Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!
It’s officially the middle of the month, and two weeks since the start of Blogust! How are you guys enjoying it so far? Personally, writing for the blog has made me feel more productive than I felt since I graduated grad school, so it feels good to be back and writing new content for you guys!
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but this summer has been hard and stressful for many of reasons, and I honestly didn’t have the energy to sit back and write when things were happening.
There were a lot more lows than highs this past month alone and I’m very glad that I get the chance to make things better for the remaining days summer has left. Although it’s not going to help solve every bad thing happening, it will at least give some of these issues closure, or further progress to get that closure.
I haven’t been around on the internet a lot this past summer because I honestly needed a break. I needed a break from seeing everyone’s posts about random things, and I was tired of putting on this facade on my social media that I was this happy ass person who is on the right path to recovery and “coping” with my anxiety.
As a matter of fact, it was the opposite.
As more issues rose, my anxiety did as well, which led me to do more coping and controlling it. I was tired, nevertheless. I was tired of the random anxiety episodes I was having whenever I was out, I was tired of worrying about other things out of my control, and I was tired of believing that things were just getting worse and worse as the days go, even though it felt like that.
In June, my family and I found out that my grandfather on my mother’s side was battling lung cancer. By the middle of July, we were given the news that the cancer was beginning to spread to other organs of his body and that he roughly had two weeks to a month left to live. Three days after that phone call, we had gotten the call that my grandfather passed away that morning, which was extremely difficult knowing I had a therapy appointment that same day. That following weekend, my family and I went to visit my grandmother in Pennsylvania, which you can read the travel diary for that trip here. To say the least, I did a lot of reflecting on my life and life in general on that trip, and here I am, now reflecting on the entire summer and what its taught me about life.
Despite the bad things, some great things happened as well! My partner moved into a new, beautiful apartment in Downtown Brooklyn (the weekend nights are absolutely beautiful in that area). I’m immensely proud of him and all of the blessings that came along his way; in no way shape or form did he see something like this come and personally, it still feels surreal to me that he owns his own apartment. Hard work and passion gets you places, and honestly, he’s been my motivation to do more for myself.
Also, my sister and I took some trips to the Sunset Park pool this summer! The last time I went to the pool was 10 years ago with some of my junior high school friends at the time. Because the community has grown tremendously since then, I’ve been worried that the pool was always going to be packed, which hindered me going all these years. My sister dragged me out the house one afternoon and we went and now that’s all I wanna do for the rest of the summer! It was so refreshing to go swimming again and catch some sun; it’s been years since I got the chance to do so!
Although a lot has happened thus far into summer, I do hope that the things I’m struggling with don’t hinder me from enjoying what’s left of the season. Normally, I would be getting myself ready for a new school year, so it honestly feels weird that this time around, I won’t, and that’s going to have to get some getting used to. Hopefully, that leaves me with some time to be productive, learn new things, and have some fun despite all of the negative things happening in my life. Not every day is going to be a fun and productive one, but at least I can get every other day to feel like that.
We’ll see how the rest of the summer treats me.
-Liz. (:
Letters From Liz. 