The Other F-Word

 CW: This post mentions eating disorders and restrictive eating. 

I am fat. Yes, fat. Fat is my second favorite f-word. I like it for a lot of reasons. I like it because it makes people uncomfortable and that honestly gives me a little bit of joy. As one of my favorite influencers recently mentioned, we as fat people are allowed to relish in people other than us sitting with uncomfortable feelings surrounding this topic. So often we are burdened with holding this discomfort, so it’s kind of nice when we don’t have to. We don’t necessarily hold discomfort about our own weight, rather we live in a society that does not accept or support our feelings as fat people, and that is very uncomfortable.

Let me give you a little bit of background information: I was really skinny when I was a little kid. I can still remember someone telling me around the age of 4 or 5 that I was “thin as a rail.” I didn’t know what it meant and I went home and looked at the wooden rail on our staircase wondering what that could possibly have to do with my body. This was the first time I remember someone commenting on my body and as you might guess, it did not stop there. I was not thin for long. I plumped up and I was a fat kid. I struggled to find clothes in my age group that could fit me and I was constantly taught that there was something majorly wrong with that. Grown adults would talk about their diets in front of me, would comment on my clothes being a little snug, and would encourage me to run around more at recess. I learned very early in life that my fat body was something shameful. 

I was fat for my entire childhood. I was fat until I was 14 years old. I mercilessly dieted from as far back as I can remember. In the fifth grade, a friend and I sat inside during recess to make diet and exercise plans for ourselves. This behavior was very normal to me. I watched all the adults in my life obsess over the very same things; I heard them talk constantly about food and weight. I tried any diet that was accessible to me as a child and thought that because I was still fat, I was a failure. I often cried going shopping for clothes with my mom and I watched her heart break over my hatred of my own body, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be thin my whole life. Every grown woman in my life made it clear that that being thin was the pinnacle of success, and we were to spend our whole lives chasing thinness.

Well, I finally did it. My first year of high school, I stopped eating carbs. I would not eat one single carb-ridden food. I wouldn’t even eat fruit for fear that I would halt my progress. I would typically skip breakfast and follow it with skipping lunch or picking at something, telling friends that I had a big breakfast or didn’t feel well. I was miserable. I was even more miserable because people noticed, and they noticed often. My friends would encourage me to eat more than a sugar-free jello cup for lunch and I refused. I told them it was none of their business and that they didn’t have a right to comment on what I ate. Others praised me to no end. My family celebrated every pound lost and showered me with compliments. It was the first time in my life I ever heard things like that. Because I was now tall and thin, people told me I could be a model. I ate it up, no pun intended. Their compliments fueled me to push myself harder. I grew thinner and thinner, but I also got progressively unhealthier. I developed a list of symptoms ranging from GI issues to reproductive system issues to chronic headaches, none of which I had before. I would sleep for hours when I got home from school every single day. I was so exhausted I couldn’t function. I went to doctor after doctor and I didn’t get answers from anyone.  

I was ultimately diagnosed with an eating disorder when I was in college, far after most of the damage was done. Not-so-coincidentally, I was also diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder in the same timeframe. There is significant data that links the prevalence of eating disorders to autoimmune disorders in women. The same doctor diagnosed both of them in me and she always felt there was a strong connection given my history and timeline of symptoms. The damage I did to my body during that time will stay with me for the rest of my life. Because I deprived my body of so many essential things during my formative growing years, it stopped working and started attacking itself. I eventually gained all the weight (and more) back, and I’m so thankful I did. However, I wasn’t thankful at the time, believe me.

Years after weight gain came some major healing. I didn’t start to truly heal from this until after college. I realize I am in the minority and really privileged by what I’m about to say, but something just finally clicked with me. Many people suffer through decades of relapse and treatment and I am truly thankful I didn’t go through that. Something clicked that told me that I shouldn’t worry about it anymore. Maybe it was because I made some pretty great progress in life quickly after college and realized I did that without being thin. I suddenly realized I am worthy of good things as a fat person, not even despite being a fat person. I no longer have a goal to lose weight. I don’t think I ever will again. I started focusing on my other goals, like those related to my relationships and my career. For lack of a better saying, I realized I have way bigger fish to fry than to worry about the number on a scale. 

I previously mentioned feelings of discomfort that fat people live with sometimes. For me, those feelings come when I realize I am someone else’s worst nightmare. Not only am I overweight, but I openly enjoy “unhealthy” foods and celebrate my body. That scares people. That does make me sad sometimes, but not for me. I’m sad for the people that think that. All too often, I find myself surrounded by people (mostly women) who talk tirelessly about their eating habits, about “being good”, and about those holiday pounds they’ve just GOT to get off before swimsuit season. Here is where I challenge you to ask yourself: why does this matter to me so much? What about being fat makes someone unworthy? What about having a fat body is your worst nightmare? I know it might make you uncomfortable to really, truly think about those answers. I invite you to sit in that discomfort and get to the root of why you’re so deathly afraid of being fat. There is a lot of work to be done by our society in this regard.  

Fat people deserve to live how they damn well please. We are allowed to exercise without the intention of losing weight, we are allowed to eat ice cream, we are allowed to cover up or show every single inch of ourselves if we like. We are allowed to be fit AND fat, wildly unhealthy, or somewhere in between. We are allowed to do what we want, and you can’t judge us. I really wish I didn’t have to say that, but here we are. As a final reminder that some of y’all desperately need: someone else’s body, whether it’s fat, thin, or anything else, is never any of your fucking business. 

Cheers to the last 99 days, and on we go to the next. 

Three Years and Some Holiday Cheer (?)

 

You can never really prepare yourself for the worst, right? I’m a big fan of this whole Enneagram thing and I am a proud, anxious type 6. By nature, sixes imagine every worst possible scenario in an attempt to be prepared for everything. What I personally end up doing is being anxious about everything. I like to think sometimes they go hand-in-hand and I am simply being REALISTIC, but maybe that’s just to make myself feel better. I spend a lot of time thinking about worst-case scenarios. I think about my plan for when I get fired from my job, for when my best friends decide I’m no longer worth their time, and for when my apartment burns down because God forbid, I left the dryer on for the last 20 minutes of its cycle as I leave for work. I think about worst-case scenarios for every-day things, their consequences merely inconvenient, but not earth-shattering. But what happens when you don’t prepare for the literal, actual worst? 

I’ll tell you what: it knocks you right on your ass, or punches you in the stomach, or takes every breath away from you. Maybe it’s a combination of the three. You spend the coming days, months, or even years trying to recover from the piece of you that you lost, the piece you never really expected to lose. You spend some days in a fog so dense you can’t see a foot in front of you. You spend some days trudging through sticky molasses trying to accomplish simple tasks at work. You wake up and begin your day, running on autopilot until you get home and stare at the ceiling until by some miracle, you fall asleep. Other days are different: you’re excited about the lunch you packed, you thank the heavens for the blue sky, and you dance in the living room to a song that makes your heart flutter. 

The “worst” thing is different for everyone, but I think the common outcome is grief. Grief and grieving in our society is most often associated with death, which is still correct. The death of a loved one is really, really tough and that type of grief has the ability to melt you from the inside out. However, we need to acknowledge that people experience grief for a multitude of reasons and all of those reasons are valid. We grieve the loss of people, jobs, moments in time, and pieces of ourselves. We often crave the way things once were, and I think that’s grief, simply put. It’s easy to focus on how we were before we lost that person, before we moved away from what we call home, before that bad thing happened. This is not an “always” feeling. You might wake up one morning after months of good days and feel a big empty hole in your heart.  It’s a blessing and a curse that it comes in waves for many people; those waves can be really intense and hard to push through, and since they might be rare, they’re confusing.

All this is to say, I’m in a strange period of grieving. This could be because life is evolving pretty rapidly for me or because it’s the holidays or because I’m certifiably nuts. We’re approaching the third anniversary (I feel weird calling it that) of grief-worthy events and that’s always tough. For me, it leaves me wondering what things would have been like had events transpired differently. I think about the days I’ve lost to these feelings and I think about what I would have done with those days. Life is evolving for the better, but it still evokes really powerful emotions that I don’t really know how to express. If I’m being honest, I don’t even know what I’m feeling so I don’t know what to express. Things are crazy all around me, everyone buzzing between houses and parties and shopping malls. While seemingly everyone else is posting their best holiday pictures perched in their skimpy velvet dresses and sipping champagne, I am standing still, and I am standing here alone. I feel alone in this period of grief and sadness and it certainly feels like I will be stuck here forever. 

The tricky thing is this: life keeps going. I kind of hate that. I’m selfish and I want the world to stop around me when I feel like my world has stopped. I’m angry that everyone else’s worlds keep turning when mine has come to a screeching halt for whatever reason. It’s jealousy for what I perceive, which is undoubtedly false. Everyone deals with this and a lot of people have miserable days, especially at this time of year. We all deal with grief and we have all suffered major losses in our lives, whatever that looks like. Part of the bad news is that it often comes when you least expect it. Those aforementioned waves well up under the surface and are upon you before you can even turn around to see them. The good news is that the waves will crash and it will be mighty and ugly, but you will wade through the water once again. The water might even be a little murky, but if you look really hard, you can still see your feet at the bottom. 

Cheers to the last 99 days, and on we go to the next.

Geography

 

I was a geography major in college and if you let me, I will talk your ear off about it forever and you will absolutely wish you hadn’t asked. I changed my major 4 times (!!!) in college so arriving at geography was quite a process and it was honestly somewhat random. What made me fall in love with the subject was not the maps or the spatial analysis of disease (don’t get me wrong, I will nerd out over that stuff any day of the week), but the human connections that are present within geography and how location influences them. One of my very favorite professors in college lectured about the subject on the first day of my final semester. He had us all consider our hometowns and our connections to and within them. We made homemade maps of our old stomping grounds as they existed in our heads and discussed everything from sweet family memories to our first heartbreaks, all of which were connected to specific locations. The very reason we study geography is to better understand the human race. It’s our memories of various places that make the physical locations feel special. It’s how a dim parking lot outside of your high school turns forever more into the place where you had your very first kiss. We all have places that are special to us in ways that are hard to explain. I have come to know this “special but hard to explain” feeling as nostalgia. 

The idea of nostalgia reminds me of a warm light. The kind of warm light I’m thinking of feels like a million tiny kisses on your skin and paints the whole world a glowing, delicious gold color. It feels like meeting your best friends for ice cream on a sticky, humid summer night and talking for hours about everything and nothing. Nostalgia in my head is only good. It makes me want to sing songs from summer camp when I was a kid and bask in all my soulful glory. Nostalgia in my real life is...different. I’ve come to realize it can be a pretty toxic emotion for me. Instead of making me feel warm and glowy, it often makes me feel nothing short of aggressively sad. I do want to sing songs from summer camp and reminisce about the past, but I want to cry about it. It brings the realest, rawest emotions to the surface and sometimes that doesn’t feel anything close to warm and glowy. Nostalgia for me is both profoundly sad and so, so happy. As I previously mentioned, this feeling is very connected to place for many people, but for me especially. The place that evokes such intense feelings for me is the mountains, specifically the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

I have done an awful lot of growing up in the mountains of Virginia. My very earliest memory of the mountains is apple-picking with my grandparents (otherwise known as Boo-Boo and Papa), my sisters, and our cousin Max. We were all little and we got all the way to the top of the mountain, someone threw up from car sickness (probably me), and our adventure was over. This doesn’t sound like it would be a good memory, but it made an impact on me and set the stage for future memory-making. Apple-picking in later years would always feel like a journey and the beginning of something new. Fast forward to my tween years, and I learned to love the mountains in a new, powerful way. I went to summer camp in the most charming little mountain town by the name of Orkney Springs and found pure, untouched mountain magic. Summer camp honestly sounds pretty stupid to people who never went to summer camp, but if you were lucky enough to go, you know. I felt loved, accepted, and supported just as I was and for a painfully awkward 12-year-old, that was priceless. I still know all the words to my favorite songs and the opening chords of some of them still make me teary-eyed. Finally, and perhaps the most important of my mountain memories, is college. Southwest Virginia is the most beautiful place and so much happened there. Some of the worst things in my life thus far happened in Blacksburg and for a long time, I thought moving away would make it all sting less. What I realize now is that I survived all those terrible things in that environment and most importantly, I found home. Over the years, the mountains became my home and became the place where I found peace and solace. Even through horribly difficult things, I learned to lean on the amazing people around me and I learned that it’s okay (and often wonderful and cathartic) to cry on top of a mountain while you watch the most spectacular sunset and think about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I am so incredibly lucky to have seen so much of this world at such a young age. Sometimes I feel like I’ve left pieces of my heart all over the earth, but an especially big piece is planted permanently in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even though it hurts so bad to leave, I realize those feelings simply come from love. The memories that connect me to the mountains from even hundreds of miles away are made of all kinds of fuzzy, warm love that has simply changed form. Love changes form because we’re humans and how we express and interpret love switches by the minute. I know it’s not always going to feel warm and fuzzy and that can be very confusing. Families become disconnected, summer camp ends for the year, you move on from your college days, and the place you found your home is no longer where you live. The disgustingly cheesy, beautiful thing is that all that love will always exist in our world, no matter our geographical location. We will always have those memories to warm our chilly little hearts. Lean into it; let the memories sweep you away and give you butterflies. Allow yourself to feel all those nostalgic feelings, whether they make you smile, cry, or a whole lot of both. 

Cheers to the last 99 days, and on we go to the next. 

Recapitulation

 

My therapist has a really extensive vocabulary. He uses words that I have never heard before and he spends quite a lot of time in our weekly sessions explaining those words to me. Sometimes I roll my eyes, throw in an exaggerated sigh, and ask him to dumb things down. He always refuses. He says it’s “healthy” to be challenged this way and I think he is often amused at my dramatized displeasure. The guy has like 12 degrees hanging on his wall and definitely knows what he’s talking about, but this sentiment frustrates me. I do like learning new words and it’s actually helped me get better at asking for help. This has translated into a lot of parts of my life and I feel a lot less silly about admitting I don’t know what I’m doing. You win this one, therapy. 

One of the words I learned recently is capitulation and in turn, recapitulation. I don’t know why this one stuck with me (it’s been a few months since he used it) but I’ve thought about writing a blog post about it since then. If you don’t know what it means, PLEASE, let me be the one to enlighten you. Capitulate stems from something in the bible somewhere I think (he did a way better job of explaining but I’ll give you the cliff notes) and it means to surrender or end a battle. Now, somehow or another, recapitulate means to summarize and go over the main points. You know, like recap. My therapist used it in a way that was asking me how much I think about the past and how much I mull over what has been said and done. The truth is, it’s not that much. Anxiety has people worried about things other than the present; people often worry about the past or the future instead of living in the now. Generally, I am much more anxious about the future. I worry about what I will do, how I’ll handle things, and what my life will be. Historically, I’ve spent very little time reflecting. That is, until now. 

In the month or so that I haven’t written anything for this blog, I’ve been thinking about events that got me here. It’s July and I’m in the middle of what feels like absolute magic. Summer is my favorite time for so many reasons and there are a lot of things that are making it extra sweet right now. The feeling of freedom leftover from being a kid out of school combined with abundant sunshine and warmth makes me feel light and floaty. As much as I love the nature of summer, I have to address the fact that it’s not all about the season; I have made a lot of conscious decisions that got me to this blissful, floaty feeling. For the first time, I am putting myself first. I have struggled with self-worth my entire life and deciding that I am worthy enough to be my own first priority has been really difficult. However, I decided that the way I have been living for a long time wasn’t working very well, so I tried some new ways of thinking. 

First and foremost, I stopped apologizing. Not when I’ve actually done something wrong, mind you. Owning up to your behavior is incredibly important, but I’m talking about unnecessarily apologizing. Women tend to do this more than men, because we feel sorry for even taking up space and being people. Reason #1631 why we need to smash the patriarchy and shatter every glass ceiling, but let me get back on topic. Instead of apologizing, I have started thanking people. This was not my idea (I saw it on Facebook) but it has worked wonders. The most popular one for me is “Thank you for your patience.” I am scatter-brained about 110% of the time, especially at work. I make a LOT of mistakes. Here’s the secret: so does everyone else. Humans are messy. Thank those around you for sticking with you through those hiccups, but don’t apologize for being human. 

Second and kind of related to the first, I stopped doing a lot of things. That is, I stopped doing things that did not make me feel good about myself. You absolutely do not have to do things that don’t make you feel good about yourself. Now, this isn’t the same as being a little outside of your comfort zone. You should challenge yourself and some of your limits, but that’s a different topic. Don’t spend time with people who do not make you feel amazing and don’t give them a piece of that precious little soul of yours. Don’t text your ex back, stop following those “fitness” accounts that have you weighing yourself 10 times a day, and stop agreeing to social functions that make you so nervous you feel like barfing before you go inside. Okay, these are very specific to me, but you get the idea.

Finally, and please don’t take this the wrong way, realize no one gives a single fuck about what you’re doing. As absorbed as you are in your own thoughts and actions, realize that everyone else is the same way. People care deeply and immensely about you, but not in the way that you think. They care about that aforementioned precious little soul of yours, not the tiny mistakes you make. You are your own worst critic, and I promise no one else is scrutinizing your every move like you are. Let it go. 

I know not everything works for everyone. However, I know that all of these things are helping me and I highly encourage you to try some of these practices. They’re slow changes and you can take them one day at a time. You are SO worth it. You’re not selfish, you’re not greedy. You deserve to be your own first priority. Try it for a bit, then recapitulate. 

Cheers to the last 99 days, and on we go to the next. 

Let's Talk About Therapy

 

I have had my fair share of health problems in my 23 years. Part of why college was so difficult for me was because I navigating lots of medical tests, blood work every time I turned around, and some new diagnoses. If you’ve ever lived with a chronic illness, you know that dealing with doubt, confusion, and the red-tape of the medical world can be just as frustrating as the illness itself. Fortunately, I found an amazing-in-every-way doctor who was institutional in beginning this physical and mental health journey of mine. The first reason I visited her was to address some of my health concerns and after I saw her a few times, I talked to her about my depression. She initiated some really important conversations and normalized the whole process, which I desperately needed at the time. Together we decided that I should try a simple antidepressant to start. She worked tirelessly to help me find the right medication, eventually turning me over to a psychiatrist. Before she did, she made me see a therapist. In an “I’m not writing you another prescription until you make an appointment” type of way. I cannot express how annoyed I was with that stipulation. I was a doctor, certified by the board of Google and Grey’s Anatomy and I knew what I was talking about. I didn’t need some stupid therapist, I just needed some drugs to fix the chemical imbalances in my brain.

As The Grinch says, “Wrong-O!”

I begrudgingly went to see a therapist, one that had come with high recommendations from a good friend of mine in Blacksburg. She had been to the group years before and though her specific doctor had retired, she was confident that I would like them. Spoiler alert: I immediately and aggressively did not. On the very first day, I was incredibly nervous and when I get like that, I tend to lash out and act like a total bitch. Surprise, I did. I’m not sure if he remembers that first session like I do, but I was the definition of defiant and prickly.

To make matters worse, he was running late that day. I am ALWAYS flying by the seat of my pants and I am late more often than not. However, I do not find that behavior acceptable in anyone else. About 7 minutes into what was supposed to be my time, I was furiously texting my friend who gave them the glowing recommendation about how mad I was and about how this whole thing was a bad idea. At that point, I was willing to give up my antidepressants just so I could get out of there. Instead, he finally came to get me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but he just looked so...nice. He didn’t look like a stuffy counselor who would peer over the edge of his horn-rimmed glasses and spend an hour asking, “Now how does that make you feel?” He offered me a cup of coffee and I refused because I was not about to make myself comfy.  

The first thing he asked me was why I was there. I told him point-blank that my doctor told me I had to be there, but I just wanted to get my medications and get out. He agreed that I wouldn’t need more than a few sessions and I would be able to run free, hopefully with a good word put into my prescriber. As I told him my issues, I conveniently left a lot of things out. I was terrified that I would seem crazy and this would turn into a whole thing. Looking back, he probably saw right through me, but I like to think I put on a good show. I was eventually able to show my crazy and embrace it, and it did turn into a whole thing. He grew to be someone I trusted very much; he was kind and I could tell he had a big heart. I learned how to open up and express some of the confusing things I had always felt inside, and I never felt judged or misguided. His job is to listen and make you feel safe, and I think he was most excellent at that job. I leaned very heavily on therapy for a very long time, and I’m so thankful I did. At some points, I felt like he was the only person I could trust. Though that’s problematic because I should (and do!) have people I can trust, I’m glad I felt that I had one person on my side. The end of my college career was amazingly weird, and I literally wouldn’t have survived without him. Moving away from my little college town was difficult for a lot of reasons, but leaving that support system was one of them.

Therapy is scary. Really, truly scary. And it’s hard work. Entertaining the idea that maybe, just maybe, you don’t have healthy coping mechanisms and sometimes act like an asshole is difficult, but I think it’s one of the kindest things you can do for yourself. People are really complicated creatures and understanding the human experience a little more critically will open doors you didn’t even know existed. Learning how to understand and address your own emotions and in turn, understand more about your relationships with others, is the ultimate act of self-care. In this age of self-care as a glamorous Wednesday-night activity complete with wine and face masks, I think we need to return to basic levels of taking care of ourselves. To survive in this world, you must consider yourself a priority. You have to help yourself first; there’s a reason you’re instructed to put on your oxygen mask before helping others. I promise you will be a better person if you do. Because I made myself a priority, I feel like I’m a better me. I’m a better friend, daughter, sister, student, employee, and any other identity I hold. I can navigate seemingly impossible problems and stay grounded and present during the best times of my life. I don’t worry as much about the future and the past, and I know that I can ride out even the darkest storms to find the sunshine on the other side. It’s been a slow process, but so worth it.

As a final note, finding a therapist can be grueling and painful, but some good places to start are psychologytoday.com and headspace.com. Another thing you can do is call your insurance company (if you have one) and ask for a list of counselors who take your insurance. There are also community organizations and groups that see patients without insurance, often on sliding-scales based on your income (or for free!). You can call your local health department to get more information about those services. If you find yourself discouraged and struggling to find one, please don’t give up. You will find the right person and you will be so thankful you did. You deserve it, I promise.

Cheers to the last 99 days, and on we go to the next.

The Original 99 Days

 

Hi, hello, my name is Alison. I feel like I should introduce myself but I’m not sure what to say. I’m 23, I’m a Scorpio (meaning I will ruin my own life and probably yours, too), and I have a lot of identities in this season of life. I am a grad student trying to survive, a young professional learning how to navigate the working world, and now I guess I’m a blogger. 

Cassie and I have been wanting to start a blog for quite some time. We always talked about it and it was always theoretical. We couldn’t come up with snappy names, we couldn’t find time to do it, whatever. The final product came together in our classic manner: messy. 99 days was not a title that we had picked out forever. In fact, it was a name that came to light less than 24 hours before we published our website. Our goal for this blog is to create real, raw content, and we feel the name follows suit. It came about in a real, raw moment that I hope I never forget. 

It started out with me. I was feeling a little emotional because at this very moment, I’m kind of wearing thin. I’m finishing up my first year of grad school (insert every party emoji here!!!) and finals are killing me. Anyway, I took a break and I decided to make a video journal entry. Now, this is not something I regularly do. I started a while back as an alternative to writing. I love writing. I’m not as particularly gifted in writing as Cassie (omg, I can’t wait until y’all read some of her stuff), but I find it helpful and often cathartic. Sometimes, I find it difficult to be patient enough for writing. I can only write so fast, and my almost-constant state of chronic anxiety produces too many thoughts too quickly. That being said, a dear friend of mine suggested that I try out an app to make video journal entries. At first, it felt really silly just talking to myself on camera, but I went with it. It was easier than writing sometimes and it helped, so it stuck. I don’t ever watch the videos back; I don’t really want to. For the most part, once it’s out of my system I’m okay and I resume my normally-scheduled events of watching trash TV and avoiding all my responsibilities. That is, until last night. I rewatched a video that I had previously recorded. It just so happened to have been recorded 99 days ago. 

In this video, I was a mess. I could tell by the way I looked that I was under a tremendous amount of stress and I was not in a good place. If I couldn’t already tell by my appearance, I then went on to hear myself talk about how difficult it was to be alive in that moment. I was struggling with school, work, and balancing everything out. I cried on camera to an audience that didn’t exist, and I expressed that I didn’t know if any of this was worth it. Past-me was “on the brink,” as Cassie and I like to say. It was a gut-wrenching, enlightening moment. 

At this point, present-me is also crying, but for a very different reason. Things. Have. Changed. I went through some monumental, life-altering things this semester (more on that later), and I feel like a different human being. I find joy in things I have never noticed before and I am excited to be alive. I value every piece of knowledge I gain in grad school, I feel thankful to wake up and go to a job in which I have found meaning and purpose. I am not the same as I was 99 days ago, and for that I am so, so grateful. When I think about how I felt the last 99 days, I didn’t really feel like anything was changing on a day-to-day basis. However, when I look back, I realize just how monumentally my life was improving during that whole period. I cried because I was thankful and I cried because I was happy. Side note: this is a new occurrence for me and now I do it like once a day? If I’m anything over medium-happy, I can assure you I will be crying. Anyway, I ended up telling Cassie about it and I decided something big. Life is really hard. Really, horribly, hard. But, as cheesy as it sounds, I have decided it’s worth it. Thus, the name 99 days was born. It really means a lot to me, and I hope you understand why. 

So, if you made it this far, thank you for having a little faith that it would be mildly interesting. Maybe you’re just nosy and want to check out the brand-new blog hoping to get some juicy stories. That’s fine, I am the queen of being nosy and no worries, the stories are coming. Regardless, thank you. Cheers to the last 99 days, and on we go to the next.