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i haven't talked or shared a lot about what my experience having covid was like for various reasons. most people don't really seem to care or don't understand, and i get that. maybe it’s too hard to talk about. and i totally get that. but i think recently, hearing more and more people say that they don't want to get the vaccine because they fear feeling the side effects is a pretty tough one for me.

don’t get me wrong, i know that everyone is coming from different places when it comes to medical treatment in this country. i’m not trying to dismiss that. but, i had covid almost a year ago now, and i am still dealing with the long term effects of it in various ways. there’s the fatigue, and i’m not just talking about the kind that comes from the depression, or from having an autoimmune disease, but the kind where my muscles feel like they’ve been shredded and have never quite recovered.. the kind that makes exercise of any kind for more than 20 minutes still feel like a marathon kind of fatigue. and then there’s the loss of hair. a weird one but a common one. and i already had thin hair. there’s the sweating when it doesn’t make sense because my body temperature is all out of wack. and, for several months now, there’s the strange icepick headaches, which yes, feel just as intense as they sound. so yea, i have a hard time with that one.

if i’m being completely honest, what i want to tell these people is that what they should be worried about is actually getting covid; worried that if they do get it, they won’t know what version of it they’ll get or how severe or mild it will be, or how even if they don’t DIE from it or end up going to the hospital, that even if they do recover from it, that it could effect their lives and bodies for months or years to come. i want to tell them that the horror of having it, whether a ‘mild’ case or worse, is, i guarantee, much much worse than the one or two days they might experience feeling ‘bad’ after getting the vaccine. 

i’ve been to the doctor multiple times since having had covid to try to figure out the ways in which covid wrecked my autonomic nervous system, among other things. what i’ve learned is that i’m not the only one experiencing these things. there’s a strange shame around having had covid. and when i had it, i felt like a discarded leper in a lot of ways haha. there’s this judgement that comes from a lot of people. like i must have been somehow irresponsible or selfish to be somewhere and have caught it. but i did everything i was supposed to do. i stayed home. i wore a mask. i stayed home from work longer than my coworkers, because having an autoimmune disease made me more susceptible to getting sick. i didn’t hang out with my brothers that live nearby for over a month, and when we did start hanging out we were always outside and wore masks most the time. i went to the grocery store only when needed. and then i went back to work. i was back a little over a month and got it somehow. it could have been a trip to the grocery store. it could have been a customer. it could have been a coworker who didn’t even know they had it. no one else i’d been in close contact with ended up getting it from me, thank god. 

i haven’t talked much about that whole experience to many people because honestly, it was pretty traumatic. and also, people don’t really seem to know how to talk about it most times. so there’s also a level of isolation that comes with having had it. according to most cases, you could say mine was ‘mild’. i put mild in quotes because even a more ‘mild’ case can still be hellish. initially i just felt like i had allergies, or a cold. i was congested and had a slightly sore throat. then i started feeling tired and out of it. i couldn’t concentrate easily. i knew i was sick, but i just brushed it off because that is what we are conditioned to do, we work through sickness. and then i lost my taste and smell. i’m talking not a single thing could be tasted or smelled. i went around my entire apartment smelling things and eating things just to make sure i wasn’t out of my mind. i wasn’t. it was totally gone. this lasted for a little over a week. that alone was a huge mind fuck. i lost over 10 lbs in a few weeks because eating became joyless and pointless to me.. i couldn’t taste anything so who cared? but mostly, it took too much energy to even do something as simple as eating. changing clothes was too hard. taking a shower felt like running a marathon. i’ve never run a marathon, but you know when you see those runners near the end of the race that just collapse because their limbs have just had it and their body just essentially shuts down and stops working? that’s how i felt after taking a shower or walking across the living room. just breathing was exhausting. there was one day i remember very vividly.. i had managed to get out of bed and barely made it through taking a shower before i felt like i was going to collapse. this sounds dramatic, but it is not an exaggeration. i laid down on the couch and stayed there all day. when i tried, trying to lift my arms and legs felt nearly impossible. they felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each. my muscles felt like they’d been pulverized and weakened to the point that i didn’t know if i could literally walk across the room without passing out or falling. this brought on a moment of panic.. a moment where i thought i might need to call for help because i didn’t know if i’d literally be able to get myself up off the couch to take care of myself.. if i’d be able to get up and eat; go to the bathroom; or make it back to my bed five feet away. this was probably the peak of my worst week. of course i didn’t ask for help. i didn’t want to worry anyone. which now i realize is ridiculous. i also live alone. i had no one but myself each day to wake up to and assess how good or bad i was doing, and eventually that just turned into getting through that particular day. that was the worst day i had. at least physically. eventually, i got to the point where i could get up and move a little easier. i had groceries delivered every week. i took my temperature multiple times an hour, almost obsessively, just waiting for some strand of hope, some sign that covid had left me.. but for a straight month it stayed. a whole month and i had a fever every day. 

but i think what was even more difficult than the actual physical symptoms, was how psychologically tormenting it was. when i first learned i was officially positive i remember driving home and just having a complete melt down. i cried and literally screamed out loud in my car. i punched my steering wheel like people in the movies do when they’ve just learned the most terrible news about something. what version did i have? was it going to be bad? was i going to wake up and not be able to breathe? was i going to have to go to the hospital? was i going to be able to make it living alone and having no one to help me? could i call for help before it was too late? was having an autoimmune disease going to make it worse for me? i became obsessed with reading articles about other people’s experiences with it. these were mostly terrifying accounts. i read probably every single scientific article ever published on the matter, and i was always convinced after doing so that i was going to die.. either soon, or eventually from the after effects of it. if it didn’t kill me now it’d certainly manifest later in some other fashion.. a stroke. a brain issue. heart failure. lung damage. you name it, it was possible.

i had numerous days and nights where panic attacks would derail me so intensely that i’d have to call my family or closest friends to help me not want to throw myself into the ocean.. not that i had the energy to do so anyway. the mere thought that i had no idea when this was ever going to end, if i’d start to feel better or if i’d get worse, or just what to expect each passing day, sent me into some of the darkest places my mind has ever gone.

being completely by myself certainly didn’t help any of this. humans aren’t meant to be alone for that long. a month in total and complete isolation can really do a number on a person. no physical human contact for over a month. nothing. some days i just couldn’t bear it. it all felt like too much. all of it.. the physical, the psychological, and the emotional parts of it. all of the human parts of it. and that was just me processing my own experience of it all. 

it made me realize just how tragic this pandemic was becoming, and sadly still has been, for so many; how unbearable a thought is was to think about dying alone.. how unbearable it would be to not get to hold or touch or feel the loved one you were losing in their final moments. how utterly painful it all was, and still is. 

in a way, covid has changed me forever. i’m not trying to be overly dramatic, but i see life a little different now. the little stuff doesn’t bother me quite as much. i don’t take things so personally. i wake up every day and say thank you to the universe that i am alive and that i can feel and see and exist in all of the ways that i do. the time i have with my family in person hits a little different. it’s all a little bit more beautiful and meaningful. i pay attention to my body more closely. i trust it and i tend to it more readily. i let it feel all of the pleasure and the grief and the goodness and the warmth it can while i’m still here residing in it.. i realize that we all have such wildly unique experiences of this life and that we all carry multitudes in which most people won’t ever understand.

almost a year later, i’m still going to doctors and post-covid trial studies to try to figure out why my body is doing the abnormal things that it is doing. i’ve been referred to neurologists and endocrinologists and physical therapists. i don’t talk about it a lot, but it is still hard. i still get anxious about my body doing things i don’t understand or that i know i can’t fix. my mind still goes to all of those worst case scenario’s that i conjured up when i had it. but i just keep getting up every day and going to work and acting like none of this is going on because that is what we do. and i have accepted that this is always going to feel isolating and that most people won’t ever really get it. i’m thankful for my therapist in this way. but going to the doctor the other day and having her acknowledge that i am not the only one going thru these things, that the same things are happening to other people, made me feel somehow more ok. 

to anyone who has lost a loved one to covid, and to anyone still grieving that loss; to anyone who has had covid, and to anyone who is still dealing with the long term effects of having had it; and to those who didn’t have it but know or lost someone who has, whose lives have been effected and changed by covid in any way, which really, is all of us.. i love you. there are others out there feeling the same pains. feel it. keep going. we got this. 

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i think about the healed version of you all the time.. and i realized that that was the version of you i was trying to love into existence.

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this song found me in july, a month after a breakup from a six year relationship. i felt like i could have written it. it wrecked me, and was so how i was feeling at the time. as i've been deep diving into my own soul growth and healing, it's been tough to get to a place of being able to start creating again. sometimes part of the healing is to just sit a while.. and not have to make anything out of all the pain. but this is something. it is the beginning of a whole new way of being.. and creating. and that, i suppose, is healing in and of itself.

stay up and amazing dear ones.

*synths + guitar by my friend mack slevin, who was kind enough to add his beauty to this song*

vocals + uke by me

this song found me in july, a month after a breakup from a six year relationship. i felt like i could have written it. it wrecked me, and was so how i was feeling at the time. as i've been deep diving into my own soul growth and healing, it's been tough to get to a place of being able to start creating again. sometimes part of the healing is to just sit a while.. and not have to make anything out of all the pain. but this is something. it is the beginning of a whole new way of being.. and creating. and that, i suppose, is healing in and of itself. stay up and amazing dear ones. *synths + guitar by my friend mack slevin, who was kind enough to add his beauty to this song* vocals + uke by steffaloo

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it’s stupid.. i went to the bathroom to take my makeup off and ended up sobbing on the toilet seat for five minutes instead. i didn’t want to live alone just then and i didn’t feel like i knew how i even got here. i kept thinking about our little apartment and our cats and our bedtime routine and fighting over how high to turn the fan on. i miss you. but eventually, i missed myself more.

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and there you were, falling in love.. while i was just falling apart 

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i think most of us are in pain in some form. most days it hurts to be alive. being a human is weird and hard and fascinating. but i think that maybe it hurts so much because it’s all so damn beautiful. to be in pain and yet still feel such joy. life is everything and nothing all at once.. 

i just wanted to feel some sort of goodbye. some sort of closure one way or the other. but instead, everything just got thrown all over the place and i was just stuck there, sifting through all those memories; trying to gather up all those words. all those something’s. and i didn’t know how to say goodbye to them. how to feel sad or angry about them, or how to feel anything at all.

you don’t have to hold it all up all the time. you don’t have to know what you’re doing or who you want to be or why you are where you are.. it’s ok. there is a lot to be seen in the unknown.. in the great mystery of it all. you don’t have to carry …

you don’t have to hold it all up all the time. you don’t have to know what you’re doing or who you want to be or why you are where you are.. it’s ok. there is a lot to be seen in the unknown.. in the great mystery of it all. you don’t have to carry it all by yourself. you are becoming. you are just beginning again.. -st

it wasn’t that i wanted to leave you.. so much as it was that i wanted to leave the version of myself that i’d become with you. 

we ate pizza in the parking lot of whole foods and i felt like myself again. we stood and leaned against the hood of my car and just talked, holding our huge slices of pizza, and it was so fun. i love talking with you. you make me like being me. and i love you for it. 

i do have moments still.. where i feel like i’m riding the same energy wave as you.. the one where we first met. like maybe wherever you are you also stopped and smiled. moments when i remember why i fell in love with you in the first place. whether it’s a song that brings me to you, or a state of highness that takes me back to your kisses, or your smell. sometimes it’s a gust of wind, and i remember how you smiled at me or how you kissed me on the forehead when you thought i was sleeping. i am going to miss you. but oh how i have missed myself more.. 

i will remember our room, the feel of you, your sweet smell, the way the morning light softly hit the bottom of the surf board hanging above our window, your records, your games, your wet towels on the bed, our morning kisses goodbye, our bodies warming each other under blankets, our cats, sleeping, all the little currents flowing between us, fleeting yet forever. your lips, my lips, your fingers, my fingers, your hair and your smile, your buzzing energy and my steady current. i will remember what i thought was true, how deep your love felt at times, and what you taught me about who i want to be and the kind of love i want to have. 

stop taking responsibility for others actions in your life. it is not your job to take care of them. it is your job to take care of yourself and continue to put yourself in others lives who can nourish and uplift you. it is not your responsibility to carry the hurt put on you by those not capable of caring for you the way you need them to. 

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this week has been rough for me. my body has been telling me to rest. it has been telling me i need to stop. not everyone knows it, but i have hashimotos, an autoimmune disease that makes me feel like i’m 65 years old most days haha.. it’s not something that is easy to talk about unless you too also deal with some form of autoimmune issue, because from the outside, everything appears to be fine. it is a silent battle for the most part. i have learned to deal with it in my own ways, but some weeks it is more than i can handle.. my body screams at me and all i can do is give in and let it pass; do my part to take care of it and keep on moving. this has been one of those weeks. from throwing up to headaches to aches and pains to chronic fatigue, it has taken a toll on me. and it starts to take a toll mentally as well. i share all of this not to have people feel sorry for me, but to invite those struggling with chronic illness or pain to feel a little less alone in it. i am here if you need me. i am here to listen. it’s ok to not always be ‘ok’, it’s ok to stay in bed all day so you can heal, it’s ok to have days or weeks when it gets the best of you. pay attention. be kind to yourself. let others be kind to you, and let others not get it at all. all that matters is that you take the time to love yourself, and to accept and keep on living. you are just as wonderful when you are weak as when you are strong. —

#stayupandamazing #life #sometimesitsucks #butyoureok #hashimotos #autoimmunedisease #keeponkeepingon #itsoktonotbeok #rest #selfcare #selflove #bekindtoyourself #film #lca #lomography #lomo #flaily #humpday #meh #gonnasleepforever #alwaystired

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“you don’t get better on the days when you feel like going. you get better on the days when you don’t want to go, but you go anyway. if you can overcome the negative energy coming from your tired body or unmotivated mind, you will grow and become be…

“you don’t get better on the days when you feel like going. you get better on the days when you don’t want to go, but you go anyway. if you can overcome the negative energy coming from your tired body or unmotivated mind, you will grow and become better. it won’t be the best workout you have, you won’t accomplish as much as what you usually do when you actually feel good, but that doesn’t matter. growth is a long term game, and the crappy days are more important.” 

just keep going. no feeling is final. 💓 

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new remixes!

i somehow failed to share these new remixes of my title songs 'happy' and 'throw me to the wolves' by my bb's sun glitters and gangplans. check them out!! <3 

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"it doesn't interest me what you do for a living. i want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

it doesn't interest me how old you are. i want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

it doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. i want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! i want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

i want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

it doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. i want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

i want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

i want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “yes!”

it doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. i want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

it doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. i want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

it doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. i want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

i want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

-oriah mountain dreamer-

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i finally saw wonder woman last night and it gave me all the feels!! 😭😍💪🏼 i've loved her since i was a kid. my mom made a WW costume from scratch and it was my favorite dress up outfit growing up. it seems cheesy, but seeing a strong, smart woman kick so much ass on screen made me so proud to be a woman. i drew this year's ago but it never gets old. 💥 

 

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 "it’s dark because you are trying too hard. lightly child, lightly. learn to do everything lightly. yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. so throw away your baggage and go forward. there are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. that’s why you must walk so lightly. lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered." -aldous huxley-

i have a hard time being lightly.. i usually end up feeling everything so intensely that i'm spun into a fit of anxiety or i just shut down entirely so i can recover without depleting myself completely. and if i'm not feeling intensely i'm probably overthinking everything intensely. oh how i want to be light. i want to breathe lightly and to see lightly and to think lightly and to feel lightly. especially when life does not always seem like it is treating me lightly. i am practicing this new way of being. to uncurl and to be open and upright, to know that the weight of things can be let go and that it is possible to walk forward lightly.. lightly my darling..

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