Tag: Anxiety

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

In Seven Days, I Turn 30 Years Old

RaeAnna

This past year has been quite the year. So long!

I turned twenty-nine. 

I rescued a dog, who had thirteen puppies. 

I raised those puppies and that dog in the midst of a global pandemic while depending on the kindness of family and friends as we bought a house as we dealt with rare puppy disorders as we coped with Dylan losing his job as my work slowed down to a near halt as we criss-crossed the country. 

Me living my life.

For the first three months of the pandemic, I was stuck inside with fifteen dogs, of which thirteen were completely dependent upon their mama and me. I was run ragged to the point of complete exhaustion. My body was even starting to give out under the physical strain of toting around thirteen large puppies. 

As a constant struggler of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in a perpetual nihilistic crisis, it was not an ideal time to be trapped inside with me, myself, and my multiple internal narratives of doom for company. 

Now, I work from home under normal circumstances, so I am very used to my own company. I used to joke about never leaving the house, but that’s not nearly true. I was always on the go. Having lunch with friends, traveling, going to dog parks, attending events, exploring fun Houston things, creating content, and so much more. My calendar and life were filled with talented people who inspire me. 

Everything changed. The puppies gave me a brief respite. They’ve helped alleviate the catastrophic train wreck that would have been my mental health with their pure existence in my life. But during the pandemic, I’ve felt like I’m watching my impending quarter-life crisis trundling right at me for all of the reasons: imagined and real. 

I turn thirty in one week. I am not one of those women who are scared of turning thirty. In fact, I quite embrace it. The vast majority of me is so ready to be out of my twenties. Those really sucked a big D. I’ve gone so far as to preemptively tell people I’m thirty for the last few months because why the fuck not. At the same time, thirty does come with its fair share of burdens.

As a woman, this is an age where culture, society, the media are persistently confronting me with an alarm clock ticking down the time left on my worth to and in this world. 

I feel like time is running out. I’m almost thirty. Society is a barrage that, as a woman, life ends at thirty. I know it doesn’t. So far all the women I know over thirty have not ceased to exist when their 10,957 day arrived. But, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t help internalizing all the cues telling me life as I know it is over for me and, in a week, I’ll be shipped off to the glue factor with last month’s Kentucky Derby winner—who even remembers that horse anyways. I think if we took the part where I had to age in society out of the equation, I wouldn’t care at all. If I could hermit á la Michel de Montaigne circa 1571, I don’t think I would give a rats ass about aging and this post wouldn’t exist at all. Unfortunately, I must be of this world.

Me wearing the bikini and being all but thirty in this world because I can and will and won’t stop.

I would be 100% lying to you if I said, “I have not ended up covered in snot crying on the kitchen floor being held by my partner as the dogs try to figure out what’s wrong with their seemingly resilient mama because I’m getting older and the world will stop looking at me and stop caring because I have a gray hair (I haven’t found one yet; that’s not a lie) and the hints of forehead wrinkles so none of my big dreams will come true because they haven’t come to fruition yet and all this work has been for naught and fucking life is hard.” That would be a lie. It would be a lie if I said it didn’t happen at regular intervals over the last two years. I’m not scared of getting older, but I’m scared of how the world will treat me as I get older. The world hasn’t been kind to me for the first thirty years when I was apparently worth something, so how the hell is it going to be for the next seventy years? Society tells me: not great. 

Life is terrifying. There is so much to process, handle, solve, enjoy, escape, see, do, taste, smell, and avoid all the time; honestly, I love each and every one of those pieces of living life. But being an aging woman is just terrifying. I know it’s different for me than it was for my mother and grandmothers, but things haven’t changed so much that wrinkles and grays and numbers don’t matter in the world. They do. And I don’t really care for anyone to tell me otherwise because my entire life all I’ve ever been validated for is my looks and what that means for my place in the world. The marriage I could make, the doors that will open, the way life will be “easier” because I was tall, thin, fair. So for me and my life experience, the moment my boobs start to droop, my waistline starts to expand, my hair starts to thin, my skin starts to slacken, what will I be? Who will care? It doesn’t matter and has never mattered that I’m intelligent, well-spoken, a linguist, possess a wicked wit, kind, giving, accepting, an activist, a writer, a creative, a critic, a dog mom, a friend, and all the other things that actually make me me and interesting and complex. My existence has always and almost solely been validated and made worthy by the way I look. 

Who I am has always just been a positive addendum to the way I look. 

I have never liked close up portraits. My teeth are funny. My nose is weird. I’m hyper critical of everything. As I get older, I see the lines, the pores, the acne that had never been there, everything. But if I don’t take them now, I never will, and I’ll look back and say, “damnit, I should have.” And I don’t do regret.

So… I love getting older. I’m wiser, funnier, smarter, humbler, more experienced, a better listener, a better talker, a deeper thinker than I was at twenty. I think I’m cuter, but that’s probably because I know how to do my makeup better. I truly and completely love getting older. Life is so much better than it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, a year ago. I know myself more completely. I am happier at a week away from thirty than I was at a week away from twenty. 

But… I’m scared of getting older. I don’t know how the world will treat me. I know how the world has treated women. I know how I want the world to treat women. And goddamnit, I have the audacity to age like the women who’ve come before me.

Now… I can only do one thing. Wake up tomorrow and keep on living my life. I’m going to moisturize and exercise—sometimes, infrequently, it will become a habit—to fight off aging physically, emotionally, but most of all mentally. More than anything, I’m going to keep working on my dreams. I’m going to keep creating new dreams. I’m going to strive for happiness. I’m going to live my life fully and enthusiastically surrounded by weirdos who love life and me. I’m going to support women and be everyone’s cheerleader. I’m going to be kind and find beauty in my body as it changes with the days and years I have ahead of me. I’m going to write. I’m going to lift up women’s voices of all ages because the world needs to remember that we women continue to evolve not stagnate. I’m going to tell my stories because I have seventy more years of stories, and I’ve hardly started on telling the first thirty years. My life isn’t over. I’m not done living. I will age with audacity.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

On Anxiety: Getting Lost in the Woods

RaeAnna

If this isn’t your first time here, you’ve probably noticed I have anxiety. That would be because I talk about it A LOT. It’s a huge part of my life and dictates a good portion of how I live and my internal musings. Lately, anxiety has been dousing me with an extra helping or twelve, and it has really been affecting everything from sleep to productivity to mostly sleep.

Beau looking back at me… Neither of us knew where we were or where we were going.

I’ve never been a big sleeper. Part of that comes from my natural circadian rhythm: I just don’t need tons of sleep to feel peppy, focused, and productive. The other part is my eternal FOMO. I have had a fear of missing out since I was an infant, which is long before that term entered the patois. My parents will be the first to say that I would not sleep if there was even an inkling of something happening. I remember being about three years old, hopping out of bed during my nap to have a listen at the door because I wanted to know what was happening: Mom was watching a soap opera, but damnit I was not going to miss out on what was going on in Susan’s third husband’s love child’s second marriage (I just made that up, but I’m sure that’s come up at least thrice). The longer I sleep the more I miss out on: time to work, time to play, time to be awake and do nothing but at least I won’t miss anything while I’m awake doing nothing. 

As much as I don’t want to sleep, I do, in fact, need it. Anxiety keeps me up more than anything else. This isn’t new. I remember being eight and having a borderline anxiety attack (although I did not have the words for it then) about growing up and having to file taxes and also decide what my major in college would be. I ONLY HAD ELEVEN YEARS TO FIGURE IT OUT. Yeah, I was a weirdo then. Nothing has changed. As an adult, my anxieties are a bit more grounded in reality, but in eight year old me’s defense, those are real things to worry about… Just maybe not at eight years old.

Three weeks ago, I was in the midst of an anxiety spiral over some very real problems. Some of which have since been solved, yay! I couldn’t stop. It started on Sunday and reached its zenith Tuesday night. I hadn’t slept much, which was fine. I was nowhere near a psychotic episode, although anxiety said differently. Tuesday night, I did not sleep a wink. Not one bit. I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, stewing. I eventually did a bunch of reading, writing, working, and then in a desperate attempt to dumb my mind, hopped on TikTok. Beau was snuggled between my legs, content with the consistent inconsistency of her mother at nighttime. 

Beau’s got this. She led the way. The way to nowhere helpful.

By 5:30 am, I had sufficiently given sleep my every effort and failed. The only failure I have been able to accept with out personal devastation. With the energy of a sleep deprived human—it’s actually quite a lot; after years of sleep deprivation, I am one of the most energetic and positive exhausted people in the history of the world—I literally skipped into my closet, put on running clothes, dressed Beau in her running gear (aka harness), woke up Dylan, let the puppies out/fed them, and ran out the door. 

Exercise is one of my least favorite activities. I loathe it, but it is something I do with regularity because it is incredibly good for our bodies, brains, emotions, and overall health. COVID halted that, but I’m trying to slowly work myself back into life. 

Running is at the tippy top of exercise I hate, which is exactly the reason I turn to it when I’m dealing with inordinate amounts of stress and anxiety. It takes equal parts determination and pain to start and keep going, making it the perfect mental distraction. Beau has come to look forward to times of high anxiety because she gets lots of walkies. 

My neighborhood has tons of walking trails and parks. Beau isn’t the easiest dog in the world to walk. She wants to sniff all the things, chase any bird/leaf/squirrel, and zig zap like it’s an Olympic sport, but I like getting the alone time with my OG (Original Girl). She knows the drill, we head out the door straight for the walking track just down the road. We did one lap before a walk on the woodsy trail. 

I decided to confuse Beau and do something different: Head onto the dirt trails deeper into the woods. The Iowa girl in me loves exploring nature. Living in Houston, there is a stark lack of hills and woods, though we have amazing parks and walking trails. My neighborhood has some unexplored woods, and this was the day to dive in. 

Beau lead the way. She loves getting to zig zag without Mommy holding her back. Every fork in the path, Beau chose the direction. I was doing a good job tracking each turn… at first. For, maybe, the first two or three forks. A gazillion forks in… I was starting to think there was a potential of being lost. An hour and ten minutes into our walk-run, I decided it was time to turn around. As we made our way home, after several turns… I realized we were lost. For realsies lost. I knew where I was adjacent to my house, but getting there via trail or off trail was a completely different story. 

At one point, I found a nice little, green sign nailed to a tree at one of many, many forks, denoting the paths: Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I let Beau choose Creekside because I truly had no idea which one to take… or if we’d even seen that on our adventure in. We followed the path choosing another fork. Next thing I knew, I was back at the intersection of Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. Frustrated, I took Rabbit Pun. Obviously Beau’s career as a Sherpa in Nepal is looking quite grim. After choosing another two forks, we were ONCE AGAIN facing Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I looked at Beau, who looked at me, who looked at the sign. My future as a Sherpa in Nepal is just as grim. 

My anxiety had found a new and far more tangible outlet. We were officially lost in the woods. 

In a desperate attempt to navigate homeward, I pulled up Google maps. Not helpful. It gave me directions from the nearest road. From the nearest road, it was a two and a half mile walk… According to Google we were about a mile, as the crow flies, from that road. My blue dot showed me standing in the middle of green space. 

Luckily, there were beautiful scenes to see.

Off we went, once more on Rabbitt Pun. It felt like the right choice. About twenty minutes later, with no familiar physical indicator, we ran into a man and his two dogs. Beau was excited for company, and I was excited for directions. 

We managed to find our way out of the woods… Nowhere near where we entered them, but out we were. What was going to be an hour walk turned into a two hour and forty-five minute walk, nine mile walk. Not at all a fast pace, but there was a lot of confused twirling in the woods. 

Beau was thoroughly exhausted and over the moon with joy. I was tired and running late to work at Amanda’s shop, luckily, she didn’t care. My anxiety had found a realistic outlet. Between the utter lack of sleep and long walk, I was able to sleep later that night. 

Anxiety’s a bitch. I’ve found my ways of coping with it. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

11..., Lifestyle

11… Ways I Have Avoided Dealing With 2020

RaeAnna
#12 I’ve also been dancing it out a whole lot! Although, that’s nothing new. | Skirt | Top |

2020 has been a shit year. I hate generalizations, but I think the world will agree with me on this one. It’s been a Biblical plague level disaster of a year. Part of me is so ready for it to be over, and the other part of me is terrified 2021 will pop and say, “So you thought 2020 was bad? Wait and see what I have planned.” I am truly concerned that this is the new reality for the world. My biggest life goal as an adventure seeker and travel enthusiast is to see the world. 2020 was supposed to be a year of international travel. None of that happened, but I am terrified in my core, that this is the new status quo. What if I can’t see the world? 

I’ve been emotionally distancing myself from 2020. Even though this year has produced more fodder for my social justice focused writing career, I have not been able to actually write about it. It hurts my heart too much. So I have spent all of 2020 avoiding 2020 and not doing my job and writing about the world and how it’s a dumpster fire on steroids.

  1. Puppies… I’ve been avoiding this year with puppies. Not only is this good for my mental health and increases the amount of love and affection I have in my life, it has also been good for the puppies. They didn’t die on the street with their mom from exposure or starvation. That’s dark but not untrue. I love my dogs, and they drained the life out of me for many months, but I would not change a Goddamn thing. 
  2. Netflix… They keep making new shows and movies, and I must watch them or I won’t know what’s going on in the world. Or I add them all to my list and never feel like I’m in the mood for that particular show or starting a new series or a movie or whatever so then I… [see #9]
  3. Sleep… I have never been a great sleeper. I pushed my parents sleep deprivation limits within the first year of my life because I didn’t sleep. Now, I just push my own limits of sleep deprivation. With work being less crazy—thanks COVID—and me having nowhere to go, I’ve been trying to give myself a normal human sleep schedule for the first time in my life. It’s not going great.
  4. Nyquil Induced Sleep… When I can’t sleep and I need to sleep but the anxiety is too high, I do the healthy thing and drug myself to sleep with Nyquil. Why am I admitting this online? In the vain of honesty? Maybe I’m just too sleep deprived to know better. Either way, this is a thing I do sometimes. 
  5. Relentless Existential Crises… The inside of my brain is not a happy place. I am an existentialist (just kidding, I’m a full on nihilist but that doesn’t sound as cute). I trend towards nothing means anything! and why do I even try? and my credit score won’t matter when I die! and it will all end in the Big Crunch anyways! Like I said, not a happy place, and this is what I crawl in bed with every night.  
  6. Reading… I have been reading without writing book reviews. Woops! There is a very large pile of books waiting to be reviewed sitting on my desk. I need to get to them, but I haven’t been able to force myself into being a productive human and writing down my thoughts for you all to not read. 
  7. Anxiety Induced Paranoia… Hi! I’m a human. I have anxiety. It’s debilitating and sometimes gives me streaks of paranoia. Like: My life-partner no longer loves me and has changed the locks, left my stuff by the curb, and won’t let me back in the house all because he fell asleep, forgot to plug in his phone, and can’t answer my call because the phone is dead. I absolutely do not have abandonment issues. But the anxiety monster pops up and says: You’re not worth being loved, so here’s a terrible situation that could TOTALLY happen and has happened. You’re now homeless. Best wishes. 
  8. Staring At My Computer and Doing Nothing… I absolutely am always productive. This is a lie. There are some days when I say “I’m going to be productive!” So I sit down at my computer. Open a document to start writing and finally make a tiny dent in my ever growing pile of books and blog posts I want/need to write. As I gaze upon my computer with my hands on the keys, I am overcome by the feeling of NOPE! So I stare at my computer and pretend like I was productive for two hours before saying, “Well, I tried.” I end it all by cuddling dogs and reading another book I hope to review someday. 
  9. Rewatching Shows I’ve Already Seen Too Many Times… This is a thing people with anxiety do. They rewatch shows over and over and over again because it’s comforting because we know what is going to happen. Instead of starting new shows, I just rewatch the old ones. This is the most productive thing (other than puppies) that I have done during quarantine. Sue me. I didn’t bake sourdough.
  10. Planning To Tackle Projects And Then Never Doing Anything… I NEED TO SET UP MY OFFICE AND PAINT MY HOUSE. I haven’t. I have all the things I need for my office, and yet it hasn’t been done. Oh well. That’s life. I know in my head what my house will look like when it’s done. It is beautiful. Reality: The walls are a terrible and dated color of greige. 
  11. Staring At The Ceiling… When in doubt. Lay in bed and stare at the ceiling doing nothingness. Seriously. Nothing but drown in self-doubt, anxiety, worry, and nihilism. 

Sending all my love to everyone who reads this and everyone who doesn’t. The world is a terrifying place right now. I’m hoping it gets better and we can all see and love one another again. Until then, I’ll just be here keeping up with avoiding 2020. 

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

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11..., Lifestyle

11… Ways Life is Being Difficult Right Now

RaeAnna
Gotta love the help I have at all times.

Life is always difficult. I would like to meet the person who says it isn’t and learn their secret. Until that person makes themselves known, I’m going to continue operating under the premise: life is hard, and there is always that obstacle, that health issue, that person, that work project, that special something that makes life a little less pleasant than I’d like it to be. Sometimes all of those somethings at once, which is a total bugger of a situation. 

In so many ways my life is really lovely right now. Next week’s 11… will be a post about the lovely things in my life, but right now. Nope. I’m going to complain. 

  1. I pooped my pants today. That is correct. You read that correctly. No typo. I would love to tell you this is an isolated incident. It’s not. Since I was 24 and went through quite a major health incident, my body does not always work properly—rarely ever. I go through particularly bad periods where I can’t stray too far away from the bathroom, which is a real problem for any kind of social life, plan making, trip taking, or work doing. It could be a lot worse, but it was just an incentive to do some laundry.  
  2. My Anxiety Demon is stalking me. Anxiety is no joke. It’s been making my life difficult for as long as I can remember, but over the last few months, it’s been making itself known excessively. Currently contemplating life without sleep or responsibility as a solution. So far not working. 
  3. Sedated Tess. Tessa is my angel baby. She came to me and brought responsibilities of enormous proportion at a time when the distraction and love was everything I needed with the bills, everything I did not. She permanently brought me Knight, Makeda, Duke, and Bear and let me take care of nine other babies until their furever families could take them home. Tess is on the tail end of her heartworm journey. YAY! But she still has six months until we get the all clear. And another month of restricted activity, which means sedation. She’s a nightmare on sedation. Grumpy, ass bitch (in the most literal of terms). I get it, she’s frustrated, but it is hard when we have a houseful of dogs wanting to play, and Tess wants to eat them because they get to play and she doesn’t. 
  4. One of our air conditioning units and the furnace needs to be replaced. Living in Houston, air conditioning is as necessary as food. I need it to function. Ours is on its last leg. So fun. 
  5. Depression. My Depression Demon and Anxiety Sadist are currently skipping hand in hand around my brain. It’s great. Quite the houseparty they’ve got going on. I’m just waiting on them to invite Insecurity Fiend and Nervous Nelly over for some real fun. 
  6. Duke has a SEVERE overbite. We’ve been monitoring it since we first noticed a hint of overbite. He had a check up with the vet last month, and we were told he would be fine until his next check in at eight months old to see how it’s doing. Well, we noticed some holes in the upper palate of his mouth from his teeth being misaligned from the overbite. We took him in immediately. Well, he (and all the other puppies) are growing so fast, their little bodies are changing like crazy. He needs to be seen like yesterday by a dental specialist/orthodontist to correct the damage that’s already been done and make adjustments to his mouth to prevent further damage. Yikes. 
  7. Money seems to be flowing out of my pocket like it’s air. Between buying a house, all the issues that come with that, and my dogs’ issues, I am broke. I mean, I have enough money to eat, but the savings are depleted, and credit cards are tired. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade them for the world, and I am so glad they found a home with me because I know they will be taken care of and their needs will be met. But it does take a toll on the emotions and the wallet. No regrets. They are worth it, and I’m truly grateful I have a partner as committed to giving up and cutting back where we can so that we can put that money towards the needs of our babies’ health. 
  8. I rolled my ankle today. There’s a running joke in my family that I can dance beautifully, but that walking really trips me up. Literally. I now have the added obstacle of a step down into my living room and hardwood floors that need to be replaced because they buckle, popping up randomly in the middle of rooms.
  9. I have hardwood floors that buckle, popping up randomly in the middle of rooms. This is a problem. It’s because when the floors were installed by the previous owners, they were done super wrong. It’s going to be expensive to redo the whole first floor, and right now the money is going to make sure the doggos are healthy. 
  10. Motivation. What is that? I have lost pretty much all motivation to hunt down writing gigs or even write the bare minimum for the blog. Most days, I feel a great sense of accomplishment that all six dogs and the man-friend are fed and alive. Part of it is a mental thing. I’m out of the habit and out of the mindset of working eight to fourteen hours a day. The other part is the lack of time. I have time, but I don’t have unencumbered time. It is really, really, really, really hard to read more than two pages without having to get up and referee a disagreement or figure out why the house is so quiet or let the dogs out so no one pees in the house or feed them or any number of things that come up. Imagine trying to sit down and actually write a book review or blog post or anything! It’s hard. I’ve had to start going to Starbucks to write for an hour before/after yoga. Which is really saying something, since I’m notorious for hating to work anywhere except my [home] office. 
  11. I don’t get to travel! Traveling is the way I decompress. It is my way of getting to breathe. I’m lucky that I can take my job with me wherever I go, and that my boyfriend is a live-in doggy daddy who can and does take care of the dogs when I leave. With the pandemic, there is no leaving. There’s staying. Nothing but staying. I love my home. I love my life. But I’m ready to get back on the road again. 

Like everyone on the planet, I’m actually dealing with even more things than this right now, some more serious, some less, but this is a really good highlight reel of life being life. I’m complaining because I can, but I genuinely love my life and appreciate it. And, truly, it could be a gazillion times worse.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Isolation Creation

RaeAnna
I love being surrounded by my new rescue babies.

One of my favorite people to follow on instagram is Jamick Beck. She’s a brilliant photographer and a lovely human to watch live her life through my phone screen. She lives in the South of France. During quarantine she worked on an Isolation Creation project, where she created a beautiful photograph every day and documented it on social media with the hashtag #isolationcreation. It was so inspiring, and I loved following along. 

Social media has been flooded with all these amazing people creating amazing things with their newfound freetime. They are really living out #isolationcreation. I love it. My quarantine feels like the opposite: A vacuum where creativity and productivity have ceased to exist. I have been in quarantine (to the best of my ability) since the middle of March. 

Now is not the time to be trapped inside my house with me, myself, and my multiple internal narratives of doom for company. My anxiety is having anxiety over how much anxiety I have over being anxious about everything. On top of it, my depression has been a raging ball of sadness and defeat. It’s an excellent combination for sustaining minimal productivity and an endless drowning sensation. 

My sweet Duke wasn’t supposed to stay, but here he is furever.

On the surface, my everyday life has not drastically changed. I work from home and don’t have tons of reasons to leave the house. I used to travel a few times a month, and I was always bopping out to have lunch with friends or grab a coffee with someone or something in the world. None of that has happened, which is good for health reasons. 

My quarantine has not included any of the things I would have liked it to include. Considering I can’t travel or leave the house and work has substantially slowed down, I should have time to do so many things. But not true. I have not written my book or even a short story. I’ve not even tended to my blog, which is my job. I don’t read the way I should be. Nothing that needs to be done is getting done. Nothing I want done is getting done. I’m existing in this space of doing the bare minimum. Here’s what the bare minimum has consisted of for me over the last few months:

  • Finding a dog, helping her have thirteen puppies, bottle feeding them, making sure they go to the vet every few weeks, emergency vet trips, finding them REALLY good furever homes, keeping them safe, and sending them to their furever homes. (I’m exhausted just thinking about it all again.)
  • Finding and buying a house. (The literal worst.)
  • Moving cross-country with all the dogs because the house situation took longer because of COVID and we were trying to… 
  • Not be homeless.
  • Working on the few projects that came my way. (So slow… who needs a writer?)
  • Sleeping whenever I could, which was hardly never.
  • Moving back across the country with the dogs to…
  • Finally move into the house.
  • Unpacking the house… Unpacking the necessary things; still working on the unnecessary bits. 
  • Battling my anxiety and depression. 
  • Fixing the house because it was NOT in the shape it was supposed to be in.  
Makeda front and center where she likes to be. They loved laying in the laundry basket. Don’t ask me why.

Productivity and efficiency are my main modes of existing. I hate doing nothing. I hate inefficiency. I hate wasting time. In my mind, nothing has been productive or efficient during quarantine. It’s wrong. I know I have been productive and as efficient as one can be with puppies considering the circumstances of COVID-19, fifteen dogs, moving, and not living in my own house for two and a half months. There’s this anxiety/depression monster that lives in my stomach (head but I feel it in my stomach) telling me I’m the fucking worst and I could do more and be better and why is nothing done the way it could be??? The last four months have not been my ideal version of productivity. When I see time where I’m just sitting, that’s time I could have been working, unpacking, or doing something with my life to achieve my dreams in any and all the ways. I could have done more during quarantine, but I also couldn’t have. I’m dealing with life, puppies, work being slow, COVID, anxiety, depression, and that’s my version of #isolationcreation. 

This was my cue they were done playing and wanted to go in for a nap.

Instead of creating art or finding my love of needle point (I’m actually already not bad at that) or getting in shape or learning how to speak Urdu, I’ve been creating fourteen healthy lives. My #isolationcreation is the puppies and their mama. I took her and the thirteen puppies in during a really difficult time. I made sure she had everything she needed before, during, and after the birth. We almost lost her, but we didn’t. I’m working on getting her healthy – she has already come such a long way. We were told to only expect eight puppies to live, but all thirteen are alive, happy, and healthy. There were several puppies who needed extra attention because they were small, weak, and/or sick. They made it through and are living their best lives. Nine found their perfect homes. Four are stuck with me, two of which have special needs (I call them my miracle boys), but I know they’ll be taken care of. They are almost potty trained. They know how to sit and stay. They’re well behaved and wonderful to be around. They’re the image of health, and they’re growing like crazy. They bring me joy and keep me busy. Life is never dull.

I’m hard on myself, but I always have been. Struggling is my main form of existing right now [always], but I’ve created good where there was sadness during quarantine. I didn’t create beautiful artwork for the world to enjoy like Jamie Beck, but I created something intangibly beautiful for the puppies and their furever families. I did what I could, and I hope it was enough.  

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

I did my very best for them, and I loved watching them grow and change.
#isolationcreation
In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Due Date-Versary

RaeAnna

If my body had done what it was supposed to five years ago, I would be throwing a quarantine birthday party for my five year-old son or daughter right now. 

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Instead, I’m cuddling my new babies. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings | Chair |

Having children has never ever been a part of my life plan. Being a mother is not something I have ever craved. It has been something I’ve avoided like the plague. When I am sexually active, I obsessively avoid getting pregnant by using birth control and condoms. I’ve even gotten Plan B when condoms break because NOPE. I have enough money set aside to take care of problems if need be. I’m that kind of person. 

I was that kind of person when I found out I was thirteen weeks pregnant in early fall of 2014. Miracles happen, I guess. It was too late to do anything about being pregnant. I was pregnant. I was going to be a mom. I was very much alone in my soon-to-be-parenting party. It hit me like a truck. I started planning and dreaming and getting excited because that was the only option, so I embraced it. Then, I had a miscarriage. I was mostly devastated. Relief came several weeks later as the tears slowed and the dreams faded.  

As the years go by, the feelings are less poignant; the hurt is less sharp; the dreams are hazier. I still get sad. Sometimes, I even cry when I watch kids movies. Every once in a while, I think about what my life would look like had my body not failed at one of its main biologically female tasks. As ready as I was financially, in my career, and at that point in my life, I had never planned on being a mom. Five years later, my feelings have not changed: I’m sad and relieved. Those feelings can go together. You can be sorrowfully content with a miscarriage. You don’t have to have just one feeling. You are allowed to feel all the feelings whatever they are, no matter how at odds they may be with one another. It does not make you less of a woman. It does not make you less of a mother. It does not make you less of anything. It makes you a complex human, who is coping with a really difficult physical, mental, and medical situation. 

Miscarriages are rarely talked about. That is starting to change as women speak about women’s issues more and more openly. Thank you to all the women on social media who are deciding to be vulnerable and honest about the crap we go through. When miscarriages are talked about, it’s usually about how overwhelmingly sad and painful they are. They are. I’m not going to lie to you about that. It’s true. It sucks. It’s sad. It’s the worst. There can also be some real positives coming out of miscarriages. They’re not apparent at first, but over the months and years as your mind and body heal, things start to look and feel better. 

The majority of miscarriages happen because, for whatever reason, the body knows the baby shouldn’t come into the world for one biological reason or another. You can do everything right starting months before conception and still have a miscarriage. (Granted that was not me. Accident baby. Although, I didn’t really do much wrong.) Miscarriages happen. They happen for almost always good reasons. All babies are perfect, but not all babies are meant for this world. 

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Loving the babies I have on this sad day. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings |

Positives of miscarriages differ from person to person. One thing I can say for everyone, the life we have in this moment is not at all the life we would have had had that baby come into the world. For some of us, that’s a bad thing. For some of us, that’s a good thing. For some of us, it’s just a thing. I have an incredible life. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I would, under no circumstance, have this life with a five year old. 

I would not…

  • have the boyfriend I have now.
  • had the freedom to quit my corporate job, the stable paycheck, the benefits. 
  • be a freelance writer and blogger.
  • be able to sit on the couch and do nothing for hours on end. 
  • live in Houston.
  • travel as much or the way I do.
  • have Beau in my life.
  • have been able to pick Tess up off the side of the road.
  • have the time, energy, or money to take care of thirteen puppies.
  • have found or reconnected with my truest passions in life.
  • be chasing my wild, crazy, unrealistic dreams.
  • have the friends I do.
  • walk around pantless all the time.
  • read as much as I do.
  • stay up late doing whatever the fuck I want to whenever the fuck I want to.
  • have the body I do.
  • have a savings account with money in it specifically for travel (which happens often) and/or buying things I decide I need right now (which never happens, but it’s nice to know it’s there). 
  • be me the way I am right now.

I have no idea what my life would look like had Paeton Rae been born. I know I would have a corporate job with good benefits and a salary high enough to pay for everything she/he/their needs and wants and for us to go on a family vacation once a year. I know there would be a bedtime, healthy snacks, play dates, trips to the park, time outs, library trips, tantrums, snuggles, bedtime reading, dance parties, messes, and a lot of other things my life does not have right now. I would have loved that life for what it was, but that was never my dream. I never had to make the decision to not be pregnant, to not be a mom; my body did that for me. I was sad. I am sad. I miss the life I could have had and holding the baby I never got to hold. 

But. 

I love my life. I see the blessing the sadness of my miscarriage was. I see all the opportunities and possibilities my life still has in store for me that would not have been possible as a single mom to a five year old. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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