10 Real Secrets About Me
I feel like blogging and social media is increasingly curated. I no longer feel like I can get to really KNOW the person behind the blog, I only get to know the persona they've taken on. I've never wanted this space to be anything like that, so I try my best to let you, the reader, really know who I am. My friend Paige, and then my friend Tiffany, shared "10 secrets about me" recently, and I loved reading them so much, I thought it might be fun to do one of my own.
1) I pretty much never get my hair cut. My last hair cut was in November 2016, and I have no plans to change that. I had a professor in college who hadn't cut her hair since the 1970s, so maybe I'm inadvertently trying to follow in her footsteps. 2) I suffer from really dry, cracked heels. It's pretty much a year 'round issue for me. I think it's probably because I spend so much time in my Birkenstocks, but I refuse to give them up. I should probably have more regular pedicures... and now I'm thinking that I may putting off a vibe that I don't do enough self-care for myself. ?3) I've dealt with pretty severe anxiety before trying new experiences: traveling to new places, calling to get estimates for housework, going to a new concert venue... It's something I've dealt with for so long that it felt normal to me. After my mom died, I started doing a lot more soul searching and realized the extent of this anxiety. I'm happy to report that I'm doing many more things "on the fly". I found that simply taking the plunge instead of ruminating on it for hours, days, weeks, helps minimize the anxiety I feel. I'm a much happier person these days.
4) We've lived in our home for over a year and we still have like 3 things on the walls. Oops. I have high hopes that I'll put together a beautiful gallery wall with lots of textures, shelves, and plants, but so far that's just a dream. 5) I started tracking my phone usage a few weeks ago with the Moment app. My first day I logged 6.5 hours. Upon seeing that, I nearly vomited. I knew I spent too much time on my phone, but it took knowing how much to make me realize how much of my life I'm wasting away. Since then, I put my phone down and stay off of it for the majority of the day. It's a work in progress, but I'm sticking with it. 6) Some of you are going to really dislike this one, but... Not being sick during the first trimester was a nightmare and I wished nearly every day that I'd wake up and be sick. My only pregnancy symptom was exhaustion during the first trimester and it made me question the health of my baby and if I was really pregnant. I resented hearing, "oh! You're just one of the lucky ones." . I didn't feel like one of the lucky ones. I felt like I was on an island completely alone while simultaneously falling in love with something I didn't even really know existed.
7) Speaking of pregnancy, I've decided not to publically share my due date. Honestly, I'm not really even sharing it with friends, either. Only 5% of babies come on their due dates. The only reason I even know my due date is to establish my "green zone" for the birthing center (must birth there between 37 and 42 weeks to avoid hospital transfer). The third trimester is long enough, I don't feel like I need to be counting down to an arbitrary date only to be disappointed when the baby isn't born. 8) My favorite pajamas are stretchy pants with pockets and my mom's old Luckenbach tees that are like 4 sizes too big. And while we're talking about pajamas, I've worn my house shoes out in public like 3 times recently by mistake. 9) Finding sunglasses that fit my face is a shitshow. Basically all sunglasses hit my cheeks which is a problem for several reasons: 1) sweat builds up where the glasses touch my face - ew, 2) if I'm wearing makeup, it rubs off, and 3) it's uncomfortable! I've found like 4 pairs of glasses in my life that don't make me look weird and also don't hit my cheeks. 10) My newest venture has been training to become a certified childbirth educator. I've been to the training, now I just have to finish up the paperwork! Changing the outlook on birth in our culture is something really important to me. Regardless of how a woman plans to birth, I want it to be her decision... especially her decision coming from a place of understanding and peace, rather than fear. Fear does nothing but breeds more fear and I believe it's really disempowering. And that's me, pretty unfiltered. I've been struggling to decide what direction to take this blog, and I think I've finally just decided to bring it back to basics. I'm happy as a hobby blogger. I don't need 100K Instagram Subscribers. I want to put ME back into Making Mrs. M... so this is the start!