Life Lately: June 2022
At my in-laws beach house in Buzios, Brazil: one of my absolute favorite places in the world.
As I sit down to write my monthly reflection, it’s 4:30am and there are so many things on my mind. The past month has been a whirlwind of feelings - from absolute devastation at the recent SCOTUS decision, to joy while watching my children get to see family in Brazil, to peace when making some big decisions, and to hope which feels oh-so-necessary in this moment. I closed out last month feeling utterly exhausted, and I knew that I had to focus on slowing down. While the month certainly didn’t feel slow, some of the small changes I made (meditating more, walking almost daily, and others) actually made a small difference in my mental and physical well-being.
As I look back and ahead, I know that this summer will continue to be one of slowing down. Many years ago, I was inspired by Designing Your Life, and in the coming weeks, I’ll be returning to it. I also picked up the Get Untamed Journal, and will report back on that. Clearly, I know that many elements of my life have gotten out of whack, and it’s time to realign, reprioritize, and create a new balance for myself. So, as I move into a new month, here’s a few thoughts on my life lately.
Watching/Listening/Reading: While in Brazil, we watched the movie Coda, and I loved it. I’ve never been a big movie person (which is funny, considering my husband watches them constantly and my best friend writes weekly about movies). On the TV side of things, I wrapped up the final season of Grace and Frankie, and I am definitely going to miss it. I finished reading two books, and I highly recommend both: Taste by Stanley Tucci and Cultish: The Language of Fanatacism by Amanda Montell. I’m reading a few fiction books right now, so more to report on soon (I did finish The Book of Cold Cases).
Traveling With Kids: Wow, traveling with kids is utterly exhausting. I never expected that we wouldn’t have had our first big trip until my daughter was nearly three, but the global pandemic certainly stalled those dreams. I can now fully understand the jokes and memes about how traveling with a baby is easy, and traveling with a toddler is…well, another story. Regardless - we had a wonderful trip to Brazil. It was so special seeing our family, watching the kids experience a new country (and one which they are dual citizens of), and being in one of my absolute favorite places in the world (see photo above). I kept reminding myself of this: years from now, I won’t remember (or at least, won't dwell on) the exhausting moments - because let’s get real - traveling with kids is HARD. But, I will remember the joyful memories we shared, and that makes it all worth it.
Creating New Habits: When I signed off in May, I noted the need to slow down and focus on cultivating the habits that would most support my mental well-being. In order to facilitate that process, I used an app that I love, called Streaks. I love the visual nature and gratification of “checking off” the important things that I want to prioritize - and tracking progress along the way. Some of the habits I focused on: walking 5,000 steps per day (will get back to 10k soon, but this was realistic for me), meditating 4x/week, doing my Pelvic Floor PT exercises 4x/week, writing 2x/week, working on my garden 3x/week, writing a gratitude note 4x/month, and more (I tracked 17 habits in all). Did I hit every goal I set? No way. Did I prioritize way more healthy habits than I would have otherwise? Absolutely.
101 in 1001: I finally made some progress! I was able to “check off” several items this month. One, was to find several new mom friends in MA, and I have definitely been able to do that, especially through the Central Mass Mom community, where I am a contributing writer. We took the kids to Brazil, which was a really important one on the list, and we even built sand castles together (another). I’m excited to continue to make progress this summer - there is so much I want to do.
