My days… or more accurately, my nights… are full of soul work these days.

I spend most of my time writing and thinking.

And checking Facebook.

And wandering around the house aimlessly while talking to myself.

I won’t lie. It’s some rough work.

I’m taking a few guided self-discovery classes online to help with the process. I jumped at the opportunity to take an guided online experience of The Iconic Self by Jen Lee and Phyllis Mathis. Next week I’ll be starting Home is a Hard Lesson, Part 2 with Amanda Page. I didn’t take part one, but it seemed relevant enough to my needs to jump in with midstream.

I’ve been dragging up memories left and right.. and some of it’s not a pretty sight.

It’s kinda like opening an old lunch box and finding moldy bologna, and then berating yourself for not taking care of it sooner.

I’ve been using 750words to jot down the things I’m thinking.

Filling it up with stories about how angry I still am at my high school music teacher who died ten years ago.

Filling it up with thoughts about growing up with social anxiety.

How things that happened then relate to things happening now, and how they don’t, too.

Notes about things I’d like to happen.

I write about anything these days.

It’s just that most of it isn’t for mass consumption. Most of it isn’t even for limited consumption either.

I shared something I wrote with a friend on the subject of fear and the minute I hit the submit button had to curl up into bed and just let myself sink into the abject terror that one simple act of vulnerability seems elicit from me.

And it passed, and I feel better for having done it, even though many hours later I realized that there were more direct, more mentally stable ways of trying to say what I wanted to say. But at the same time, I’m not regretful of what I said… it was just a little like serving someone bathtub gin when they deserved to have Hendricks.

I’m exploring the things I might like to do in the future, trying things on in my imagination to see how they fit.

I have lots of ideas for the future.

I even have a real project in motion. Sorry to be vague, but I’ll announce it to the masses when I’m ready.

I’m learning how to trust people, how to collaborate, and how to not be a moody asshole all the time.

I should have been doing more yoga the past couple of weeks… It makes me feel better when things get shitty. Now I know it’s better not to skip it.

I’m realizing that I beat myself up pretty senselessly.

I have written drafts of several angsty paragraphs about how worthless I feel about the fact that 7AM is my bedtime and 2PM is my wake-up time, and how shamed I feel whenever I admit that to someone and they do that little judgy clicking thing with their tongue and say something like, “Oh, that’s rough…” and I have to resist the urge to get upset because when I’m really honest about it? The only thing I dislike about my sleep schedule is the fact that people seem to think it’s something to pity for and assume I must not be sleeping well.

Bullshit. I’ve been sleeping better than I’ve slept in months. That whole having to be awake to be somewhere by 10AM thing? That’s what causes me to lose sleep. Yet.. Somehow, nobody’s giving me the pity party then, they just tell me I’m being a responsible adult.

Thankfully, I have a roommate that comes home in the middle of the night to remind me that he sleeps the same schedule, and that makes me feel a lot better.

I’ve wasted hours of my life beating myself up because what I’m doing with my life right now probably could be construed as selfish, worthless, and waste of fucking time by some.

But you know what?

It’s working for me right now, and this period of productivity that only I can see will pass, and I’m going to be better for it.

And for me, that’s what makes all the fucking difference.