life

My head is spinning right now. Not literally but it’s getting there.

Last Monday we got a notice to vacate our apartment. A week later, we turned in our keys.

Here’s what happened. Last year, there was a leak in our apartment. Last month, they replaced the roof above our unit and around our skylight… aaaand then it leaked some more. It wasn’t just normal leaking this time, though. This time the plaster on the ceiling started peeling and falling.

The property maintenance manager asked us if we’d like to permanently move into the studio across the hall, to which we said no thanks. After a looooooong Thanksgiving holiday wondering if we would have to leave our first little home, on Monday we got the official notice to vacate.

I called up the maintenance manager and asked if we could be first to know when 202 was repaired and she said absolutely, though they had no idea of a timeline. I thanked her for the offer to move into the studio and said we’d be willing to consider it if we could be put on a month-to-month lease instead of a year, because obviously it would just be temporary while we waited for our unit to be fixed. She said absolutely. On Wednesday morning we checked out the studio, and on Wednesday afternoon we signed our amended lease and got the keys to our new, smaller living space.

They asked us to be out of 202 and turn in the keys by end of day Monday, which meant we had 5 days to downsize, pack, move, and process that we would be moving. We immediately moved our bed, desk, coffee pot and Christmas tree over to our new unit. Followed by all the things and all the stuff and bada bing here I am, sitting at our desk in our new apartment on the first day we don’t have keys to the only place we’ve lived as the Martians.

It’s been really challenging. Justen is fairly minimal in his belongings and I’ve been trying to constantly donate bags and boxes of things I just don’t need, but unexpectedly needing to downsize AND move AND process was really hard for me. I’ve never considered myself materialistic but I was actually shocked to see how I responded to the thought of not having something I didn’t even remember I owned until I found it in a cabinet.

One thing I really regret is the way I was never happy enough with 202 to share it. I was constantly telling Justen “once I get this little area figured out, I’ll take pictures and post them on my blog,” or “it’s too messy to take pictures,” or something similar. I kept waiting and waiting to share our basically perfect apartment and I missed the chance. So once we’ve finished hanging one box of pictures, I’m sharing photos of life in our little studio apartment overlooking downtown Camas.

And here’s the thing: sometimes the waiting is really the hardest. Once you have the information you need, you can do something, but waiting to find out can be the worst.

Our new digs, while we were still moving things over:

Every morning I wake up and think, “I should really blog!” and then I begin the hour-long task of sharing my Poshmark closet, because my blog, on average, makes me like $10.00 a month in Adsense money and Poshmark makes me like $1000+ a month. I’m going where the money is, y’all.

But then I find myself thinking about my blog and wanting to blog and wishing I blogged and I get weighed down with guilt and frustration when the day ends and I’ve not even logged into my blog’s dashboard.

My friend Gregory once said it’s possible to be in so many places that you’re really nowhere at all, and that’s how I sometimes feel. I’m a part-time reseller, a part-time (overnight) nanny, and I am a very casual essential oil advocate. I try to be a housewife and stay on top of the laundry which has to be done elsewhere, and the dishes which have to be hand washed, and the cleaning of the counters and apartment and running of errands and… I just feel like I’m doing most of it at 30%.

I get the same “start a routine” feedback, but I never spend more than 6 nights in a row sleeping at my apartment in any given month, so it’s really hard to get ANYTHING on a routine.

I need to side note all of this with this statement: I am so grateful I don’t have a 9-5 job. My anxiety levels have significantly decreased since I’ve started really working for myself. It’s been hard to stop seeing Poshmark as a “side hustle” and acknowledging it’s my actual source of whatever income I make that month, but that shift in thinking has been so incredibly beneficial for me.

When I can, I try to set myself up for working in a coffee shop, where the buzz of human connection keeps me moving and motivated, even if I have my headphones in and the human connection means watching someone walk in and walk up to the counter, or noting that I have the same shoes, or smiling or answering a question.

When I worked with kids every day, my main goal was to help each child succeed every single day. In the midst of conflict, I’d brainstorm ways to help the child succeed even in the smallest ways. You’re unable to sit and listen to the devotion? Would you like to help wash the windows? and then a celebratory “The windows look so clean! Thank you so much, you are such a huge help! Thanks for being on my team!” Choosing to not dive into the struggle of asking a child to sit still and leave defeated because they kept squirming.

I’m trying to try that trick on myself. How can I feel like every day I have succeeded? Maybe it’s because I woke up and got dressed, or I took photos of every article of clothing I bought at the thrift store yesterday. Putting away the dishes. Responding to 5 e-mails. Reading for 10 minutes. Hitting my FitBit steps.

But they’re all over the place, and some days I celebrate an empty sink and other days I celebrate a photo roll full of clothing. There’s no consistency, no common thread and sometimes it feels like I am not actually treading water, I’m more doing the flail thing trying to grab onto anything to give me a moment’s break. Kind of like:

But I think that I’m remembering that the overall trend can be up even if some days feel lower and thinner than I’d like. Positive trend graphs sometimes go two steps forward and one step back.

and I think I’m needing to stop pretending like a blog needs to be something that is teaching people or has some Pinterest-worthy image. There was a season when I blogged every day. I found this in my image files:

…I cannot fathom that these days, and so I’m reminding myself it’s 100% okay to just blog what I personally need to blog, with no concern for if it’s SEO friendly or pinnable or whatever. I can’t do that right now.

{Oh well.}

And so even though it’s my natural resting place to sit in the ways I’ve failed or only given 50%, I’ll celebrate the positive trends happening all throughout my life:

• I’m on my last week of a StepBet and last week I didn’t have to walk around my apartment at 11:00 trying to get in 1000 more steps because I’ve been more active.
• In January I made less than $900 on Poshmark, but in the months since then, I’ve pushed past $1000 consistently.
• I get up by 6:30 every day when Justen leaves.
• Overall, I feel more energized/stable than I ever have in my life. I don’t always see it in the day-by-day but when I think back to life 2 years ago, it’s really obvious.

To little victories, y’all.