January 22, 2023
episode description
I tend to stress myself out by worrying about what the future holds. And sometimes, it gets to the point where it becomes unhealthy in the way that it's affecting my life. In this episode I talk about taking life one day at a time and remembering to appreciate the small moments of joy in everyday life.
transcript
I am dreading the day that I have to go back to school.
Like literally I'm thinking about it right now and I'm like, I could literally kneel over and cry. Like sob gut wrenching tears right now. It's pretty bad. And part of this is because I'm not happy with my classes and all of that jazz. I mean, we know about that.
I talked about it in a previous episode called don't ask me what I wanna be when I grow up. Go ahead and listen to that episode if you want more information on why I feel this way, but I am— I'm dreading going back and it's like very soon, coming up very soon. And it's like, I just can't, I just can't deal with the nonsense, the foolery, the tom foolery of what I know I'm about to go through right now.
But before I get into that conversation, there were some things I wanted to talk about. So this past couple days I've been wearing my natural hair and I usually wear my hair natural out when it's not in braids, but I've been wearing my hair natural natural.
And by that I mean like usually I do a little middle part and a low bun. Kind of giving Harriet Tubman vibes. And I mean, I like that look. I vibe with that look, but sometimes I wanna just, I don't feel like doing all that, like making my hair as flat as possible and putting a million different bobby pins in my hair and giving myself a headache after 30 minutes of having my hair like that.
So, I just use my little stocking that I've cut and I put it in a big afro puff at the top of my head. And honestly it looks killer. Like I look really good. But it does— people notice, people be noticing my hair when it's like that. I'm undeniably black and I mean, I'm always undeniably black cause I have brown skin.
But in that moment they're like, oh, she's black black kind of thing, if you know what I'm saying. But that kind of has led me to some situations. So I've been going to work lately at my part-time job and customers comment on my hair and it's fine. Like I don't really care cause I'm secure in myself, but there was this one lady who was like, "I love your hair."
Talking about, "I wish my hair could do that." And I was like, "oh, thank you, hehe." Like, I was really feeling myself. And she was like Indian or Pakistani. I'm not really sure what her ethnicity was, but she looked kind of like, she could be one of those two. And she was with a white man, for context.
And I was like, okay, thank you so much. And then she like kept going. And I was like, okay?
She's like, "yes, it's so beautiful. I wish my hair could do that. Instead, it just does this." And she like flicked her ponytail around and her hair of course was straight, and I was like, "ha, ha ha."
It was kind of getting a little awkward, like okay you didn't have to keep going. And she just kept going and it was like she really wanted to tell me how much she loved my hair.
And this kind of reminds me of what I talked about in a previous episode, the one called learning how to do my 4C hair, where it feels like people comment on my hair positively, usually as in a performative sense, or because they know that they should, or like they feel like they're supporting me wearing my natural hair.
Cuz I guess it wasn't supported in the past. I don't know. But it always leaves me feeling uncomfy. And then another instance where I was wearing my natural hair, my manager at my part-time job— he looked up at my hair and then looked at my face next and I just thought, oh my God.
For context, he's a white old man. And it's just like, you're just so hyper aware of the fact that you are black when you wear your natural hair. Like as it truly is in it's natural state. And really, this isn't even my hair truly in its natural state because it's stretched. I put product in it and I braided it and all that jazz to make it look longer.
So the shrinkage could have been really doing its job, but in this case, it was flowy and stretched and fluffy and when I was walking, there was a little bounce to it. If I didn't stretch my hair, if I didn't braid it every night, there would be no bouncing going on in my Afro puff.
While I had my hair in an afro I was watching K-drama earlier today because I was procrastinating. I was supposed to be writing, but I was watching a K-drama instead. And I'm watching this drama called Fabulous on Netflix. It's kind of like a mini series with eight episodes. And there's a scene in one of the episodes that bothered me.
This is not a spoiler or anything, but the scene where the main character, like the male love interest, is trying to cheer up his friend and he puts on a pink afro and like does some little dances and stuff and is doing like, I don't know, he's dancing to some music to cheer up his friends and they're all like, oh, yay.
Like, kind of thing. And it's like kind of cringey to me. Would this happen in real life? I don't actually know. ButI mean, his friends were cheered up. So he did what he sought out to do, but I was looking at him and I was looking at me in the mirror and I was looking back at him and I was looking at me and I was like, Hmm.
Like, tell me why we look the same.
He had a pink afro on, but I had taken my hair out of the stocking cap that was keeping it in a high afro puff. So I just had a full on Afro at this point because the stocking cap was giving me a headache. I had a headache from working a five hour shift and keeping my hair in that thing all day.
And I was like, when I saw him and I looked at me in the mirror and I was like, why do we look kind of the same? And I was like, I don't know. I felt kind of icky about it. Like I was just waiting for the scene to be over. I was like, okay, can we move on now? Like I don't know about this.
And it's not that he did anything wrong, like he just wore a pink Afro wig and was dancing.
But I was like, what is the Afro wig needed? Is it Afro wig? Is it supposed to make him seem silly and goofy and fun? Like what was that about?
And as all of my friends and family know, I have a conspiracy about Afro wigs. Like why do clowns wear Afro wigs? What about our hair is clowny? Why? That's just how my hair goes out of my head.
That has to be connected to some type of minstrel stuff. For clowns to be wearing Afro hair, have oversized shoes, draw oversized lips, and have like the big red noses, like it's just, this feels like it has to be racist somewhere down the line. Like the people who are doing blackface evolved into that.
It just seems wrong.
And also the fact that clowns are meant to be laughed at.
I read this one book, this one romance book, I don't remember what it's called, where the, the love interest was a clown for her, for like her job. That was her dream. And I liked the book. I think. But the way it was portrayed in the book, it was like a respectable job.
I just feel like a clown is a persona that's meant to be laughed at. Like, okay, on one hand it does bring people joy and all of that, but it doesn't feel like you're laughing with the clown. It feels like you're laughing at the clown. So it just makes me wonder like, is this some type of racist stuff?
Is this some type of blackface menstrual stuff? Why are they wearing Afros?
I remember when I worked at a craft store and it was after March, I think it was maybe April or May. And they were like trying to get rid of the clearance stuff from St. Patrick's Day and they had like a bunch of green Afro wigs and I was like, this has gotta be racist, just looking at them and it's always white people wearing them.
Have you ever seen a black person in an Afro wig? No. Cuz we can just grow our own hair like that. Like why would we wear an Afro wig?
I don't know if any of that is actually true. If their origin are racist, but it feels like it, to me. It feels something doesn't feel right.
But anyway, let's get back to the topic of this episode: learning to live in the moment.
Now, I talked about at the very beginning of this episode, me dreading my semester. Upcoming my final semester. If I can pass— if I can just get through this last stretch.
Living in the moment is something that I've been trying to practice more and more lately, and it's so difficult to put it into practice.
Why would I spend all of my time, my free time, the end of my winter break worrying about what's to come instead of just enjoying my freedom while I still have it? But it's like you can't help but dread the inevitable. Because I don't like my classes and I dread having to go to my internship because, you know, spending eight hours a day unpaid is pretty brutal.
And don't get me wrong, I love my students but eight hours a day is a lot, especially when I could be doing something else, like working on writing or my podcast, or getting paid at my part-time job. And it's just tiring overall, like it's just a tiring experience. It's a rewarding experience for sure, student teaching, but I just feel so drained and when I wake up in the morning to go there, I don't feel happy.
I just feel, I feel almost like hopeless. When I'm getting ready in the morning I think to myself: why am I doing this and when can it be the last time that I do this?
And I don't know why. I really don't, because I enjoy my time with the students, I really do.
They're the highlight of my whole time there. And I enjoy teaching lessons sometimes when I'm not riddled with fear and anxiety because of my public speaking phobia. So I don't know why I'm unhappy, but I do know that I'm not happy. And realizing that makes me feel like I shouldn't be teaching because why would I willingly choose to stay in that unhappiness?
Because of my own uncertainty.
And sometimes I worry that I'm leaving one unhappiness to somehow end up in another. And I feel like maybe I should just stay in this unhappiness cause it's familiar, uncomfortable.
But even if you do somehow end up somewhere where you're just as unhappy as you would've been in your current situation, why would you stay somewhere where you know you're gonna be unhappy instead of taking the chance of going somewhere where you might be happier?
It's just a risk that you have to take because even if you leave this unhappiness to find another environment where you're just as unhappy, you can keep leaving them until you find the environment that makes you feel that contentedness, that happiness. But it's so much easier said than done.
Trust me. I know that.
There's things involved, like financial factors. Of course you would leave your job if you could because it makes you unhappy, but you need your job to pay your rent and to pay your bills. But I think that as long as you're working towards leaving that thing that makes you unhappy, no matter how small of an effort it is, I feel like you then have something worth being happy about because you're always working toward happiness.
I often think about like, why, when I know that the next moment isn't guaranteed in life at all, why would I spend the moments that I do have worrying about what might be, instead of appreciating what currently is my reality?
Like why am I spending so much time worrying about what the future holds instead of focusing on what the present has given me and being grateful.
And thinking about the fact that a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago, five years ago, I would've been so grateful to have the things that I do now. I always try to think about that.
About the younger version of myself. What would she think about me right now? She would be through the roof. I mean, I'm attending my dream school, the major I thought that I was meant for and all of that.
Side note, today at my part-time job, there was a little boy and he like, it was like a toddler maybe. Maybe one and a half, I don't know. And he waved at me and I was like, haha, so cute. And I waved back and the parents were like, oh my God, that's the first time he's ever waved anybody. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm honored.
But I was really like, why do kids like me so much? Like, it's your fault I'm in this major. Because I thought, you like me and I like you. So I should just become a teacher. That's what I thought about kids.
I don't know why kids gravitate towards me so much. It's kind of frustrating, but I guess I should appreciate it for what it is.
But I can't help but link it to my failed attempt or what feels like my failed attempt at becoming a teacher. But thinking about this, it's all for naught, you know that quote in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
"Worrying only makes you suffer twice."
It makes you suffer in the worrying part and then also when you go through it.
If it's just as bad as you were worrying it would be what's the point of worrying? You're just gonna suffer twice. And I try to remember that. I really do. But sometimes I be worrying anyway.
I've been thinking about writing a poem about. I feel like it would be a banger poem, but writing poetry is really hard for me as a prose writer.
I took one poetry class in college and it was really hard. It was hard because it was focused a lot on conciseness and the intentional way that you chose the words to include because you're working with such little space compared to prose stories. I think that class definitely made me a better prose writer, even though it was miserable because I suffered a lot to write the poems.
But I think it would be a fun exercise to write a poem about this. I mean even when I wrote poems for that class, it was kind of like a story disguises a poem most of the time. But, you know, a poem is a poem if I say it's a poem.
So back to back to living in the moment. It's really important to live in the moments that we do have instead of worrying about the moments that we don't have yet. I also think it is worth recognizing that your worries are valid.
Me telling you not to worry, cuz worrying only makes you suffer twice does not mean that your worries about what might happen are valid. Feel what you're feeling about your worries and then try to distance yourself from those feelings until you're forced to face them again— until you need to face them again, when you're in the situation that you've been worrying about.
Because lingering in those feelings, ruminating in those feelings are not gonna do you any good. They're just gonna make you feel yuckier, really. But to saying all that to say, I think last semester I might have lived in the moment a little bit too much. I lived in the moment to the point where I was procrastinating doing my assignments.
I was like, well that doesn't matter to me right now because like that's not as important cause it's not due until next Friday. And then it would be next Wednesday. I'd be like, well I'm gonna live in the moment. I'm gonna live in the moment of Wednesday.
And then on Thursday I'll live in the moment and say to myself that I have to do my work cuz it's due on Friday but then I actually still wouldn't do it and then it would be Friday and I'd be like, oh, this is the moment I have to do my work.
I was living in the moment a little bit too hard. So yeah, live in the moment, but also be realistic knowing that you need to do what you need to do, not just in the moment that is due, but also in the moments before that. I feel like that's kind of conflicting. Like I just told you to only worry about what you need to worry about right now.
But what I'm really saying is that let's say you have an assignment due in three weeks, right? If doing that assignment a little bit at a time every day for the next three weeks will, in the end, make you less stressed, you should then live in that moment of doing a little bit at a time.
Instead of worrying about the big project at the end, or if you have something that's been stressing you out and you're like, oh my God, it's a month left, or it's two months left, or, oh my God, it's like next week. You should then live in the moment of those feelings, but not let that moment become your entire day or your entire hour.
Don't let those feelings consume you to the point where all of your moments are tainted by those negative feelings, I guess is the point that I'm trying to get at.
I was looking at my dog and I realized that life is really about the little moments, and I feel like everyone says that, like, it's so cliche, but it really is.
It's about watching your dog sleep or taking your favorite bite of your favorite food. You know, that last bite where you wish you had more, but you just, you feel so satisfied and you know that you, if you had even just one more. It wouldn't have been as satisfying as that last bite would've been.
Or dancing to loud music by yourself. The little moments when you feel like life is worth living, like all of the hardships and all of the stressors in life, these small moments make it worth enduring through those times. So it makes me think, why spend so much time fretting about those big moments in life when you can just enjoy the little moments in between.
Why do we do that to ourselves? I don't know. I do it to myself and it's still a work in progress for me. I'm still working on not letting those big moments in my life consume me. Matter of fact, right now I'm worried about getting rejected from a study abroad program that I applied to.
Will I get rejected? Probably, yes. It only has a 10% acceptance rate, but, what can I do about that right now? I mean, I say that, but I'm a horrible example. Like I literally looked up Reddit posts of when past years people had been accepted or rejected, and I found out that if I'm gonna get rejected, it's gonna happen next week.
And I'm like, oh my God, next week is so soon. And I've been fixating on that lately, but I'm trying not to because there's nothing I can do about that right now. There's nothing I can do, but enjoy the time I have. And I told myself that if I get rejected, I'm gonna get gelato as a consolation prize.
And if I get accepted, I'm gonna get gelato still as a celebration. So, really, am I losing here? Not really.
So, yeah, I'm, I'm trying to live in the moment. I'm trying to enjoy when my dog sees me come in from work and he's so excited he nearly pees himself. I'm trying to enjoy when my mom goes out of her way to cook my favorite food and I'm trying to enjoy when my favorite book or favorite K-drama makes me laugh out loud or a TikTok I see really resonates with me, but it's really hard because even when you're living in the moment, those stressors and worries just linger in the back of your mind.
Even when you're laughing freely with your friends or your family, you're still thinking about it. It's still nagging at you that those things still exist. This moment of joy is not erasing the stress that's gonna await you after the moment is over.
Yeah, that's kind of rough. Honestly, I don't know. But I'm gonna try to do better. I'm gonna try to do better to live in the moment and be grateful for the moments that I have because they're not guaranteed and I'm not, you know, obligated to have these moments. It's a privilege to be alive and to be able to breathe. To live another day and have another chance to eat my favorite dessert.
That got kind of sentimental. But you know what I'm saying. You do. I know. Life is about more than just the stressors. And when I think about it, the thing that I was stressed about last semester, last year, even two years ago, are so microscopic to me now, like I'm not even worried about them because I've overcome them.
And once you overcome it, it feels like it's no big deal. Like of course it's you were gonna overcome it because you have hindsight bias, right? You know that you're gonna survive to the other side of whatever hill you are, whatever challenge you're currently in facing.
But in the moments when you're going through the challenge, it just feels like it's a never ending uphill battle and you don't know where you're gonna end up or if you're going to even make it to the other side. And just being in the uncertainty of it all is nerve-wracking.
So I really feel for you, if you're in that situation right now, I know I'm currently in that situation where nothing is certain. I mean, nothing is ever certain, but even more nothing is certain because you're aware that you don't know what your life has the potential to be like twelve months from now versus like last year, I could pretend and be like 12 months from now I'm still gonna be in school. Even if that didn't end up being true, I could still think that because that's the trajectory that I know my life was supposed to go on.
But now that I've decided to do a career change and I don't know what my trajectory is, life is a lot more unsettling from day to day.
But to make sure that I don't drown in those feelings of being unsettled I just have to remember that if I'm laughing every day at something, then I know that I'm gonna make it to the other side somehow.
Some way I'll make it to the other side and hopefully I make it to the other side happier than I was before, happier than I even knew I had the capacity to be.
With that, I think I'm gonna end the episode there. Make sure to follow the podcast @jumblepodcast on Instagram and as always, you know the drill.
I hope that tomorrow is a better day than today. I hope that you're able to live in the moment and savor that last bite of ice cream or savor the wind on your face or a warm, sunny day after a slew of cold, rainy, snowy days.
I just hope that tomorrow's a day that makes you feel like life is worth living.
Comments