if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been away for a couple of days. if you have noticed congrats you are my 1 and only reader. i don’t know who you are though bc you haven’t left a message in my guestbook so maybe you should fix that. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

i’ve been traveling - I haven’t decided if I want to share my adventures here or on my more “public” facing pages. I like to keep my real life adventures on the dl, but unfortunately talking about your glow up may require some references to real life. This isn’t private - my blog is my place to share thoughts that just don’t naturally come up in conversation. Things i want to share that might help someone. The great thing about blogs is that i can write something that may not even resonate with someone until years from now, but if it reaches them they’re less alone in that moment. Like when I find a very specific reddit post about their family’s undiagnosed mental illnesses manifesting in the same way. Time is a construct.

fuck sorry this is supposed to be about bettering myself. •ᴗ•

anyway - what did i learn abroad?

be thrifty

before you ask no i didn’t run out of money on my trip. i actually balanced my finances pretty well. when i traveled and saw a bunch of smaller farm towns and I realized a big difference between me and them. Throwing things out was not an option. The country areas I went to had no easy access for amazon’s weird decorate candle warmer nor a shitty walmart to buy a last minute plastic pizza cutter. country girls truly do make do. and while i do shit on over consumption, i really haven’t put my dwindling money where my dry mouth is. can i learn to fix/upgrade things before I just toss them out? Can i make something with quality materials instead of always just buying something? I think I’m more capable than I realize. I know my 16.78 that i give in weekly purchases to corporate giants won’t make a big difference, but as these shitty ass pre-recession prices keep going up I think this will help me in the long run. if i can rely on me and share with others i’ll be living rich.

• cancel my subscriptions and get into piracy (i was doing it anyway)
• do some house projects to fix things around my house - mostly cosmetic I dont trust myself with wiring or like structural things
• make more things from scratch, I’m actually pretty decent at cooking

be observational

it’s embarassing to admit but you have to figure a person who likes blogging would obviously be in their head too much. I never realized but I really am a day dreamer. I need time be alone with my thoughts in my own little world where everything is perfect and sometimes theme park themed.

however --- i need to balance this out with also being more aware of my surroundings. “Spacial awareness” my partner will snarkily tell me when i run into the part of the counter that sticks out with my hip bone. but goddamn is being aware of everything all the time exhausting. i realized though how necessary it became when traveling. when do you get naked for the public bath? do i need to wear my backpack in front like a psycho tourist or can i just walk around safely? am I supposed to drink this thing they just handed me? being in a foreign place is like autism on level 100, but for some reason in my neurodiverengce I always thought the answer could be found in media and books…didn’t realize we could figure this out simply by looking at others. (¬_¬”) i know it’s not worth the cost . but sadly it is the more efficient option.

• listen to people better when they talk (thanks adhd)
• meditation in the present moment
• prepare myself for the emotionally draining experience that is being out in public

treasure privacy

holy shit nothing makes you appreciate alone time more than not having more than 15 minutes of privacy for 10 days straight. i am a very social creature and used to think I didn’t like alone time. but now after this trip I’ve realize what i really dislike is just feeling lonely. but what i need is privacy to be in my own head. you really can’t just let out your full stream of consciousness around people no matter how cool they are. eventually you say something that offends or bothers them. people are the worst, if only they could think exactly like me in every single way. then we wouldn’t have war… but we also wouldn’t have running utilities. so ig i’ll have to just settle for prioritizing alone time with restorative activities like

• journaling/blogging more
• finding space for imagination
• being an absolute freak by myself and not worry about a single person judging me for it
• decrease my doom scrolling time or listening to others opinions with time thinking for myself

---