Hey there. Can you believe it? I'm not waiting a month between blog posts this time. Hah. Not like I won't do that next time though. Don't adjust your expectations due to this. I guess I like being a little unpredictable. :)
So. I've been rather obsessed with music recently. I mean. Not like I haven't been obsessed with music most of my life. I mean. There's the whole blog post title thing, which if you haven't noticed, is almost always a song lyric. Some of them may be a bit less known, but some are easily recognizable. And going back in time, I joined my first choir some time in elementary school (can't quite remember how old I was since my memory sucks these days). I stayed with that choir through high school and it brought me so so many amazing experiences, learning, opportunities, and friends. Some highlights were tours to Niagara Falls, Canada/ Carnegie Hall, New York/ Canterbury Cathedral, England. I was in the high school choir, performed some fun extra things in the school variety shows, dabbled a bit in choirs during college including a church choir to get some weekly fix of singing. More recently, in the last few years, I joined the local Boulder Chorale which was so wonderful but I had to take a break this year due to treatment. I wasn't about to try and learn new songs which I wasn't going to remember week to week, heh. I was going to try and do a small bit with the choir this spring for a "May the Fourth" performance with the local symphony orchestra for the live music with Star Wars viewing. That plan went down in flames when I was too depressed the day of the first rehearsal to actually attend. Oi.
Anyway. I've enjoyed recently playing a lot of favorite music when I'm doing stuff around the house, taking showers, doing exercise like running and biking (unfortunately it doesn't work too well logistically to do it while swimming), driving in the car (especially with the windows down and making the music super super loud). Yesterday I decided to make a nice list of songs I love, and that I love to sing along with, for the purpose of "when I'm in a bad state". Because singing, especially singing along to stuff I totally love, is a good mood booster for me. So I now have a Google Sheet with a list of like 15 songs so far. I have lots more to add though. :) And then of course, making the list puts me in a better mood and encourages me to pull up some of those favorites.
Haha, and now, since writing the above, I've already added several more songs to the list (it will always be in progress I think), and I've revised the list to include a bunch of other self-helpy stuff. I keep coming up with different ways to "remind myself" of ways to get myself out of the hole and keep trying to place them in places/ways that I'll know to go to when I am in that state. I have post-its still on our bathroom mirror with reminders of my good qualities, I have my latest pages on the bedroom wall of good motivational quotes, I have these index cards that I "laminated" some time ago and put in my purse so I could pull them out when needed (and I've mostly not remembered they were there),
I have various piles in my room near our bed of lovely cards I've kept from wonderful people, I have books piled up near the bed of favorite ones and self-help ones, I've printed up pictures from various times and places and events in my life that make me happy, I now have a Google Keep list started filling up one of the screens on my phone for "inspiration", and I guess I now am trying to consolidate some of that into this new spreadsheet.
I decided yesterday that I wanted to put together a "photo album" to put some of this stuff in one place. I actually ordered off Amazon today one of those self-adhesive type photo albums so I can choose to put things however and wherever I want. So like putting in some of those wonderful cards, great pictures, printed motivational quote stuff, some of my written lists for myself, maybe even write/ draw/ etc on the pages myself, in general, things I'd like to be reminded of whenever I need it (whether I'm in a bad state or otherwise). It's something I can gain some nice accomplishment feeling out of just the process of putting it together, it's a nice consolidated and physical location of a lot of this stuff that I've really worked on and been saving over the past bunch of years, it's something I think will make, and is already making, me feel some amount of happiness and pride over.
Now, as I keep jumping topics (although that's probably rather typical with my blog posts anyway), I do want to jump back to my music discussion. An idea popped in my head during my therapy session this morning. She mentioned, when we were talking about my recent obsession of music and singing, about another client who mentioned how he has a guitar in his house that he used to play but never does now. It made me think of the keyboard we have up in our guest room. I took piano lessons way back in the day and for some time, as an adult, enjoyed playing a few favorites once in a while. But I haven't played in a really long time. And. I also own a guitar that I received as a gift a long time ago but have, unfortunately, still not learned. I have some newfound intentions to start getting on that keyboard sometimes, even just to practice my scales and chords, eventually trying to pick up some of those old favorites again. And, I'd like to finally learn the guitar. I have a good friend who is in a similar situation in owning a guitar that she hasn't learned. We've talked in the past about taking lessons together. It's time to figure that out, even if we only get it into the schedule for the fall or something.
And on another separate note. I want to share about a recent (maybe) sign that I'm improving. It's been in the discussions, for it seems forever, in therapy, with doctors, in books, with others around me, this idea that I need to work on changing those bad thoughts to something less self-blaming, less negative, etc. And, for like forever, I've heard about that need and, it's felt like, have not had any success with it whatsoever. I can think, when I'm doing well, all about how to make that work. But it's always seemed that when that state hits, I can't pull myself out of those "I'm a failure" type thoughts. I may move past that bad day or whatever, but it's never felt that the "I'm a failure" thought has changed. Well. In the past week or so, I've noticed sometimes in my bad internal thinking, some very slight change to that. I've had a few successes of having a thought like "I hate myself" and somehow, right after, thinking, "wait. no. I hate the depression". Or "I'm such a failure" and then, "no, the depression makes me feel like a failure". It hasn't necessarily pulled me out of the depressive state to have these thought changer things occur. But maybe it's helped keep me from going even further down? But just the fact that I've had some of these happen, I guess gives me some added strength and proof to that "hey, maybe I can fight". Clearly, it's given me hope enough to share about it with you all.
Alright, I need to wrap this up for today. As much as I feel like I could write on and on, this is probably long enough, and I have some yard work calling me. Because I want to save lunch for afterward and it's basically lunchtime already. But hey, I'm actually going to try and accomplish some yard work. That doesn't happen very often. I guess the forecast of rain all weekend is added incentive. I suppose I haven't mentioned, we had 3 DAYS IN A ROW of hail here. Seriously. I'll leave you today with some pictures from one of those days (like the day after from hailing the night before).
And, while I'm at it, a pic from before my bike ride last Thursday.
So long, you know, until next month or something.
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