weird loner. Maybe I'm intimidating, stuck-up, and judgmental. At any rate, I have to say that in general, people suck, I don't really like them, and I don't see every stranger as a potential new bestie.

There are several individuals in my life that I like quite a bit, but collectively people are pretty much the worst.

It is this quality of being just the worst that drives my lack of desire to be everyone's buddy. I am someone who would much rather invest the time and energy into having only a few quality friendships, rather than spreading the friendliness around to lots of people that I've never really had a connection with (I guess you could say I'm like Ron Swanson in that way).

This tends to backfire, of course, when I rarely feel that connection to anyone (probably due to my own inability to let my guard down) and end up with, like, zero friends.

It's mostly fine with me. I can enjoy my time alone. And I don't know if anyone has admitted it out loud since possibly kindergarten, but making new friends is hard. I'm of the philosophy that you can't force it, so when thrown into a new situation with new people and new opportunities--it either clicks, or it just doesn't.

So I guess the more accurate statement would be that making new friends isn't necessarily hard, but it does take patience. (Case in point: when you do meet someone you click with, the friendship easily falls into place. So making that friend isn't difficult at all, but stumbling upon them in a world population of over seven billion is somewhat unlikely.)

That's why when I do develop one of those connections, it tends to stick--even from thousands of miles away. You probably want to ask, are these old friendships preventing me from developing new ones? It's possible. But these are my people. And given the odds, I think I'm going to hang on to them while I can.

So yeah, I may not be the most warm and fuzzy person in the world. And I sure as hell won't be easy to get to know right off the bat. But if you put in the time, it could be worth your while.

In the interim, kudos to those of you who can instantly be best friends with literally anyone. You will probably get much further in life than loners like me.

Consequently, I am in the market for an Ithaca person. So if this cynical-ass blog post didn't completely turn you off and you can appreciate the pop culture references, look me up. We could be friends, just so long as we aren't strangers first.

day 34: new normal

This morning I was running a little late (because Mondays, obviously). Okay, so running a little late is pretty standard for me, but today it was a little more. All in all, I was probably ten minutes late to my first lecture at 8:00am.

I skipped going to the office to pick up lecture notes for the week and didn't take my usual quick pee break before class so I could slip into the back of the lecture hall without being too conspicuously tardy.

Lo and behold, I walked in and everyone was socializing, the projector was blank and there was no lecturer at the front of the class. Immediately, I breathed sigh of relief. Realizing the clinician who was supposed to come wasn't there yet, I felt comfortable taking time to pick up notes and use the bathroom in a leisurely fashion.

Returning to the lecture hall filled with increasingly anxious students, the course leader made an announcement basically saying, "We don't know where he is. He's one of our best lecturers. We'll try to post the slides for you, but you won't get any notes. Sorry about that."

Given the situation, there were two predominant reactions that surfaced. Either you were bitter for waking up and coming to class for nothing and regretting the extra hour of sleep you could've gotten, or you were grateful for the extra time to jumpstart your day--especially since it was gorgeous outside and you could now soak up the sun for an hour.

I was the second person. I actually did a kind of double take at my own attitude because bitter and cynical used to be my wheelhouse. But here I was, relieved that I wasn't late after all, and happy that I didn't waste (and as it turns out--couldn't have wasted) time this weekend when it was heaven outside preparing for a lecture that didn't actually happen.

This default positive attitude is a relatively new sensation for me. Being aware of my pessimistic ways and actively trying to find the silver lining in life is usually my course of action. But today--today I automatically focused on the good stuff and didn't focus on what I could've been better.

It still blows my mind that this phenomenon could be (and likely is!) directly related to the food I eat. Virtually nothing else in my life has changed, the potential for irritability is still there. But since I started eating differently, my general mood has been better (regardless of whatever other stresses are always present and unchanged).

This is weird and awesome. I can explain it and yet I can't. I choose to believe that my good food choices are paying off in big ways. Mainly--simply being a happier person. Now that I can observe my peers and how negative they can be about a lot of things, it only sheds more light on the fact that I used to be like that (I'm sorry to those around me--I see now that it's extremely difficult and draining to be around a chronically negative person).

Being a genuinely jovial person without really having to think about it is ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm talking down to those aforementioned "negative people". I say the things I do because that used to be me. And now I can't help but share because I'm constantly being pleasantly surprised by the unintended benefits of the Whole30 program.

I'm now the kind of person that two-months-ago me would've probably rolled her eyes at (but really that was only because deep down she was jealous and wished she could be light-heatedly happy in the face of obstacles). So I'm going to try to keep it going, because it's working for me right now.

Please don't roll your eyes at me.

day 33: west coast calling

I've been fantasizing a lot lately about moving out west.

Maybe it just happens to be the ones I follow, but it seems that a high concentration of the Paleo food bloggers out there on the interwebs are based in California. Perhaps it's the year-round access to fresh produce, or simply that cool people live in Cali and cool people eat Paleo--I don't know.

But I'm constantly jealous.

Scrolling through my Instagram is as inspiring as it is torturing. And not just because of the food. Those crazy California people are constantly on the beach, or hiking, or at the farmer's market, or just outside in the sun being awesome and tan and happy.

I'm not ashamed to say that I totally want to be them. I would love that life. I'll spare you my rendition of Ariel's "Part of Your World" but just so you know--that's the general sentiment here.

Not that I don't love upstate New York. The Adirondacks are one of my favorite places ever to have visited and by far the best place I've ever lived (Vermont, you're a very close second). Mountains are definitely on the required list for any place that I may settle down in. Sorry, Ithaca, but your hills don't count as mountains. I love the ocean too, though. Or a large body of water at least. Mountains and ocean would be ideal (can you see why the west coast is desirable?).

I've been to California twice in my life. The first time--which I don't really count--was marching in the Rose Bowl Parade with the Pride of Missouri State University marching band. I don't count it because a) it was Pasadena, and b) we only went to all the most touristy, corporate, commercial spots that part of southern California had to offer (like Disneyland, outlet malls, etc). It was rushed and hectic and all of my time was pre-planned for me. I didn't get to explore or have any kind of adventure. Thus, I don't consider that as getting a true California experience.

Luckily, the second time I visited California was the complete opposite of the first. The summer after I moved to New York, my boyfriend and I drove cross-country to hike the John Muir Trail. We started in Yosemite National Park, and three weeks--and 250 miles--later stepped off of Mount Whitney. I could write dozens of blog posts about how awesome that trip was, but suffice it to say that is what I think of when I think of California. The dry, rocky, towering ominous peaks. The lush valleys. The crystal clear glacial lakes. The wildlife. The cowboys and the pack mules. Sleeping under the stars. The sunshine. The sunshine, people.

And that was only a very small section of the state. I want to go back and go to northern California. And Oregon. And Washington. I'm seriously lacking in west coast experiences. My grandmother gave my a guide to bicycling the Pacific Coast a long time ago and I keep it on the shelf because there is a part of my still determined to make the trip someday. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll hike the Pacific Crest Trail instead. Maybe I'll do both.

These are things that cross my mind as I'm looking at yet another meal posted to Instagram with fresher ingredients than I could ever dream of, or reading about another food blogger using limes or lemons from their backyard tree.

I guess if I wanted to, I could have an indoor lemon tree. I do have fig trees indoors. But I dream about my figs growing outside in the ground. Maybe someday.

Someday.

Maybe.

day 32: dangerous territory

Whoever first decided that the end of the school year--and thus final exams--should coincide with the beginning of spring and the first few days of truly pleasant weather after a long six months of cold, dreary misery can go jump off a cliff.

It is entirely too difficult to get anything done when the weather is like it was today (and will be tomorrow, and the rest of the next three months, probably), and now--with only one week left of classes--is when I need to be buckling down and studying more than ever.

This is a dangerous place to be in because the end is in sight. More than in sight even, nearly within reach, and I am looking forward to my summer plans so much.

Yesterday I met with the Department of Natural Resources graduate student who will be my supervisor for the research project I'll be working on. We talked logistics for the job and paper work and all that, but then she also gave me a list of birds to brush up on and made sure I had my own binoculars and field guide.

I left that meeting on a little bit of a high just knowing that it is literally part of my job description to go out hiking and simply identify birds. I'm not exactly sure why but this makes me incredibly happy (college-aged me getting her undergraduate degree in wildlife biology would be very pleased with present-day me on this).

I'd much rather spend my time doing that rather than memorizing pharmacological effects on the respiratory system. In fact, there is very little I've studied and learned thus far that excites me as much as the idea of being out in nature and surveying birds. Does this mean I'm in the wrong profession?

I keep telling myself, No! I'm right where I need to be. (But am I? The voice of doubt in my head is strong these days.)

Quickly, I am approaching the perceived point of no return--even if something drastic should happen or I should change my mind completely, I will feel stuck in my current path because of the huge time and financial investment I've made. This is an extremely stressful place to be, and that's on top of the stress of being a veterinary student in and of itself.

The only solution I can see right now is to wait it out--get through the next two weeks, enjoy the summer, see how I handle research, come back in the fall refreshed, and go forward from there. I know I will need to start making some big moves to get the experiences it takes to get onto a path I can feel comfortable and excited about within the veterinary field. But I just don't have the fortitude to find those now, or dedicate energy to stressing about the fact that I haven't found them yet.

I apologize if this stream of consciousness sounds like gibberish. I have a lot of stuff going on in my head, and it's overwhelming to me most of the time, so I can't imagine what it must be like to try to process for those who are outside of my head (which is everyone).

So I will try to spare you any more of my variations of the theme of doubt (it's a recurring theme--a motif, if you will), and stick to more accessible topics (food) because that's why I started this whole blog thing in the first place.

It wasn't my intention for this to become a version of my personal diary with thoughts on all things, even those not remotely related to my Whole30 experiment. Then again--perhaps that is just what I need.

day 31: free pass

I'm surprised (and frankly, impressed) with how consistently I've been able to post to this blog pretty much every day of my Whole30. Therefore, tonight I am totally phoning it in.

This brief message is all I can muster. For whatever reason, I'm really low on energy and motivation today.

My bed is too enticing, and I've used up all my will power for today.

Tomorrow is going to be gorgeous and sunny and warm so no doubt I will be out and about and will have some awesome adventure to chronicle.

But not today. Today is over. This week is over. Finally. And now it's time to sleep.