and all his friends

i'm taking dr. m's death as well as i can be, but i am finally accepting that the passing of anyone i personally knew is a trigger for depression and ungroundedness to kick in, especially if i felt a strong affection for the deceased and especially if it's been lurking. the trauma isn't the same as it was in 2005, but i can't deny the tethering cord keeping me here on solid ground has been snipped away.

spa week did not start until this weekend, therefore, and after the news and his service.  the week itself had started off on a good note and peaked wednesday morning an hour before the call.  people were friendly, i was totally on my game with work and negotiating/mediating awkward conversations and then boom.  i thought very seriously about writing a "death" edition of the sundayish but i skipped it entirely instead.  most of the time i think that it's for the best that i keep this blog as an outlet for moving on and moving forward, but i am not back to "normal".

frankly, what the hell is normal anyway?  i certainly have never felt "normal" and it's only served to move me towards disconnection, isolation, self-disintegration.  no bueno, ladies.  

 // dominik martin @ unsplash

deffo can't heal the psychological and spiritual wounds at play here before taking care of my body and, admittedly, this isn't routine for me.  in a few months ive put on some weight and the typical winter roughness has taken over my skin.

to start, i tried this manicure from hellonatural sunday morning and finished it with pacifica's 7 free polish in totally coral. with the exception of not having a cuticle pusher tool, i was really happy with how it turned out.  my hands are super smooth this week thus far and i'm glad to be able to use all natural products (for no extra cash) instead of going out to a salon.

my feet also got a little tlc.  for good or ill, i walk around barefoot most of the time and my feet suffer the consequences.  there are more than a few hobbity callous patches to address.  thankfully, the stepping stone exfoliator from lush did a great job of buffing off a lot of the roughness.

in addition to the stepping stone, i made a few other purchases from lush last month.  there's a small stand-alone store in the mall here so i was excited to see what they'd have.  the first lush store i ever went to was a giant, sprawling gallery on the corso with baskets upon baskets of product.  didn't buy anything then but i did grab a few things from this local store, namely the dragon's egg bath bomb (omg sorbet-scented goodness), percup massage bar (which meets all of your coffee needs), and the "you've been mangoed" bath melt, which is already gone. 

and, for the first time in six or seven months, i bought myself some clothes. a marbled grey knit maxi for my cousin's summer wedding, an oversized tailored shirt for work, a birch-tree patterned sleeveless shirt for layering, and a few tanks from target. i find it hard to sniff out work appropriate clothes that don't age me by ten years.

a path of some sort // antoine beauvillain

helping yourself is hard, and moreso when you weigh your worth on the perceptions (and improperly perceived perceptions) of others.  i've done this. i've grown to do this.  i still do this far too often for my liking.  before i can really start to turn inward and try to undo the psychic damage of the last year, few years, three decades, i need to find a place to start.  i'm looking at my tarot cards, astrological charts, chakra stones, dream symbols, mythos. i need one singular thread to get me attached back to the truth of it, the universe.  it doesn't need to be the right thread, but it needs to lead somewhere.  

over and over again, i need to dedicate myself to not giving up on the work that's needed.  it's challenging.  it's scary.  letting the light in on the shady spots and those little locked away places is the work of so many lifetimes, and, step by step, we'll get closer to carving out the how.  and more than this, when i lose the way, i'll need to be fearless in starting again. tune in, drop out (or not), and get busy with the being.

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this week:  art journaling will make some sense of this, i'm sure.

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