thoughts + ideas

several months ago, mitchell and i packed up our camry with only what could fit and drove back to arizona. and to my ptsd-ridden, suicidal brain, it felt like defeat. we had taken a risk for a job of mine, and i got sick and couldn't keep working. we lost a lot of money and a lot of things, that while replaceable, we still miss. since our dating days, we had both known we didn't want to live in arizona forever. moving back here this summer augmented the feeling, but this time around we wanted a bit more stability and to go to a place that we didn't mind settling down for a while. most big cities were on our list, but we preferred the ones where we had connections. (in seattle, that was a huge challenge because we knew literally no one before moving there. we really struggled to get connected to a community, partly due to my mental health struggles and partly due to the pandemic.) i started a medicine that changed my life and began to feel a lot better. i started feeling mo

i was waiting for the shower water to heat up tonight and i opened my phone to this photo of myself. this was taken in July 2019. looking at it, i was just struck by how pretty i am. that's not normal for me! i usually dislike my body/photos of my body and feel generally insecure. but today, i was struck by how pretty i am and was inspired to go look at other photos of myself in my instagram archives. and while there, i was caught by this caption from the beginning of 2019 . this part specifically: " I was in the car talking with God and asking how I could stop feeling distant and stuck in my head. His response was this: 'you need to believe the truth about yourself when people say it to you.'" that just blew my mind a little. the lightbulb went on. my new giving key necklace has the word "believe" engraved on it. if you're not familiar with the giving keys organization, the idea is you get a word to embrace for yourself. once you've embraced