All posts filed under: Life

My Fashion Evolution (and the Lessons I Learned Along the Way)

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For most of my early life, there was nothing I dreaded more than going shopping for clothes. The whole process reminded me of how awkward I felt in my own body. You only had to take one look at teenaged me to guess that fashion ranked pretty low on my list of priorities. While my peers sported the latest Abercrombie, I rotated through my punny T-shirt collection, week after week. A lot has changed since then (except my sense of humor). Over the last decade, I have developed a personal style that I love. Here’s how I did it — and what I learned along the way: Lesson #1: You must believe you’re worth the effort. Looking back, I realize that my resistance to fashion wasn’t really a matter of disinterest or defiance, but something else entirely: a lack of confidence. I didn’t believe that I deserved to wear beautiful things, because I didn’t feel beautiful. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself with the clothes I wore, because I didn’t feel deserving of …

Tattoos and (Im)permanence

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I resisted getting a tattoo for a long time, because I felt the pressure to design something profound with long-lasting, regret-proof significance. But now, just a couple weeks after getting inked, I’ve grown to recognize that “meaning” is multifaceted, dynamic, and ever-changing.    To me, the design I chose (two koi, yin and yang) embodies the duality that exists in nearly all things, including myself. They also symbolize the potential for balance within all conflict. I find calm in this concept: when I feel anxious, I look at this image, and it tells me to breathe and surrender to the flow of life. Truth be told, I landed on this design just a day before the needle breached my skin. I was in Maui. While my boyfriend had intended on getting a tattoo on our Hawai’i vacation, penciling it into our itinerary weeks in advance, I didn’t think I’d get one, too. I assumed that when the time came, I’d chicken out. I’m not the type of person to get my first tattoo on vacation from …

Reframing My To-Do List

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I have a love/hate relationship with to-do lists. On the one hand, the structure they lend to my day can ease the mind. As unsexy as it sounds, I gravitate towards predictability and stability. To-do lists offer a roadmap, a track to follow. On the other hand, seeing all my tasks stretch down the page, screaming at me to DO MORE, MOVE FASTER – well, that fills me with dread and anxiety, too. There’s a point where the checkboxes make me feel controlled instead of in control, and I grow resentful. Even something like purchasing a birthday gift for a loved one can start to feel like just another thing I have to do.   Lately, I’ve been trying to make a conscious effort to shift my focus towards the things that I do have control over, as opposed to agonizing over the things beyond my reach. While I don’t always get to decide which tasks sit on my plate, or how much I must accomplish in a day, I can (for the most part) choose my attitude. I don’t want to look around …

On Vulnerability

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If you couldn’t already tell (*gestures around at the blog*), I’m not a particularly private person. I’ve written about my insecurities, my identity crises, my heartbreaks, and much more on the internet. These most raw pieces of myself are out there, for everyone and anyone to consume and judge as they please. My habit of oversharing crosses into my personal life, too. Friends and family have gotten used to seeing the darkest corners of my inner life, the basements and closets that most people keep locked shut. I call it a habit, because it’s not always conscious or intentional. It’s like the filter that should sit at the base of my throat, separating private from public, is missing. Despite my candor, I still feel exposed when I share my most sensitive thoughts and feelings with someone else. I still feel that fear that I’ve said too much, that I’ve burdened others with my emotions, that I’ve revealed an ugliness that’ll make me less likable or lovable. (This is what research professor Brené Brown calls a …

How to Put Self-Love into Practice

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Recently, I had a conversation with my boyfriend about fitness goals.   “Who would you consider body goals?” he asked me.   A hot defensiveness rushed through me, and I launched into a tirade about how I’m trying to refrain from comparing myself to other women (which I still stand by), and how this entire conversation was incredibly triggering for someone like me, who has struggled with body image since childhood, and how he should know that by now, after all the conversations we’ve had about my insecurities.   “Every time beauty or fitness comes up, you get upset,” he said. “I understand you have these insecurities. The question is, what are we going to do about it? How can we move forward?”  At first, I felt shut down. Yet again, I’m too sensitive, too emotional—these feelings are too much of a burden for someone to deal with. But his questions marinated in my mind for several days after that. I’ve already done a ton of self-reflection over the years to understand why I am the way I am. I’ve identified the peer and …

Learning to Love My Own Company in Lockdown

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While it may sound strange, I feel far less lonely now than I did before the pandemic.  Over the past year, I’ve felt conflicted about acknowledging silver linings—as if doing so dismisses the horror of it all. But the truth is, amongst the profound grief and anxiety and despair, I’ve discovered pockets of positivity for myself. Little joys and meaningful growth. I’ve made some changes to my priorities that I intend to keep alive, even when the world “opens up” again.   Pre-pandemic, I felt a pressure to pack my calendar, weekends filled with hikes, concerts, bar crawls, and brunches. Every time I went out, I documented the event on social media, to make it seem like I had an active and exciting social life. And yet, I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough or that I didn’t have enough friends—as if being perceived as interesting, adventurous, and popular mattered more than the reality of my life. (Frankly, I think being a loner in my adolescence fueled my need to redeem myself online as an adult. Sounds pathetic, but at …