Liljumper’s Adventures

These are all snippets from me. Bite size blog pieces that are just thoughts I’ve been having. I hope you don’t mind they aren’t as long anymore. I’ll write a longer one, or a series in the future, about the way I’ve realized I’ve changed. Here’s a little preview.

I’ve been noticing, as I walk into the professional sphere, how much of my behavior moves away from myself. For example, when I get a compliment to downplay it or move it to the team. I don’t puff myself up and I think it’s very much a gendered thing. We aren’t supposed to be vain, we’re supposed to be team players and celebrate the collective. Unlike other people who just let fame and praise go to their head.

So last weekend, yesterday, was our real anniversary. Although nothing really feels real. Why yesterday not today. It’s a day thing, but the actual time difference doesn’t feel that way. Dates are so arbitrary that it just feels like one long stretch between the Sept date and yesterday like our anniversary. One long day. and that’s how it was last year too so I guess there’s a reason for that.

Anyway, just a FYI that it was. I’ve been thinking of everyone and all that happened with fondness this whole month. It took a lot of work and time and effort from the heart. I haven’t given my thanks yet in the ways I wanted to, but it’s my new goal. So I’ll get my act together. Slowly.

I think everyone handles sadness differently. For me, I work. I mean I work a lot, I’m a work-aholic anyway, but it’s how I’ve gotten through a lot of things – moving, sadness, depression. So I just work and don’t talk about it. And for me, that’s okay. It’s not that I don’t think about it, I just don’t feel the need to talk about it. I like working and it makes me feel productive. I know it’s not healthy to only do that, and I don’t. I spend time with my family too. But it’s not only a defense mechanism, but also something I do.

I didn’t want people to think I have a heart of stone/ice

Last month we saw the anniversary of our US celebrations. This was especially surreal for me because I spent the whole day not only separated from that other ball and chain, but also out at a Book festival. At the same time, it made the distance a bit more manageable, but it just felt very surreal.

The time has flown by so quickly and it all feels like one whirlwind. And maybe that’s because it was. Since my getting married, I did a three month intensive internship, then went to the US for a month, then came back and went on a honeymoon, then did a remote location job, then fiercely hunted for jobs, and am now here. In that time period, my blog has blossomed into a time sucking machine. During this time I spent over three months, almost four, reading a book a day. I did this in March then in the month before the honeymoon, and I don’t even remember which month that was, and then almost two months in July and August.

So yeah it has been surreal and the time has flown by because I’ve been extremely busy and lots of things in my life has changed. I now have a part time job that is also unpaid and the blog which is almost full time and definitely not paid, except with books.

So in many ways I feel like I blinked and am now here. In a way that makes me feel like just yesterday I kind of got married and did that whole thing.

On another note, I want to thank each and every one of you reading, and all who came to the celebrations. While it does feel like just yesterday, it was truly a dream come true. The best kind of dream and I know it wouldn’t have been the same without all of you.

I enjoy my commute. It’s long. Don’t I know it. I get up at 6:30 and don’t come home until shortly past 8pm. So my day is over 12 hours away from home and around. Of that time, I spend at least 4-5 hours commuting.

I wake up at 6:30 leave for the train at 7:30 and then get into work around 9:30 where I get to have a few moments to myself before work actually begins. During this time I read my ebook or real book on the train into the city. Then I listen to an audiobook during the crowded subway times. Then for my relatively not crowded subway I’m back to the ebook. Outside of the subway, I have a ten minute walk to work where I either talk on the phone or listen to my audiobook.

The routine is almost the same for the way home except I don’t normally listen to anything on the way to the subway or to the subway because I usually walk with people.

There’s a little quick update about how it is to be me three days a week

I have become even more German than I thought. Despising late trains, late people, being unsettled by air conditioners, about the environment and people’s disregard for it, walking against red.

The list could go on and on. But I feel almost like a foreigner again. Knowing I left my home and underwent some giant changes, changes that changed me. I have come back, but I’m not the same at all. I’m different and I see the light of day differently.

I know I can do more. Know I can rise to the occasion, challenge myself, do more than I ever thought. So in some ways, being here feels almost uncomfortable. I got used to my outstretched wings.

And now I learn again how to stretch them. To find the space to be. To find the space to learn who I am and what I want to do. How to make my heart sing. Soar.

But anything but remain complacent. Each day I push myself to do more, to try more, to go out of my comfort zone. To take every opportunity and work harder than before.

The biggest and scariest question will just be if what I do makes any difference.

I know I’ve been even more absent than I promised. But I’m back in NY now and until at least Jan 2018. I haven’t been able to update people really, it’s been a whole sort of whirl wind and my life, as you all know, has been so much in the air.

It’s still in the air, so much so. But for now, I’m looking for jobs and doing an internship at a Publishing House in NYC. So while it gives me a step in some direction, where it’s going, when, or anything is just unknown still.
While I’m glad I’m moving in some direction, there’s still this unsettling lack of certainty and movement.

It’s hard being here in some ways and easy in others. Hard because of separation, but also old habits. Easy in terms of comfort. But everything has its ups and downs. Right now I just have to take things a day at a time.

I should know better than to assure people there will be posts. We all know how well that worked out before, so all I will assure is that I’ll try each week to come up with something.

I am so sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, about a month. But in between I landed a brief freelance job, finished my project, and have been reading almost a book a day. I will have to be reading a book a day until I got to the US in August, so that’s also been keeping me busy.

Life has been stressful in that aspect and even more so since I still have this gaping hole of uncertainty as I wait for application responses.

So That’s why I’ve been immersing myself in work so I don’t manage to dwell too much on this black hole that I know I’ll get sucked into if I think too long about it.

I did a challenge this month where I tried to write 100 lines of poetry and I only have about one poems worth left. So that’s great! Pretty dark stuff, but it’s gotten me in the frame of mind to write!

 

So I kind of got a freelance job where I can work remotely. At the moment it’s just one project, so it’s not much, but it is a confidence booster and a source of income. It gives me a purpose in my days, instead of just drowning all my time in book blogging activities.

So that’s an update right? I am hoping it will lead to more things, more opportunities, and be a good source of experience. That’s my only news.

I hope everything is good with you.

Oh it is so hot here and without air conditioners I feel low-key like I am melting. My brain is on the floor right now. Can’t even scoop it out.

My milanos are melting in their package. It’s wild.

So I’ve basically been spending half my days in frenzied productivity mode, or the other half in a somewhat sad state. This is so there is some balance and so I attempt to work through my sadness and fear of the future. It isn’t the most fun way to spend my day, but it gets the job done and it’s been alright for the past couple days.

All of it just leaves me feeling very tired. I find that when I am super sad, I am also very tired. Like: I don’t want to deal with things because I’m tired of coping and stress. So it results in me wanting to sleep all the time or just feeling guilty about being tired.

Meditating progress is not going as well since I use my phone to meditate and it has been having some problems so the app won’t update and it keeps dying.

I am working on fixing that this weekend though, so there’s hopes for that.

And the heat is absolutely bogging me down. I don’t want to move around or do yoga or exercise. So I haven’t sorted out yet what to do with that.