We are halfway through the month of July, which doesn’t make sense to me. The months have been absolutely flying by recently and it’s been a strange feeling. Time really is relative because when I first moved back home after school, the first six weeks felt like six months and now I feel like I blinked and we’re in the second half of the year.
I had a really great week. I think my new medication might be working because I’m not sure of the last time I had a week where my mood was consistently this good. Years ago probably. I have been tracking my mood with an app called Daylio for almost two years. When I started tracking, I decided that I would log my mood twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. It took me this long to realize that the way I was tracking was actually not very helpful to me because I was not including enough detail and overall I didn’t have enough data to be able to go back and really understand my moods over time. Recently I have set reminders to log my mood four times a day and I am working on making better use of the details you can add in the log. My mood can fluctuate a lot over the course of one day, so having only two (sometimes just one, actually) very vague log of how I felt at one moment during the day is just not sufficient for me to use it as a resource as I’m trying to make progress with my mental health. It’s only been a few days of implementing these changes, and I already feel like this is a huge improvement. Keeping better track of how I’m feeling over the course of the whole day is making me feel much more connected to myself and in control of things. I have the app set to ask me how I’m feeling at 8:00am, 12:00pm, 2:30pm, and 8:30pm at the moment, but I may make a couple of adjustments to the times. I don’t have to log four times a day either. It would be nice if I did, but sometimes I’m busy and I miss one or I’ll complete the 12:00pm log late so I’ll skip the 2:30pm log since it would be redundant. I’ve also been using it in conjunction with my period-tracking app since the focus right now is how my mental health is connected to my menstrual cycle. I like the period tracker I have right now, Lively, but I don’t actually think I can go back and see trends in my cycle, which is a huge issue for me at the moment since I’m really trying to see what happens when and how things are correlated with each other. I’ve tried a lot of period tracking apps, but never been in love with any and for the most part I really enjoy the one I have, so I think I can probably make do using the two apps together since I can track some menstrual cycle symptoms in Daylio too.
Speaking of menstrual cycles, Monday was the first meeting for Emma Robles’ course called In Tune With Your Moon. Unfortunately the meetings are at noon on Mondays so I’m not able to attend the live Zooms because I’m at work, but she provides recordings of the lessons that I’m able to watch later. This first meeting included introductions from everyone, which I wished I could have been a part of. It was still fun to watch though, because these women are from all over! Some are spread out around the U.S. and others are in other countries like Sweden and France. Each person gave a bit of info about themselves before giving a brief explanation of what brought them to this course. One of the younger women, probably pretty close to my age, told her story about quitting birth control and having to re-regulate her cycle and her story literally sounded almost exactly like mine, which was so exciting and encouraging to hear. It was such a cool moment to realize that we really are in it together; in this class together, in this season of our lives together. The rest of the meeting was an overview of the four phases of the menstrual cycle, which I learned is known as an infradian rhythm (any natural cycle which exceeds the length of the circadian rhythm). Each of the four remaining weeks in the course will focus on each of the phases of the cycle individually so we can learn how to best support our bodies during each of those times. I’m super excited to keep learning and practice her teachings to get my body back to the way it was designed to operate!
Friday I went out with AP after work. She texted me on Wednesday and asked if I would go see the new horror movie, Longlegs with her. She was nervous I would say no because I’m typically a little wimp about a lot of things, but I gave her a hardy “yes.” I’m excited. I’ve seen a few horror movies in my time and it’s not something I like to do often, but it’s been a while since the last time I saw one so it seemed like about time for another. Before the movie we ate at a restaurant downtown that has insanely good tortelloni that we’ve been ordering since high school. That was absolutely delicious, as always. Then we made a quick stop at Ulta before heading to the movie theater. I made the mistake of ordering a “medium” lemonade, which turned out to be the size of my head, so I had plenty left over. I thought it was a good movie. I think the cinematic work was well done and the story was told well. I was surprised at how little screen time the main antagonist had, especially because he was the headlining actor, Nicolas Cage. Some people were disappointed that the scare factor was lacking, but I think a lot of the fear is in the suspense and anticipation that takes up most of the film. Right after the movie, I wasn’t sure if I liked it and I was sure I would never want to see it again, but after letting it settle in and reading some commentary online, I think it was a good movie and I’m really glad we went to see it. There’s also a movie coming out next month called Trap, which we are planning to see together. We’re looking forward to it!
This coming weekend my family is taking a vacation to Lake Tahoe. I’m very excited because I haven’t been there in over ten years. My family has been more recently; they dropped me off at college for the first time and then took an impromptu trip out there instead of going to the family picnic. There I was, young and afraid in my dorm room while my family took off to Tahoe (with rice torta, I might add). But it all worked out fine and now is my opportunity to get to visit again after so long (and they brought me a piece of torta when they stopped by to check on me on their way home). I’m not sure exactly what everyone is going to want to do while we’re there, but I know Sunday will probably be a boat day because my dad has talked a lot about it. I love having a day out on a boat, so that’s definitely something I’m looking forward to. I hope we’ll bring cards and maybe some other games to play together. Maybe we’ll go on a hike. I know we’re probably eating dinner at a casino one night. I like having at least somewhat of an idea of what we’re doing. I don’t have to know everything and have it all planned out; I think that takes away a lot of the fun. I ordered a couple of new bikini sets on Depop for the occasion and I’m so excited for those to come in. I was telling my coworkers that when I was younger I was jealous of the girls who had lots of bathing suits because it was so hard for me to find something that fit me, was age-appropriate, and I was confident enough in. I had one bathing suit and it wasn’t even very cute. Now that I’m older and more confident, and I have a pair of basic black bikini bottoms, I can get any bikini top I want to go with it or get a new set altogether. So that’s what I did. I bought two sets for this weekend, and then another top came up for $5.50 including shipping, so I had to jump on it. I’m not sure if that one will come in time, but that’s okay because it wasn’t really part of the plan anyway. I’m so excited to try on the new sets and I really hope they fit right. If not, I have a couple of other options at home.
It really was a great week. My parents are really excited that I’ve been doing better, but I’m kind of just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I get nervous to feel so happy and upbeat because I know that what goes up must come down and I worry that the higher the high is, the lower the low will be. I’m trying to stay optimistic and enjoy the good feelings while they’re here. I’ll let you know next week how my mood is and I’ll tell you all about our trip! Until then…
Love always <3
Nicole
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