There are a lot of trends I could care less about. Self love and self care are not on that list. Surprisingly, this is one trend I don’t think humanity can exhaust.
Let me guess, you either stumbled upon this page from the link I plastered all over my socials, you’ve heard me ramble on about my thoughts of starting my own blog and thankfully didn’t roll your eyes at me on the spot, or somehow you found me on the web while Googling something about inspiration, change, or perspective in life. Maybe you don’t know me, or maybe you don’t know me well enough. Or I finally picked up my phone and sent you this direct link. Anyway, thanks for tuning in–I’ll try to keep you here. The goal? To contribute to that self love and self care trend, help you help me embody it.
I haven’t been on this platform much myself. I have been toggling with the design of this website and reading each word telling myself that sounds stupid or I’ll totally get that “oh, poor girl” look through the phone (AKA secondhand embarrassment) from readers like you. But, I’ve been telling everyone else to go after their small dreams, so I won’t be hypocritical any longer.
Here’s to whatever this turns out to be.
If you go to my posts page, you won’t see the old posts I deleted, but soon you’ll have a handful of letters that end with “Yours Truly” so maybe you can feel that I’m talking to you directly, and if not, I’ll be here talking to myself. A lot has come of the last few months and especially the last two years of the pandemic since I first mustered the idea of blogging. Some days it feels like the time since March of 2020 when we were sent home for spring break (and never stepped in a classroom again) seems like it went in the blink of an eye. Other times it seems like the days creep past me ever so painfully. What I know for a fact is that we’ve gone through a damn lot of social trends since then.
Since I wrote last... not only has the entire world changed but so has mine in more ways than just where I am on the map. I am writing from my single bedroom apartment in Fredericksburg, VA, about an hour south of Washington, D.C. (but in VA it can take 30 minutes if you drive like a Virginian, which means the norm of 90mph, or it can take two and half hours because there seems to be only one way through this entire area of VA, and that is the dreaded I-95 of the East Coast). After graduating college in May, I moved here a few months ago with the love of my life–my pup, Nash. And I’m working towards my dream job by starting at the bottom of the totem pole, learning the in’s and out’s working a 9-5 with an hour commute each way to a local military base. But, hey, we all start somewhere. Aside from that, I just earned my certification for a Pure Barre teacher. After quarantine, I find it important to keep busy.
What remains the same is few and far between. We still refer to the COVID-19 pandemic as “current”. Some days I find it cooler to reflect on the idea of our country teaming up against racism in the last year, racing towards a vaccine, and using social media to create communities of belonging. So many have taken hold of their own employment and are now self employed. We have a new profound love for small businesses and shopping small rather than buying big (although it is hard to resist the convenience offered by Amazon Prime). How has your mindset changed on how connected the world is? We may appear connected on the internet, but with a virus such as this, we notice the amount of people we come into contact with daily and how that impacts the world and our economy at large. That being stripped away caused us so much pain that we realized how much we need each other, how much we value service at a restaurant, and how much we overlook the importance of seeing the smile of a maskless passerby. And what also remains the same is my reason for writing: precisely to put my experiences and hard fought lessons out into the world in hopes that someone, anyone is inspired in the way that I am by so many of you whether I know you or not. The past year has presented us with innumerable challenges, and it seems a little easier to look around at each other to see how to deal with the daily messes. We see that self care has a community aspect of it, too.
Hell, I thought I would be rolling with my gang of sorority friends in D.C. bars all this past year and move into an apartment with windows from floor to ceiling. Then, I thought I would be in a shoebox in New York City, a happy lone girl in the shadows of the concrete jungle. Now, I can’t imagine it any other way than taking Nash to the dog park every day, and that is my muse. I find more joy in tidying up the inside of my cabinets than I ever thought I would.
Setting Goals for the Rest of 2022
So, if I could say right now what the rest of 2022 holds, I just hope that every day I can do something that makes me a little better than I was the day before. Can we still make New Year's Resolutions? I’ll make that mine. You can try it, too. Self love, self care, wellness - whichever key word you want to use - is so much more important than we ever knew before. First and foremost, mental health is the key to any and every form of wellbeing, and I am totally leaping in with both feet.
For the rest of 2022, I want to write to you at least every other week with the purpose of contributing to this trend, for you and for me. That means you get to virtually hear my voice (or yours inside your head) on all topics living and wellness as I aim to give mental health advice, including some lessons I’ve learned and glimpses of what I say when my girlfriends come to me to vent, and physical wellness tips, such as organization in your life and in your home and things I learn on my fitness journey as a Pure Barre teacher. What I have come to realize is that the physical aspect goes hand in hand when transforming your life and becoming who you want to be. I also hope to launch my small business–something along the lines of an online shop titled Sundays featuring little joys from coffee cups to candles to incorporate into your daily self care routines—named after the Sunday feeling of a fresh start and another opportunity for change. I hope, with the help of this platform, we can all become the healthiest versions of ourselves, take hold of our dreams and reel them in, rather than thinking that would be cool to do someday. Today is that someday. Follow along!
Anything you want to hear? I’m sure I have given some advice on it before. Let me write to you about it by leaving a comment on my site.
Ta-ta for now.
Yours Truly,
Olivia Grace
Way to go, Liv!! Love to see this :) -Lizzie