Tag: books

Cup Status: 3/4 Full, but a Bit Shaky

This summer has been both a reflective summer and one where I have read the words of many female writers, some of whom I knew I would connect with and others I knew that I probably wouldn’t. I have chosen the books on my reading list for three main reasons: 1. The authors are female, 2. I own the physical copies on my bookshelf and I am trying to keep only those books that I truly love or connect with, and 3. They are available on the Libby app for me to listen to so that I can do a combination of reading in print and listening on audio depending on if I am at home or working at my second job at Walmart. My inspiration for today’s post comes from a book that I didn’t think I was going to connect to much, and it isn’t because I didn’t think the book wouldn’t be worth reading or because I had any pre-conceived notions about the author, it was because I knew the author has a Christian point of view and that is a part of my past that I have detached from many years ago for myriad reasons. However, true to my teacher heart, I vow to always find at least one nugget worth holding onto from anything that I read or any professional development I attend or motivational speech that I listen to. It is just part of my nature. If I am going to spend part of my life with these words, then by golly, I am going to get something out of it. It turns out that despite some of the “Christianese” that stuck in my chest and made me feel the old anxiety, I did gain several beautiful insights from Rachel Hollis’s book Girl, Wash Your Face. I’ll admit that I listened to this one on the Libby app and wound up typing a few notes into my phone and writing a few others on scraps of paper that I came across while picking groceries at Walmart; see cover photo for evidence of this. Lol! Either way, my biggest “Aha moment” came when she said, “Every year you get to write the chapter of your story; don’t write the same one 75 times and call it a life.” I know, I know. There was some drama about plagiarism surrounding Rachel and this quote, but we are not besties. I can still be inspired by it.

So, when I heard this quote come through my off-brand AirPods, I stopped in my tracks. I was supposed to be picking groceries- probably a bag of shredded cheese (the favorite blend in my town is fiesta… or possibly a party-size bag of Doritos, another town staple)- but I paused and wrote this quote down on a scrap of paper that I found in my vest pocket. It made me think about my own life. It made me think specifically about my family’s finances and the struggles we have been facing for the past several years that we thought we had overcome, but that came back with a surprise vengeance with home repair issues with our new house and then with health issues for my husband and then with the survival that follows major health issues. It truly felt like we were writing the same chapter over and over. Financial struggle. Fix it. Start to recover. Major catastrophe. Wipe out any small amout in savings. Financial struggle. Fix it. Start to recover. Major catastrophe. Wash-Rinse-Repeat. Then within that cycle came the anger, denial, acceptance, depression, numbness, and anxiety cycle that followed. I asked my therapist if I somehow sabotaged myself into this constantly happening. Did I somehow secretly revel in despair and in overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds over and over again? Did I secretly believe in my subconscious that I didn’t deserve to be happy? OR, was the universe just against me? Maybe I was cursed? I had no idea. (By the way, he said no. He said that there was no way that I could orchestrate events such as a deer totalling my husband’s car or my husband suddenly going into heart failure. I still wonder about being cursed…JK, but maybe not JK…) But this quote made me realize that I am not going to take the current fallout from the last catastrophe lying down. This chapter will have a different ending. We are taking steps to get out of the situation sooner; they are legal, I promise. But this time, we are not taking the long road. It is a scary decision, but one that is better in the long run. I don’t want the next 40 years of my life to be the same as the first 40. These chapters will be different.

Something else that Rachel talks about often is the importance of doing things that make the reader happy. This is also my new mantra. I am going to focus more on doing those things. I have been spending more time this summer reading, gardening, napping, and relaxing. There are tons of things that I need to do, but I am taking time for me and for my soul to heal and to gain back the strength that the school year and that life have zapped from me. I have been writing more entries here. I want to write more, but slow and steady is the start. I don’t want to jump in too fast and make this feel like a chore instead of something I enjoy. With all of the relaxing, I do know that the time for action is coming. Because the new chapters are going to involve more than just financial changes. The final pages of Rachel’s book really felt like an altar call, but instead of accepting Christ, they were about accepting the person I want to become and then taking concrete steps to become her. No, seriously, listen to the audio recording of Rachel reading the book and tell me if the tone and urgency don’t suddenly change as she nears the end. While I didn’t feel the need to find the nearest church and ask for prayer, it did give me the goosebump push I needed to truly think about this new chapter version of myself. Not the NEW & IMPROVED TANYA, but the Tanya I was always meant to be. Rachel says, “Only you have the power to change your life…You’ve always had the power, Dorothy. You just have to stop waiting for someone else to do it for you. There is no easy way out of this; there is no life hack. Just you and your God-given strength and how much you desire change.” Remove the “God-given” and I am fully on board. I know that there is no easy way out. I’ve tried easy ways to lose weight and ways to make quick money online, and none of those work. If there is going to be any kind of lasting change, it takes time and commitment, strength and work. It takes a desire to change and the will to not give up. My hold back has been the energy to lift that desire and make it a reality. But, in two weeks, my second job will be gone. I will have more time and more energy. I’ve learned that I can walk between 5 and 8 miles in a Walmart shift. That is a lot of physical activity. Imagine what I can do with that time if I get to use it for what I want? Yoga can come back into my life or hiking or dancing with my kids. The dreams are going to become a reality. I am so excited.

So, as Rachel says at the end of the book I am going to, “Stop crying about what happened and take control of what happens next. Get up, right now. Rise up from where you’ve been. Scrub away the tears and the pain of yesterday, and start again…” My story is far from over. Many of my chapters are still unwritten. I have so many dreams that I don’t know which ones will come to fruition in my lifetime, but I will continue to dream and continue to work for as many as I can.

One last piece of advice from Rachel that stood out to me and that I am taking this platform to state is this: She says to write your goals in plain sight. Write them somewhere you can see them. So, I am writing them here where I can see them and where others can see them. I am also writing them and placing them near my writing desk as a visual reminder that I have goals that I will accomplish.

Goal 1. Become debt-free in 5 years (with the exception of the mortgage)

Goal 2. Get healthy and lose weight so that I weigh under 200 pounds

Goal 3. Become a full-time, published writer who can support herself financially with her craft.

Well, world, here are my goals. They are out in the universe. I am going to work towards them and see what comes out in a later chapter. I hope that my life book is plenty long with lots of plot twists and choose-your-own-adventure moments mixed in. No more cookie-cutter chapters for this girl.