musings-of-val

[musings-of-val]

I find myself spiraling a lot lately, but I think it's just a result of me doing too much as always, but also feeling like I don't do enough. The state of the world also doesn't help. My chronic loneliness doesn't help either. I find my mind starts to wander up and outward when instead I need to anchor it in the here and now.

[musings-of-val]

Enough.

I was on the bus this morning, planning my day out in my planner, dreading the thought of everything I had to do, things I wanted to do, and things I hadn't done yet. It was all so overwhelming.

There's so much I want to do in a day and not enough mental capacity to do it.

Am I really not doing enough, or is too much on my plate?

Who's rushing me? I think to myself. The people asking me to do things? They're not the ones rushing me.

Me. I'm the one rushing me.

There's only so much I can do in one day, and that's okay. Getting one thing done is an achievement in itself. Getting multiple things done is amazing.

When did I begin demanding so much of myself? Who put that thought in me? Why do I hold onto that thought and believe in it so much?

It's dumb.

Waking up every day is an achievement. Living life is an achievement. That's enough to feel proud of. I've done enough. You've done enough. We all do enough. In fact, we do more than enough.

Every single day.

We're all enough. YOU are enough. Take that thought and believe that instead.

You are not lazy.

Even if it seems like you're wasting time, nothing is a waste of time. Time "wasted" teaches you something as well as "productive" time does. Enjoy your empty moments more.

In the depths of boredom lie the seeds of thought and creativity. You can't appreciate the highs without the lows. You can't be extraordinary without your mediocre moments. A battery can not be charged at all times, or else it will expand and then explode. Your mind is the same.

People can not run at 100% all the time. That's okay. Give yourself grace. You've done enough just by showing up however you could.

Anyone who tells or has told you otherwise can believe what they want. They're probably projecting their own insecurities onto you anyway. Just keep moving forward and live at your own pace. That is enough.

[musings-of-val]

[musings-of-val]

Hello World

Hi to anyone who comes across this, although the thought of that happening is probably too ambitious, welcome to my blog! I'm a girl with a mind full of thoughts and nowhere to share them so that's why this page exists now.

I've actually had this account for many years and recently logged in out of curiosity to see if my old blog still existed. I found the old blog completely untouched and still there like a time capsule of my cringy fifteen year old self and everything she was interested in. She was happy. She was innocent and naive. She was insecure and just wanted to be liked. She was blissfully unaware of the hardships and changes that lay ahead of her. The betrayals and heartbreak she would one day experience repeatedly.

There was something beautiful about having that time in my life preserved, so I decided to continue leaving it there untouched and beginning a new blog. It has been 11 years since then after all, I think it's fitting to begin a new time capsule for the woman here in the present who is vastly different from that girl in the past but who is also still similar to her in many ways.

So, who is the present day Val?

To be honest, I'm still trying to figure that out.

That fifteen year old Val grew up, sped through life doing what she was told was correct. She graduated high school, lost a lot of precious people along the way, went to college like she was raised to do, worked hard to get her piece of paper, lost more precious people in the process and then finally, she got her piece of paper (in a pandemic mind you), and realized she didn't see herself doing what she spent years studying and working so hard to achieve. She loved it when she started and while she was in it, but as soon as she finished, she was like, "Oh, I kind of don't want to work in that industry, I feel like it kind of goes against what I believe in."

That was a scary thought.

Her whole life she was told she HAD to succeed. She had to succeed and make a lot of money to have a good life. She chose her major (Graphic Design) so that she could have her love of creation but still make money. But she was never necessarily a designer, she was an artist at her core, and as Brittany Broski once said,

Art is not to be made for consumption. Art is for the Artist. It is a means for expression. It's how to interpret and translate the world. It is that artist's translation of what they're feeling, what they experience and what they're feeling. And if that connects with another person, great, right? Art brings us together. But, Art is for the Artist

I know it feels like I've gone on a tangent, but bear with me, there's a point to bringing this up.

I saw the clip of her saying this five years after I finished school (this year), and it really helped me understand why exactly I felt so conflicted about being a designer when I was fresh out of school. Inherently, I am more of an artist, I create as a means of self expression, not for monetary gain. Little Val would draw to express her inner world, this is when she was at her happiest. Over the years, she let the wants of others dictate her direction in life, even if it inherently went against who she was at her core. This is just one example of it.

She slowly changed herself to please others and lost who she was in the process. Why? Let me direct you back to the observation I made about fifteen year old Val at the start of this post.

She was insecure and just wanted to be liked.

There was a TED Talk I watched this year that really resonated with me and I think encapsulates what happened to me perfectly. It's called The Practice of Being Yourself by Justin Schuman. I highly recommend watching if you're a people pleaser like me. In the talk, he speaks of the concept of "the box" being a place in your mind in which you hide everything that is shameful and frowned upon by others. Outside of the box is the "wrapping paper" where your crafted version of self resides, the performance, if you will. We create this performance to fit in, to get the approval of the people around us, it gives others the power to craft who we are.

The box gets you through life pretty successfully, but then, you get to a point where you realize this performance is holding you back instead of aiding you. You've performed for so long that you don't know who you are anymore.

This is the point I am at right now.

I twisted myself into knots to get that stupid piece of paper to make others happy, and what did I get? I got the paper, I lost myself, my time, my energy and sanity, and I still ended up labeled as a failure by my family. And frankly, even if I had succeeded, it probably still wouldn't have been enough for them. I'd probably still end up being a failure to them but in a different aspect.

So this is where I am at this moment in time. I am here, a lonely and empty person, looking to find herself again and slowly fill her cup again. To others, it probably seems like I live my life wasting time, but to me, this is important work I'm doing. I want to meet me again, all of me, and this blog is just one of the tools I'm using to find her. If any of this resonates with anyone out in the void, great, feel free to stick around, but I'm doing this for me, and that must remain an immutable fact if I am to stick to this. I am holding myself to being honest in these posts and forcing myself to share these thoughts in a place that can be seen by others (super terrifying for an INFP who fears being perceived). This is my version of taking Justin's advice from his TED talk. I'm not comfortable enough to put myself on camera, so this feels like a more suitable medium for me.

Wow, I went really deep considering this is a first post. The beauty of writing is that all of this is no longer floating around in my brain anymore. I can leave this thought train here and go on with my day. I'm going to add tags related to the topics in this post, but frankly, I don't expect this to reach anyone (and that's okay with me). That's just always been my experience on social media, like talking to a wall, but perhaps that can be a topic for another day.

I don't know how to end this... bye I guess?