... And now, back to your regularly scheduled psychobabble

As the six of you who regularly read my little column may have noticed, I struggle with depression. I was officially diagnosed in 2011, although I probably should have been outed somewhere around 2005.

Anyway, fighting depression is about having the mental discipline to feed your mind only positive information, the physical discipline to exercise your body enough to keep yourself in a constant state of endorphin induced euphoria, and the spiritual humility to beg for mercy and guidance when all else fails.

It’s like being on Paleo while doing a crossfit 30 day challenge.

Except my cheat days generally end with me crying in the shower.

So I apologize if you were totally unprepared for my last post, I was too.

I have been pretty dissatisfied with my life lately and finally decided to stop whining about it and actually do something about it.

I’m thirty one. I know what I think I should be doing right now. Kicking ass at business. Taking names on the dating scene. Changing the world with wry prose and witty peri-apocalyptic romance novels.

Instead, I find myself sitting in the basement, holding a pity party of one, frantically refreshing my Etsy inbox, hoping for a sale.

Well I refuse to squander my gifts any longer, and I refuse to live my life in any kind of box-- not even one of my own making.

An old friend helped me come to this realization on Independence day.

I know what you’re thinking.

And yes, as a matter of fact, we did  go to middle school together.

CK, my gorgeous, crazy, amazingly intelligent and funny Blendian friend has the kind of hair black girls dream about. It’s dense yet fine, soft, with lots of body and fluffy ringlets when air dried.

#hairenvy

No heat damage, thanks 2 GGC

So of course, she loves it when I straighten it.

I’ve gotten a lot better at taming her mane over the past ‘sixteen years. Still, she was in my ‘studio’ long enough for me to decide that I was definitely going to finish growing my hair out, that I had amazing products that truly worked miracles, and that I had to be more aggressive about going after the things I wanted-- in all aspects of life.

So I joined Bumble, made a seven page life plan, strapped on my big girl panties and waded into the murky, questionably toxic bay that is life.

I’m determined to be open. And I actually kind of love Bumble (I already have a date!).

I am taking advantage of the beautiful Cleveland summer by getting out there and participating in as many vending events as possible (I have ten shows this month so far).

Unfortunately, so much time spent living life outside the box gives me considerably less time to write about it, so necessity dictates that either the quality, frequency, or length of my posts will suffer.

I’m choosing length.

I refuse to give up on my writing or squander any of my numerous talents. So while I’m no Polonius, I’m going to give that brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit thing a try.

You’ll get shorter posts, more often.

I’ll get to have a life worth writing about and less shower sob-fests.

It’s a win-win.