emotional processing is so funny because sometimes you’ll be violently sobbing on your bedroom floor over something that happened 4 years ago and then you’ll just. get up and make coffee. and go to the grocery store. and take all this fundamental sadness for a walk. and ponder the cosmic experiences of humanity while eating a sandwich. and that’s healing.

“The Flinch” by Julien Smith

Mistakes Will Be Made, Ask Polly

who else up forgiving themselves over and over again

— Heather Havrilesky, “Why Do I Always Have a Crush on Someone?”

meeting people & growing apart from them & meeting new people & growing apart from them too & meeting other people & eventually growing apart from them as well & on and on and on

Constantly repeating to myself “you are not broken you are young and learning how to live” during everything I do everywhere I go all the time

written by kaveh akbar

2023 maxims:

1. read more

2. it’s fine to accept the bad parts of you without guilt bc being flawed is not morally wrong

3. anti-aging is stupid

4. being a bit cringe is good

5. actions towards others should be motivated more by care for them than concern for how it makes you look

6. communicating needs is so painful but we should do it anyway

A GUIDE TO WINTER: invest in good socks, go on a walk everyday, drink at least one hot drink, wear compression socks when standing long periods of time, light an unscented candle (for atmosphere), invest in scarves, learn a new skill, lather yourself in oils and take one warm bath a week, add another blanket to your bed, add a blanket to just the foot of your bed, soup!, write letters (to send to someone or to no one), eat a meal with another person, read a book (or a magazine, or a journal, or a comic, or something), mend what needs mending, fix what needs fixing, throw away or replace what needs throwing away or replacing, release the tension, stretch, throw a ball (an actual ball or a party, you choose), pray?, pray!, analyze your dreams, check your horoscope, practice discipline, embrace pleasure, lose peace then find peace, you are really that hungry so eat, you are really that tired so sleep, talk to someone (even if that someone is just you), add a red light bulb to your bed side lamp, sit in a red lit room, change something about yourself (some options include bleaching your eyebrows, shaving your head, getting a tattoo, changing your legal name), make something, make anything, make meaning from nothing, make everything meaningless, hug something living (a tree counts), develop a ritual and call it sacred, balance it all, repeat this list.

At the end of each day, look back on the things that were good that day. Maybe the sky was pretty, or you made a little progress on a personal project! I know it’s difficult to push away negative thoughts when you’re trying to sleep. But try to think positively at the end of the day, every single day. The more you try, the easier it will become. Keep at it.

i think i am done wallowing in my sadness and letting it ruin my life. among other things

what if i just decide that life is beautiful even with the horrible things in it and that to be alive is magical even when i feel like shit and to let go of the beliefs that limit me and return to love always. and i’m sexy. what then

You will make mistakes, you will act irrationally. You will commit some wrongs that cannot be fully righted. People will dislike you and misunderstand you for all sorts of reasons. None of these things make you a bad person. All you can do is try your best to be kind, to learn and grow.

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

oh haven’t you heard???? things will get better and you will be okay

[grabs your shirt] listen. listen to me. the practical is holy. the everyday is sacred. the simple act of surviving is divine. do you get it? sanctity begins at home, in the hands that build and the lives we live and the deaths we die and the worms that eat our bodies. if making something by hand is not worthy of veneration then nothing is.

this weeks ¡hola papi! ... a real zinger