Bored and Brilliant Challenge Day 6 : Dream House

I relistened to the podcast today to take a look at my final lesson of this challenge and I can honestly say that I do feel like this challenge has realigned me, rerooted me back to a human being who uses her phone as a tool.

However with that being said i'm a bit disappointed in the final task. It seemed cheap, it seemed as far as I was concerned the least creative idea and a cop out by the lady who invented the task. I do, however find my focus and my passion reignited. Everyday i'm either blogging, drawing or realigning myself with the tasks that need to occur the following day. I am happy and I feel like I set the doors in motion for what might open up to me.

I've said tiny prayers so that the universe can hear how grateful I am for giving me the opportunities that I am given and hopefully I can pass it along should someone need me.

As a fairly social person I find that I give so much of my time and energy to other people, places and things than myself. I know that there is still so much I need to work out but I feel like ebineezer scrooge. I still have time, I still have a solution to the clutter that became my life,Particularly in the creative realm. I can finally sit in the quiet silence and be able to be okay with it, I can draw in any space at this point now, focus and steady my hand.

That too me is how I love myself, that to me is a solace that I can create anywhere I go and a secret garden that lights up my path when I feel lost. Deep down inside i've ignored that feeling. I need to keep with it.. the biggest difference in this entire challenge?

Turning off all of my notifications.
Alot of this anxiety was self induced and I never knew.

To a new challenge begins tomorrow! Getting SERIOUS about my portfolio options, energy or not.

Day 27- Bored and brilliant challenge

Day 2

Today I am forbidden from taking pictures.

I truly never realized just HOW often I pull out my phone to capture a memory.

I never realized how much I needed to be validated via snapchat or Instagram and it scares me a bit.

I never realized how often I turned to my phone instead of turning to my neighbor or how I truly face rejection . I for once am able to dip back into the pool of ideas in my head instead of being sucked back into the notification void. It's like a little present when I come back. 

Right now, I'm listening to a podcast about diversity and most of the podcasts I sink into are technology based.

I could feel the juices turning and I'm excited for the outcome.

Day 26- Bored and brilliant challenge

Work has become far more strict and because of this I've had to resort to sneaking In a Skype message or listening to podcasts which on the contrary has been pretty productive for my creative side.

With the silky smooth podcasters I've relearned to listen and there even has been a challenge that has peaked my interest. On the "Note to self" podcast there is the "Bored and Brilliant." Challenge

The idea is that there is beauty and potential in allowing your mind to wander and to declutter all of the noise in the Internet atmosphere .

Day 1- turn off all notifications and keep your phone in your pocket/ bag

Day 2- don't take any photos 

Day 3- delete the app that is draining your time ex: whatsapp, snapchat, skype, games etc. anything you don't need that doesn't help your business or make you efficient 

Day 4- Be radically present 

go off the grid for an hour 

And find an away message, let your Facebook folks know.

Day 5- go somewhere public and phone less and observe or people watch 

Day 6 - let your mind wander 

Okay, seems easy enough but for someone like me who works WITH phones this proves to be immensely challenging. My phone is my security blanket, the way I blog or interact with the world in a windowless lab.

Today is only day 1, immediately without the bings, dings and clings of my phone I felt less anxious. Less worried and I found myself on the couch, phone less and fully engrossed in a movie.

I haven't been able to do that in ages pawing for it like a crack addict and even now I've somehow been able to blog without music or some ambient noise in the background to distract me. 

It's behavior I have to unlearn and I even sometimes crack but I've never been so pumped for a challenge. So eager for something for myself. 

Day 25 - Lunch time blogging & Self sabotaging

My sister say next to me opening up about her business and I stared in awe at her faith. There was no doubt there and I quietly told myself to support her.

I don't know when I lost faith in myself, I don't know when I became so mean. 

I whipped myself out of my muse and rehashed my support.

I've been on the brink of success before and ignored it for facebook.

Why did I do that to myself?

I guess that's shoulding all over yourself.

One day I'll learn...

Day 22 - daydreamin

Chescaleigh is a YouTuber I follow pretty religiously. She once said in her videos to build your own empire.

That seems to be the ongoing theme this week, I watched a documentary on Machiavelli. Maybe it's time to dive into the prince and take a look at a couple of morally questions on principles. 

I've been docile most of my life and lucky in some successes and pleading in others. I once read that pleading isn't enough and opportunity is meant to be demanded, you claim it. Conquer it and I intend to do just that.

I want to work in a Studio and possibly my own. What a unique dream right? I think we all wet our pants at the chance of creating content. 

Work is forbidding videos now as well a sketching which was a more productive way for me personally to have the time fly by.

I guess I'll restrict them to the bus rides on the way there. I feel so shakey when I draw on the bus. Maybe this will teach me better control ?

Back to the booming hip hop that wakes me up in the morning. Last night I stayed later with some coworkers for game night, I loved strategizing with my team the game was called continels and we had marvel like characters. We had to kill a villain but many of our characters were rather complicated for first timers.

I ended getting a good hand. 

Today despite washing the sleep from my eyes and having my cofffee I feel farfrom  awake. I just want to crawl back to sleep, this week has been so draining and I've been eating horribly.

Here comes the weekend. I welcome it so.

Day 19- Kill what you don't like about yourself

flashback to three years ago..


On the third day I lay sniffling, my head wrapped in a towel it was the only thing that could keep me warm because I felt sick. I felt ill in a way that I had never truly known and I felt like a fool.
I had fallen for an age old trick of dip and flee. The game where you sleep with someone and then disappear on them. I had been ghosted on and I felt somehow I thought I had managed to go my life without that feeling.

I recant this story so many times, this boy was the gateway to so many other failed relationships and maybes. this was the catalyst of what would begin a long journey of self and so many errors. To succeed without failure is almost impossible and somehow that lesson was never so harshly learned as it was when i was trying with my relationships.

Art should of taught me this that without mistakes we can never learn and somehow along the years, as I got older I became much less forgiving of myself.
I became a bit more recluse in terms of dating, far less forgiving and looking for the mistakes. Looking for some sign to drop this person because it was only doomed to happen again.


   

Day 16- Clydesdale's

Fridays are a rare treat for me, typically its far too late in the evening to go out so I order out if it's payday, put on some flix or a video game and hammer my way through it til the wee hours of the morning.

Last night I polished off a bottle of rieslings, chatting with internet folks and flirting as you do. When I shut my computer down this very real feeling of alone washed over me. I didn't feel glad for the talk, I felt lonely.

I remember dating this guy, a real jerk with a gorgeous face and massive ..well you get it, he asked me since I lived alone if i felt lonely. I said no and he looked at me with this strange sense of pity and I racked my chubby little brain to figure out what on earth gave him the idea.

Present day and several friendship affirmations later I just came to the conclusion that he was projecting but these questions just come so out of the blue and it makes me curious if i am creating a platform for them? why do I care?

I think it's okay to care to an extent but when it's almost paralyzing that's when it becomes incredibly hindering. there are times that I stopped shuffling through clothes when i'm going out and consider not going at all, i'm anxious about what to wear, if people will like it if I am over dressed. I panic, mildly so but sometimes i just stand there and stare and I cannot seem to make up my mind properly.

This morning I went outside in yoga pants and a zip up hoodie and no one gave a single solitary fuck. I don't have to dress up just to go out and sure yes, people do appreciate when you are moderately to extraordinarily dressed but you don't have to. I have to remind myself of that because years after catholic school and ridicule that type of mentality is very hard to shake.

It shaped me and it shakes me.

Last night after a few rounds of dj diddles I found myself awakened by stomping. Like a herd of elephants upstairs and granted it was a friday night, however, i was awoken twice. Twice it was just as hard to fall asleep with drunk girls and boys babbling on like toddlers and stomping up ahead.
This morning I made sure to stomp extra loudly at 8am on my way to starbucks.
Yes, it was petty.

The morning remains calm however, cool and grey with sprinkles of rain here and there.
I didn't bother wearing headphones across the street and watched the birds excitedly puff and flutter about their nests nestled in naked trees.

Day 15: The pit of my stomach

In the span of two hours I've been awake and downtown I've seen

-a man scratch his toosh 

-a man with a blackened tooth on a bus ad

-two dogs in raincoats

Somehow reminding me I need to return my library books. The day is Friday and it's cold as hell . My body despite the long 8 hours of sleep longs to still be burrowed in warmth and cat meals.

Last night I went to another IGDA meet up, it was fantastic fun and met some gals from Atlanta, who had recently graduated from SCAD. It was fun to be around fresh faces and ladies! 

They gave me their cards since I didn't have mine. Reminder for next time. 

So long my reckless romance

I think the hardest part of saying goodbye is when they continue to pursue.

It's almost intoxicating and does not a healthy relationship make.

I spent a better part of last year trying to mend a brain that doesn't want to forget how he made me feel, outside of friends I can't seem to shake it. Ive heard that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,I've tried that . Later swallowing the guilt of thinking of said person during the act.

We only get so many great loves in this life time , I keep being afraid that if I have my head so deep in the sand I might not get another chance.

I'm physically out in the world but emotionally more guarded than the queen.I think it's just easier at this point to seat some in the friend area then try to make it work when they're feeling it and I don't. No one should have to prove anyrhthing to me let alone that this should work.

The most alarming behavior today is when I behave like the people that I let hurt me. The very behavior that made me feel obsolete.

Anyway I really should call this a bus blog seeing as the only time I seem to have are during these soggy 45 minute commutes.

Day 12 - The Art of being pleasant

I am a hypocrite.
I let up the settings for my snapchat comforted in the idea that he was watching and in the idea that maybe I can make something work.

It wont and the silent treatment greets me well after I've been cold. Cold particularly because I couldn't move on quite as quickly, that I didn't sit well with the idea that someone just wanted the idea of my comfort without wanting the result I wanted.

I miss our conversations the most I think, rushing home after work to curl up on my phone and feeling as warm as if I were embraced.

That daze got me in so much trouble and watching someone else I love go through the same thing feels like there is only lesson and no answer. Only questions, questions,questions.

At some point I chalked it up to just not hiding away who I was anymore even if I really particularly liked said person. I hide so much of who I am to men whom I am enamored with.

That can't be a healthy thing.

I found that it's much easier to slip into my pleasant attitude than it is to face the fact that I am petrified of someone not liking me for the goof ball, neurotic, perfectionist mess that I am.
That I don't want anyone to fix me or give me money just a home in their heart.

Impressionism & hands on

I stared at the paintings at the Seattle Art museum, studying the brush strokes and textures left by hands centuries ago. 

The irony of staring at something beautiful and hearing something so brutally ugly was not lost on me. It wasn't the first but I secretly hoped it was the last.

I wandered the room, ignoring the line that formed from one painting to another based on the audio tour. We dipped in and out of the line narrowly avoiding past friends, both of whom passive aggressively Christian. Not my style, we left lightly mocking the man buns and into the brisk Seattle January air . 

The lesson being that I have no power of any of this, be it that or anything else.

Day 8 - Coffee

I remember the loud slurp of my Dad carrying a full size porcelain mug in the car as he prepared to take me to school. Not a travelers mug,but  the type of mug you carry to your office. 

Often late we'd rear ourselves out of the drive way and head towards Mark Twain Elementary school the second  public school I would ever be enrolled into.  

I remember when I was having conversations with Mama ( My grandmother on my father's side.) and hearing the slight guzzle as she drank down the guatemalan blend from starbucks, her favorite. most notably because it came from the same country she grew up in. 

Ever since I could remember the warm, fuzzy days of California coffee has been a huge part of my life. To help me wake up, to help me get through and most often then not in the final week of production the last sips of coffee before I could see dawn break helped me persevere. 

In the morning the first thing that I turn on is the t.v, noise. noise is what I need sometimes when I live alone and I didn't realize that that was the very thing that was causing my anxiety to spike. Noise to fill the room, it's not empty. it's full of warmth, scented candles, a mewling kitty and the sound of gurgling coffee. I honestly don't know what I will do when that quiet is no longer trusted and there are kids running around my kitchen, it's almost kind of scary to think that I will eventually no longer have my quiet. Sometime's I wonder if mothers that once lived alone missed it, for I know plenty of people that dread the quiet. 

Seems funny to me that bean liquid would shape me, a tiny piece of my heritage along with the countless other regions that my family comes from. 

The quiet doesn't last long though because even if the computer hums, the cat mewls and the adobe update dings I still need some noise,   

On the way back

I never truly realized how unforgiving of myself I am until I develop feelings for someone. It's all self nurturing and self loving until someone is beneath my skin and I tell myself how pathetic I am, I'm not but "lady" logic has guided me to ignore him until he comes for me. I am to wait.

I could never be very good at this game, even now with no prospects I am fidgety and the attention of a jump off has me re considering. It must be so bad I don't even mention if, because friends would jump at me having the chance to be laid. Is this self sabotage? Is this love sabotage? Or shitty advice?

I think all of the above. I think until I figure out what I need right now I'll refrain to harmless skype .

I've never cut anything so short.

I don't know where that drive went but maybe I'll find it again somewhere on the 545.

Day 7-sin ti

Boy does auto correct hate Spanish .

Day 7 reminds me that I can live without him and also a reminder that winter break is most definitely complete.

I almost want to say something I regretted but no, I soaked in my lazy, I went for long walks with my best friend, scoured the Seattle public library for Amish fiction and I drew until four in the morning.

I regret none of it and I almost miss it. There is glamour and absolute madness in working from home and got myself involved on a video game project.

Including Myself in events when no one has invited me too because if I didn't I would never go and most of my friends are just starting their nerd journey.

Truly, I am peopled out. On top of the need for solitude I found myself at four separate holiday functions which was a tremendous amount of fun and coordination . Many bus routes, gas pumps and hours later I was thrust into the party laughing and meeting people I've met before and not remembering their names not because I didn't want to but because my brain somehow refuses to . 

I think I honestly spent plenty of time on my own, however, I didn't get myself to a spa like I wish I had. That would of kicked it off perfectly. My mind is thoroughly des tressed which has totally helped me physically , no more emergency target runs.

I finally got the app for my phone so I have no excuse not to blog and to enter this new year unafraid of beginning something new.

Things come in threes, I broke my head phones got sick and called out of work on Monday but my contract has expanded to April. 

I needed this news!

Pancakes

I remember when looking into someone's blog would render you some nugget of gold. Breathe some type of resolve in the mystery that is 27+

I'm sitting here a couple days away from going back to work and going over the list of things i've accomplished since i've been on break. The guilt now good and gone i've managed to truly unwind in the fourteen days since my contract was put on hold.

so why not list them here? Rather than making a facebook status about it I could tell a couple of random hits.

1. I've finished more than a couple of books. For the longest time I was a bookworm and somehow since my attention span had ceased forever I was truly afraid I wouldn't enjoy reading as much but no. I've finished a john green short stories book, several wolf fiction as well as amish fiction which i was truly surprised I enjoyed and even some art pieces. I've gone out to more industry nights than I can remember and met new faces.
2. I truly explored both sides of who i am, the ambivert tride and t rue. I've gone to great lengths to enjoy my solitude, pajama pants all day and watching reruns of bobs burgers. However, i've also gone out all night. All day. enjoying my company, my insanity and the adventures of my closest friends while also, truly feeling like I was getting closer and closer every day to finding out what might come of this single lady hood. 
3. I've painted more than I have in months in Photoshop and explored regions of my art by facing what I was weakest at.
4. I went home for Christmas loving the company but hating the sleeping situation.
5. I truly thought about where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be in 2016.

That's just a small list because I find myself completely bypassing a list once it gets past three really, so I don't expect you to read all of this or even past a single blog post but I digress.

Saturday is a sleepy day, a day where the god awful new years hangover has since washed away with sleep.

Hello 2016.