Love, Your Mom Friend: A Guide to Growing Up

I think it hit me when my wife brought up yet another youngin’ who latched onto her. You see, for some reason, we attract people in their early 20s. And we’re the ones they turn to when they need advice, or even just an ear.

We’re the mom friends now.

I never thought I’d see the day when we’d be the wise, old, responsible ones in our friendships. Two years ago, we were lazy drunks who contributed nothing of worth to society, who barely scraped by in life. We were the former gifted kid burnouts everyone pities, squandering what little money we had on booze and vapes for a sad little hit of dopamine. It’s a wonder we managed to pay our rent on time. We should have been on the streets.

Now we’re in the gym every other night, and we’re no longer bloated and sick from poisoning ourselves with alcohol. We have a measly savings account, but that’s more than a lot of people our age can say. I’m interviewing for my dream internship tonight, and my wife is preparing to start her costuming business.

I think at some point, you have to get sick of sucking in order to grow. It’s the difference between real adulthood and adolescence (which goes way beyond the teenage years in some people, us included). I get why a lot of folks our age have stagnated, especially due to economic/financial issues. But at some point, staying in this prolonged state of adolescence is just sad. We’re not meant to have our growths stunted. We’re meant for bigger, better things.

How do you reach real adulthood, though? The path is different for everyone, but here are the steps we took to get out of that adolescent rut.

1. Stop Drinking

All together. Even if it’s just for a little while, but I think you’ll find you like yourself more when you’re not guzzling booze every other day. I know I’ve improved significantly as a person since I ditched alcohol. I sleep better, I don’t have weird abdominal pains, I’m actually creative again, and I don’t bitch like a baby at my poor wife who had to deal with my bullshit. There’s a book called The Alcohol Experiment by Annie Grace that I highly recommend. If you do nothing else in this list, at least read this book. It changed my entire perspective on why we drink.

2. Make a Budget

No one likes talking about money, but it’s an important part of everyday life. And if we’re honest, we all like money — we just have a complicated relationship with it. One way to make that relationship a little less tumultuous is to make a budget. Sit down one afternoon with a nice cup of tea (or whatever helps relax you — NOT ALCOHOL) and see where your money is going every month. You might be surprised how much you’re spending in certain areas, and how much you could be saving by not throwing money at Taco Bell three times a week. It might help to hire a financial advisor, but I realize that’s not in everyone’s budget. You can do it yourself with a free hour and a spreadsheet and/or pen and paper, so there’s no excuse to not be doing this!

3. CLEAN YOUR SPACE

“But it will just get dirty again—“ Enough of that nonsense. Imagine if we said “Why eat if we’ll just get hungry again?” You’re a living being, and by living in your house or apartment, it is by extension a part of you. Take a little time every day to tidy up one thing. Just one single thing. Maybe clear off the kitchen counters, or scrub the tub, or do laundry. Just make sure you’re doing ONE thing. And if you keep going after that one thing is finished, don’t stop the momentum! Keep on cleaning until you don’t have it in you to do anything else. Having a clean space will help you feel more relaxed and “at home.” And while we’re at it…

4. Decorate Your Space!

The fun part! Now that you’re an adult, you get to do whatever you want with your home (within reason — don’t get in trouble with your landlord because you tried to set up a pool inside your tiny apartment). Put stuff on the wall that makes you happy. I suggest buying art from local artists and turning your space into your own personal museum. It will make you look really cool and cultured, trust me. Especially if that art’s on a canvas. That screams adult.

5. Get Moving

When we were kids, running and jumping felt right and natural. What happened?! As we step into our new adult bodies, we need movement just as much as we did as kids. It doesn’t need to be structured or have a specific goal in mind. If you want to run a 5k, it’s great to have that as an objective, but even just dancing a little every morning to get the blood flowing is good. I have a routine of waking up early, swimming around a little, and doing 20 minutes of cardio on the elliptical. That helps me stay grounded and focused all day. Find ways to make movement fun again. Play tag with your significant other. Play that Just Dance game I suck at. Take a walk every night and see what sights there are to see near your place. There’s a whole wide world to explore!

And most importantly, don’t be too hard on yourself. Growing up is a process, and there are some aspects of adulthood I have yet to master. But as your mom friend, this is me telling you that you gotta step up your adulting game, because you deserve to live an amazing, fulfilling, grown up life.

And don’t forget to change your underwear!

ADHD: An Owner’s Manual (Part Four: Habits You Can Keep!)

I’ll admit I haven’t been keeping up on my ADHD: An Owner’s Manual posts as much as I’d like. It’s almost like I have ADHD! Who’d a thunk it, right?

Nevertheless, I want to get back into writing these again, since I know a lot of people found them useful. When the daily prompt of “habits” came up, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to jump into some of my own personal habits for success with ADHD. These are simply habits that work for me, but feel free to borrow any or all of them for your personal life.

Without further ado…

What are your daily habits?

1. Read

This one is so important. I’ve always been an avid reader, usually of nonfiction. There’s so much out there to learn that it feels neglectful not to study a topic of interest a little bit every day. My habit tracker simply says “read,” but I try to aim for at least a page of something a day. That typically turns into several pages, maybe even several chapters, but the most important thing is getting your foot in the door with just a single page.

Here’s the cheat for ADHD — it doesn’t need to be a physical book. The cool thing about having a phone with you at all times is you can download whatever you want to read and have it in your pocket at all times. Whip it out whenever you have a spare moment. Hint: bathroom breaks are perfect for reading.

Another trick is to pick a topic that interests you. If you’re like me and have something (like a badass glam emo band) to promote, look into a book on digital marketing like One Million Followers by Brendan Kane. If you want to improve your communication skills, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is a classic. If you want to better yourself as a whole, I highly recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear or Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. Another one of my favorite authors is Austin Kleon, whose books should be essential reading for any creative. Whatever book you choose, make sure it’s interesting to you!

2. Study a Language

Languages are the building block of human civilization — so why does there have to be so freaking many of them?! I’ve been to Sunday school, I know the story. A bunch of ancient assholes ruined it for us as always, right?

The downside of there being a bazillion languages is that a portion of humanity is essentially behind a paywall, and the price you have to pay is hours upon hours of studying a foreign language. But as daunting as the task is, learning languages can be fun! Gone are the days of burying your face in a book and trying to figure out how to conjugate verbs on your own. Modern technology has game-ified language learning, which makes it accessible to even the most ADHD among us.

There’s two apps I regularly use — Duolingo and Drops. Duolingo is better for grammar, Drops for vocabulary. Both are good options and certainly be used together. As for which language to learn, that’s up to you. Obviously anything that uses the Roman alphabet is going to be easier for the most part, but if you want a challenge, take up something that uses a different writing system. I did the latter, choosing Arabic, which has the added bonus of being the second language of many of my coworkers. That’s another consideration — do you have people to practice with? Consider choosing a language many people in your area speak.

3. Clean a Thing

That’s it. That’s the habit. Just pick one thing in your dwelling space and put it where it belongs, or give it a good scrub. You don’t need to make an entire ordeal of it, and just cleaning a little every day will make cleaning your entire home less daunting. Sometimes cleaning one thing will snowball into cleaning another thing, then another, and another, but the important part is initiating the act of cleaning. Breaking up huge, seemingly impossible tasks into bite-sized pieces like this helps me to keep a clean apartment.

4. Do Something Creative

That’s it! I make it a point to either write or do art every single day. Whatever your passion is, indulge yourself in it daily for at least five minutes — and don’t stop yourself if you get lost in the sauce and want to keep going. Again, the trick is to overcome that executive dysfunction and get started, and once you’re in the zone, don’t fight it. Use your hyperfocusing powers to your advantage.

It’s crucial to do this every day if you can. Think of it in terms of identity. For a long time, I called myself a writer — but I barely wrote anything! What good is calling yourself a writer if you don’t, you know, write? Put your identity first. What do you want to be? A painter? A musician? A dancer? A chef? Once you establish who you are, be that kind of person, which means doing whatever it is that person does. Being and doing are intertwined. Ask yourself every day, “What would a real (insert whatever it is you want to be here) do with their free time?” Then do it!

My artist wife has a saying — “You gotta want it every day.” She makes it a point to draw at least one illustration a day, even when she’s having a creative block. Just doing something is better than nothing. It’s all about building those little habits.

5. Get Moving

This is another important one. It’s no secret that we ADHDers benefit from exercise. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of physical activity a week with two days of strength training. While that seems like a lot, it breaks down to less than a half hour a day if you do it every day.

Going to the gym might be a good idea for concentration purposes. If you try to work out at home, you’ll be fighting off every distraction imaginable, from video game console on your tv stand to the sweet siren call of your bed.

When choosing a gym, your number one consideration should be location, location, location. You want to remove as few obstacles as possible and make the habit as obvious as possible. If you’re torn between an LA Fitness you pass every day on your commute and a Planet Fitness that’s five minutes out of the way, drop that little extra for the LA Fitness. Speaking of making your exercise habit as easy as possible to maintain, keep some running shoes and workout clothes in your car at all times. If you have to run home to grab them, well…

Our natural ability to double task is useful for working out because we can easily get our cardio in while reading or watching Netflix. Also, music is a great reward for working out — listening to your favorite songs while putting in the work makes time go by faster. And if going to the gym is out of the question for whatever reason, just taking tiny steps to stay in shape still helps. Take the stairs, ride your bike, do some morning stretches, whatever gets you moving. As I always say, small victories are still victories.

Do you have any daily habits? Feel free to comment them below!

If you enjoy my writing and want to help support me and this site, you can donate via Venmo (@jessjsalisbury) or CashApp ($TheJessaJoyce). Every little bit is greatly appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to read my work, and don’t forget to check back every few days for new content!

What I’m Leaving Behind in My Twenties

Well, today’s the day. I made it to thirty, an age I never imagined being as a kid. Mind you, I imagined being twenty-something and hot, and seventy-something and adorable, but thirty is such a weird in-between age. Too old to be cute in a childlike way, yet too young to be cute in a little old lady way. Thirty isn’t exactly an age you fantasize about being. When you think thirty, you think adult responsibilities and bills and oh God my biological clock is ticking and I still don’t have kids yet and holy shit is that a gray hair?!

…I say as if I’m not going to do something like *this* when I go gray.

But I’m kind of excited to turn thirty, to be honest. I’ve made my peace with getting older (mostly) and realized there are a lot of aspects of being young I’m ready to leave behind. Like I’ve said before, your twenties are kind of your free trial run of adulthood, your first playthrough on easy mode, where people still give you plenty of grace if you eff it up at first. But at thirty, the training wheels come off. You become a full-fledged person, and while that can be scary, it comes with some perks.

Here’s what I’m ready to leave in my twenties.

1. Irresponsibility

My twenties were marked by frivolous spending. Like, I impulse-bought a boat (which my first boyfriend hilariously predicted I would do someday). And I had to impulse-leave that boat by a dumpster with a “free – take me!” sign taped to it when we moved away from the lake. I rode that boat one magical time with my girlfriend when she came to visit—and never, ever again. That one boat ride basically costed me $500.

There were plenty of other things I impulse bought because it looked so cool in the Instagram advertisement. Like the two exercise machines I barely touched before realizing I can’t work out unless I’m at a gym with no distractions. If there is a couch available to nap on, lizard brain always picks couch. And don’t even get me started on clothes and makeup.

Cody, my financial advisor, gave me a stern talking to earlier. See, when we first starting working with him, he asked me and my wife our “whys” — why do we want to get out of debt and build our savings? My reason was simple. I wanted to start a family someday.

Of course, Cody took one look at my spending habits recently and said something that shook me.

“Do you actually want to start a family? Because you’re spending like your don’t actually want to.”

And it hit me. I haven’t been spending with the future in mind. Every time I buy some bullshit, I’m taking away from my future daughter’s college fund. Every Tim Horton’s donut I buy could have gone toward a new dance uniform for her instead. Or I could have used the money to help start my private music therapy practice, or buy a cute home on a big plot of land. I’m not a huge fan of my old pastor’s theology, but I will admit he had some good adages I still abide by to this day. One thing he’d always say was “What you spend your money on shows what you really care about.” And I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I don’t spend like I love my future daughter. I spend like I love material things more than her.

So I think this kind of frivolous spending is best left in my twenties.

2. Sloppiness

I have to admit, I never saw the point of making my bed. Like, you’re just going to get it all messed up again the next time you sleep, right? And still, nothing feels better than pulling down the sheets of a freshly made bed in preparation for a long night of slumber.

Imagine if we had the attitude I had about making my bed about everything. What if I never brushed my teeth because they’re just going to get gross again next time I eat something? My teeth would end up rotting out of my face! Brushing your teeth is an act of self-care, and so is keeping house.

A book I read recently, How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, invited the reader to reframe daily chores as self-care tasks, rather than a duty that needs to be fulfilled for the sake of being fulfilled. We do these things because we deserve to have a clean, inviting home. We owe it to ourselves.

I recently got into the habit of putting away clothes after I launder them. It sounds like such a little thing to be proud of, but I am. I love walking into my bedroom and being able to make it to my bed without tripping over a pile of leggings. I love how it looks, being able to see the floor again. I feel at home in my home. What a freakin’ concept.

Sometimes, the change is as easy as making sure you have the right tools to clean with. I stocked up on some all-natural cleaners that smell nice and come in pretty bottles, and weirdly enough, that makes me want to do more around the house. It’s all about tricking lizard brain into doing what I want it to do, and turns out lizard brain likes shiny things that smell good.

This guy has an unsettling amount of influence over me.

In your twenties, everyone sucks, so you don’t go to other people’s houses expecting things to be perfectly in place and meticulously cleaned. But once you turn thirty, there’s this expectation that you’ll stop being a goblin and start keeping your home like a person. When I was younger, I’d probably say “Well, expectations are stupid anyways” and go back to living in squalor. But cleaning really is an act of self-care. It’s deciding you’re worthy of having a clean, habitable environment that reflects who you are, and gifting that to yourself.

3. Unhealthy Habits

I wish I remembered most of my twenties, but I spent a good deal of it drunk. Of course.

I didn’t have a drink until I was twenty, and I barely drank until I was legal, but after my 21st birthday, all hell broke loose. With the exception of the time I was briefly married to a very conservative, very Christian guy who’d never touched alcohol in his life, I spent the majority of my twenties with a drink in hand. Life was just hopping from one excuse to get trashed to the next.

I wasted a lot of time being wasted. I thought being intoxicated helped me be more creative, but it actually stifled me. I wasn’t writing or doing much of anything productive while drinking. I’d go to shows my own band was playing and get blackout drunk, looking like a fool at a time when I should have maintained a sense of professionalism.

As of writing, I’ve been sober about a year. Wild, I know. See, I’ve found healthier alternatives to alcohol to fill the hole in my heart. Like, did you know there are companies that make nonalcoholic beer? It tastes exactly the same! And I can be a snob about it — “Oh, just give me the Heineken 0.0”

“I try not to poison my body with that alcoholic shit, thanks.”

Snobbery is a kind of underrated motivator, and one of the reasons behind another life change I want to take into the next phase of my existence. I’ve started working out every weekday morning, no exceptions. This is partially because I have to take my wife to her gym job at the buttcrack of dawn, but it’s a good excuse to get moving. I love being one of those motivational assholes who are like “Ah yes, I get up at 5 am every day to do 45 minutes of cardio before work. It keeps me grounded.”

I’ll admit there are some areas of my life I have yet to earn bragging rights for. Like, my eating habits are still abysmal. But that’s the thing about progress. If you don’t have something you’re constantly working toward, you might as well be on your deathbed. Constantly aiming toward new highs is what keeps you young. And as hard as it is to say goodbye to young adulthood, I know it’s not the end of the journey. I have a good 30 more years at least — and that’s a conservative estimate. If I have my way, I’ll be around twice as long as that.

But even if I do make it to 90, as long as I still have dreams and ambitions and goals, I’ll never truly be “grown up.”

Raising a Glass (of Stinky Ass Mineral Water)

Two things happened recently. I saw a beautiful post by a woman who was addicted to crack and got her life together, and made a heartfelt video about her journey. And then, this status popped up on my own memories:

“One Lake Michigan” is a valid unit of measurement in the Midwest.

It’s been a year since I decided to get my own shit together (for real), and while I did slip up a few times, this was the anniversary of the day my wife and I dumped our liquor and threw our vapes in the trash. That was the beginning of the arc of my story where I actually cared about my health, which led to my current character arc of “working out, taking vitamins and proper medication, and eating better.” It started with that small step of deciding I was better than getting blackout drunk every night and poisoning my body.

And it feels good.

Like, I actually LIKE my body now. Who’d a thunk?

This New Years was a dilemma, since it was the first New Year’s Eve I’ve ever spent sober since I’ve been old enough to drink. Would I make an exception for a nice glass of champagne?

Or would I invent my own tradition?

Back in February, Crass and I got legally married (still waiting to have that big official shindig until we have the money). Our first purchase as a couple was this mineral water we saw on some Ghost Adventures-type show. They were investigating a supposedly haunted Well in Texas, and they sold cases of water from it. This guy was drinking some and it looked like he was having a great time, so we impulse-bought a case of fancy schmancy stinky ass mineral water on our wedding night. Our first purchase as a married couple.

So anyways, we still had some leftover. Not because it tasted bad, but because it was the kind of water that’s hard to guzzle. You know, the kind of heavy water that tastes too mineral-y to be refreshing, but tastes good nonetheless. I don’t know how to describe it properly. I’m not a water reviewer, I’m a lifestyle blogger.

So we cracked open a bottle of fancy schmancy stinky ass mineral water, and celebrated at midnight by toasting with it and dancing to the Black Eyed Peas.

It sucks that I can’t partake in traditional traditions like toasting with real champagne, or cracking open a cold beer at a race (because that’s a thing my hillbilly family does). Hell, I can’t even take Communion properly if I wanna get real technical, although now that I’m Methodist, I don’t use real wine anyways.

Might as well drink grape juice if *this* is the bread we’re stuck with.

Sometimes, recovery doesn’t look like a carefully curated TikTok video of all your wins. Sometimes, it involves sacrificing long-held traditions. But the beauty of letting go of tradition is that you can start your own, more meaningful traditions in its place. Champagne on New Year’s Eve is a nothing tradition to me. It’s just peer pressure from dead people.

Now, stinky ass mineral water on New Year’s Eve? That’s something unique. That’s something special.

That’s what recovery looks like.

New Year, New Chapter

So, this is it. The last blog post of 2022 (probably). And I even redecorated for the occasion! Like the new color scheme? I had to incorporate bluey-green, because it’s my favorite color, but the brown just takes it to the next level, right?

I also had to update my picture. I haven’t been blonde for a hot minute, which is so weird to me, but fitting. My teens were blonde, my 20s were weird hair colors, and my 30s will be black. I’m like a Pokémon that changes colors as it evolves, and I feel like I’m finally evolving into the most powerful version of myself. I’m about to reach level 30 and become a mighty electrifying Ampharos after spending several levels as a cute, nonthreatening Flaafy.

Now I just need an Ampharosite so I can have badass hair.

This evolution has brought on a lot of changes, many of which I’ve documented in this blog. I stopped drinking entirely, which is wild to me because I love beer (hit me with your best non-alcoholic beer recommendations in the comments, readers!). It just wasn’t serving me anymore and was causing more damage to my body and mind than I liked. In addition, I got formally diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar disorder and started taking the medications I actually need. Those two changes alone have been revolutionary. I’m not the same person I was this time last year by any stretch of the imagination, and it feels good. I wasn’t a huge fan of that version of me. I like this one more.

But the thing about evolution is that it doesn’t stop happening. In order to be the absolute best version of myself, I need to keep working on the most important project I’ll ever be tasked with — Jess J. Salisbury. Me, the person. Not the blog, although that’s a part of it.

The new year is supposed to be a time of setting goals and making resolutions, many of which won’t make it to the end of January, much less the end of the year. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to set goals I can easily set aside at the first sign of failure. My goal is to hit the gym at least three times a week. So what happens when I have a busy week and fall off for a few days? Do I just give up? That’s why I don’t like viewing my goals as “resolutions.” Instead, they’re part of a sort of year-long bucket list.

So what do I plan to do? I’m glad you asked! I’ll start with the goal that’s most pertinent to this website.

Two blog posts a week

That’s right. No less than two blog posts any given week. If I screw up one week, I’m challenging myself to jump back on it the next week. I recently wrote a post about the direction I want to take this blog, but feel free to drop more ideas for things you want to see here. I’m thinking more music musings, some book reviews, maybe some more spiritual stuff, and of course, my guide to living with ADHD, as well as the fiction I’ve been working on. There’s no shortage of things I like writing about, so make sure to keep checking back for new content often!

Keep a planner all year

I started keeping a planner a few months back. Surprise! It’s done wonders for my mental health as well as my organizational skills. My initial trick was to get a subscription to a monthly planner, so every month I’d have fresh new pages with new prompts and visuals to keep my attention. But then, the unthinkable happened — my December planner got lost in the move! Thinking quickly, I downloaded an app called Zinnia, which is essentially a journaling app for your phone. And this has been ridiculously helpful for me, since I’m on my phone all the time anyways. I can’t leave it at home. It’s always with me, everywhere, all the time.

Get down to my goal weight of 140

Ah yes, the dreaded weight loss resolution that everyone either makes or makes a blog post decrying. Yes, losing weight for vanity reasons is a slippery slope into nasty things like eating disorders, and I’m first in line to support the body positivity movement. But here’s the thing about being body positive — it only works if you’re treating said body positively. I gained a lot of weight over the last several years, and I’ve realized I can’t blame it all on my psychiatric meds, especially now that I’m taking Adderall, which should balance the antidepressant weight gain out. No, I gained this weight because I’ve treated this temple like a freaking dive bar, poisoning it with copious amounts of alcohol and greasy low-nutrient foods. This extra weight I carry is a physical manifestation of the baggage that came with being a compulsive binge eater in the beginning stages of alcoholism. I’ve cut out those two habits and already dropped nearly 30 pounds. Now I’m adding the habit of working out regularly and staying active, and I haven’t felt this good since I was in high school and in the best shape of my life. By the end of 2023, I should be down to my pre-gain size, and I’m so ready.

Become conversational in Arabic

Wallah, I mean it this time. It’s easy to forget in my white British-American English-speaking bubble that nearly half of the world is bilingual, but working at my new job has made me acutely aware of how much I suck as a global citizen. Like, I’m useless in any country that wasn’t once taken over by the Brits. But nearly everyone I work with is bilingual. I live in an area with a pretty hefty Arab population, and most of my coworkers and several of our patients can speak Arabic with ease. I don’t exactly plan on being a diplomat to Egypt or a Quranic scholar, so I’m not holding myself to incredibly high standards here. I just want to be able to say basic sentences and hold a conversation in Arabic. Right now, I know how to say “hi,” “bye,” and “give me bread,” which is useful if I’m ever like, in a dire bread emergency in Lebanon or something, but it would be nice to know some pharmacy-specific phrases.

Do 75Hard AT LEAST ONCE

I tried this already. Remember that? Just one of the dozens of things I’ve started and didn’t finish? I’ve been using the “bUt I hAvE aDhD” excuse for too long. Okay, so lots of successful people have ADHD. They’re not whining about how they can’t finish the thing. They’re out there, taking their Adderall and meditating and doing everything they can to do the damn thing. And that’s what I want to do. So 75Hard is a bunch of arbitrary rules you have to follow for 75 days. But I’m gonna follow them if it kills me, just to prove to myself that I have self-discipline, the thing that has evaded me my whole life. I don’t know when I’m going to do this (although it will probably be in the summer when it’s nicer out and I don’t have to do my daily outdoor workouts in a blizzard like a psychopath), but I want to do it once. Just so I can say that I did it.

Release WUJ 2023

Speaking of things I’ve started and never finished, I’ve been saying new music is on the way since our last release, “If I Stay,” which came out more than a year ago. This isn’t just a “me” thing, since I’m only one member of the band and this will be a group effort, but as the frontwoman, I need to make sure we keep moving in the right direction. I’m tired of stagnating as a musician. I write songs to be heard by others, and if no one’s hearing us, what’s the point of having a band? And speaking of which, I want to be more “on top” of our social media this year. People need to hear us, and if it takes TikTok or Instagram to get our music out there, so be it. The world is changing and so is the music industry. I need to take advantage of modern social media and learn how to use it to get us noticed. And speaking of music, there’s my final, most crucial goal for the year.

Finish my classes with at least a B and get that music therapy degree (finally)

That’s it. The degree I’ve been working toward for literally twelve years is so close to being mine. I started down the road to being a music therapist at 18, when my parents convinced me to change my major from pre-med to music (unlike every other parent ever), but I came to the conclusion that I was too mentally ill and messed up to ever help anyone else. And that’s a fucking lie. I now believe my mental illnesses and neurodivergences will make me a better music therapist because I’ve been on the other side. I will know how my clients’ minds work even better than a neurotypical music therapist would because I’m one of them. And now I have the tools, medications, and coping mechanisms I need to make it through the schooling I need. It’s too late to turn back now. I’m going to get this degree and get a fancy little “MT-BC” after my name, once and for all.

And there you have it. I’m done with being mediocre. Only I have the power to change my life for the better, and this is the year I finally do it.

2023, let’s go.

Get Out of That Box!

I feel bad for leaving everyone on a sad note with my last post, so this one is more optimistic, I swear!

My wife and I stopped drinking earlier this year. Officially, for real this time. We haven’t had as much as a drop in the last several months. And frankly, I’m pretty okay with that. Sure, there’s some FOMO when my friends are sipping on a nice craft beer or mixed drink, but for the most part, I don’t miss it. I’ve lost weight, I don’t have no-reason hives nearly as often, and I’m not constantly in a daze from being drunk or hungover almost every day.

We were paying money to have a bad time.

Something peculiar happened when we stopped drinking though. We found ourselves unable to relate to a lot of our friends who did drink a lot or rely on drugs to have fun. Suddenly, sobriety was lonely as hell. I call these growing pains, though. As in, we’re finally growing up, but the people around us are stagnating. It’s a good problem, although it doesn’t feel good in the moment.

My old church and pastor are problematic for a lot of reasons, and if you’ve snooped long enough through my blog, you’d know why. But my former pastor did have a lot of wisdom I still love by to this day. One of his sayings was “show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” As 90s sitcom “special episode” as it is to admit, the people you surround yourself with influence you more than you think.

Think of it this way. If someone’s standing on a table for some ungodly reason, it would be hard for them to pull another person up onto the table with them. It would be much easier for someone on the ground to pull the person on the table down to their level. It’s best to climb onto the table alone. That doesn’t mean you can’t have any friends when you’re working on yourself, though. Maybe people will see that what you’re doing is weird and different and better, and they might even climb onto a table as well.

The point is, the road to getting better is lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead of hanging out at bars and partying your life away, meet new people at gyms or church. Learn a new hobby and join a local group for it. Even online groups like r/decidingtobebetter on Reddit can be helpful. It sucks distancing yourself from old friends, but holding onto habits that hurt you in order to still relate to them is not worth it. You can’t keep breaking your own bones to fit into someone else’s box.

Get out of that box!

The Emperor’s New Health Goals

So, as part of my “Jess needs to suck less” plan, I’ve been meditating a lot. One of the tools I’ve been using for this has been tarot cards. Yes, I know it’s silly and kind of woo-woo, but meditating on the meanings and symbolism of the cards really puts me in a focused headspace.

And being ADHD, that is a hard headspace to get into.

One of my newfound habits has been drawing cards every morning and trying to relate them to my life somehow. Strangely enough, a lot of the time, they make a crapton of sense. Like, maybe God and the universe are telling me I’m wasting my writing and music talents by doing nothing but playing The Sims all day.

Today, I did a morning spread that asked a bunch of questions, like what I need to keep in mind today, and I can have the best day possible. One of the questions was “What do I need to let go of?” The card I drew? The emperor.

What?

If you don’t know much about tarot, the emperor usually represents all good things: stability, structure, healthy masculine energy. It’s the “fatherhood” card of the deck. Was my deck saying to let go of my daddy issues? Because like, my dad’s the freakin’ bomb.

But I did a little digging into the meanings, particularly the implications for health, and oh man, did it hit me. According to the website The Tarot Guide…well, I’ll let it speak for itself.

I mentioned in a few previous blog posts that I was attempting the 75 Hard challenge. Basically, two 45 minute workouts a day (one outside), follow a diet plan, drink a gallon of water a day, and read 10 pages of a nonfiction book daily. And it was going fairly well…for a while.

The cracks started to show though. The water was making me pee literally every half hour, taking away valuable time at work. Intermittent fasting was working (I lost ten pounds!), but I found myself half-dead by the time I was able to start eating for the day. And the workouts. OH GOD THE WORKOUTS. I kept having to restart my 75 day counter because I couldn’t keep it up. I spent so much of my energy unpacking and getting the new apartment in order, I barely had the motivation to even move by the time my workout times rolled around.

To be fair though, I was *killing* the reading requirement.

In short, I wasn’t listening to my body, and my body was protesting HARD. I remembered this time I got really into working out last year. I was also in the midst of being a guinea pig for an experimental treatment for chronic hives. This required regular blood work. One morning, after a night of going hard at the gym, I went in for my routine blood draw. Later that afternoon, I got an urgent call from the doctor. My blood had a whole lot of something it wasn’t supposed to have.

In short, I almost gave myself rhabdomyolysis.

I should have learned right then and there not to push myself over my body’s limit. I’ll get to a point where I can work out twice a day for 45 minutes, but I need to ease into it, for the sake of my own health and well-being. It’s not worth killing myself to finish some internet challenge.

Besides, I’m done with “challenges.” Challenges are temporary. I don’t want to go hard for 75 days only to fall back into bad habits. I want to change my lifestyle entirely. I want to learn to care for my body like the gift it is. I want to eat things that nourish me, stay active (but not, ya know, almost give myself a fatal blood condition), and dedicate my time to learning to be my best self for me.

Maybe I’ll do the 75 Hard challenge someday. But now is the time for self-care.

Live Hard Day Two: Becoming Steak

When I was in junior high, I briefly had the nickname Bubbles, before my classmates latched onto “Salisbury Steak” and later, simply “Steak.” If you knew me at all in high school, you’d know why a meat-inspired moniker was hilariously weird for a girl like me. I wasn’t particularly muscly or threatening or beefy. I was the Ute and wholesome little blonde-haired church girl who would probably cry if someone said something remotely mean to her. I would have considered myself more of a marshmallow than a steak.

But I digress. The point is, for a very brief time, I was nicknamed Bubbles, after the Powerpuff Girl, natch.

You could have put this picture in the yearbook under my name and no one would have questioned it.

In a lot of ways, I was Bubbles. I was always the adorable, innocent, naive one. I liked cute things and candy and stuffed animals. I had the blonde-hair blue-eyed ingenue look. I could talk to animals (although they seldom talked back to me). And when flanked by my two wildly badass siblings, I looked like an absolute creampuff.

A lot has changed since then. I’ve been through a lot. I’m not innocent by any measure. My style has shifted through the years, but I’m certainly not the tiny blonde Precious Moments figurine I used to be.

Unless that Precious Moments figurine had a late-20s big titty goth gf phase.

Still, I find myself feeling like Bubbles quite often. Even though I’ve been hardened by age, I’m still quite sensitive and wishy-washy and admittedly kind of a crybaby. Perhaps it’s the Pisces in me. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m the youngest. All I know is I don’t want to be that way anymore. I know I have badass potential. Enter my Bubblevicious moment. If you don’t remember that particular episode, let this jog your memory:

Sometimes you need to decide to be badass, and that’s where I am. I know what I’m doing isn’t working for me. I don’t have the mental or physical strength I want to have.

Enter the Live Hard challenge.

I’ve said in my previous post that I’m not a huge fan of Andy Frisella for reasons that should be pretty obvious, but I’m also not a huge fan of throwing the baby out with the bath water. And frankly, his Live Hard program is legit. I’m on my second day of following the 75 Hard ruleset, and I already fee significantly better. Because I am ADHD as all hell and need to keep myself accountable somehow, I decided to post my updates on here. Here are my observations so far:

1. Stick to a diet.

This is probably the hardest one for me, because the diet I chose is intermittent fasting, and I work weird hours. I decided on noon to 8 p.m. for my eating window, and I’m just going to pray every night that my coworkers didn’t bring in a pizza to share. So far though, I’m doing alright. I got a little antsy toward the end of my fast earlier today, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Plus, my Adderall makes me crave food less. I’m allowing unsweetened coffee and tea during my fasting hours as well, so that’s helping a bit, although I didn’t realize consuming caffeine on an empty stomach wreaks this much havoc on your digestive system.

As in, this entire post so far has been written on the toilet.

2. No alcohol.

This is probably the easiest one because I quit drinking a few months back. In fact, I’m officially almost four months sober. Small victories, y’all.

3. Two 45 minute workouts a day, one being outside.

This has been probably deceptively easy so far, and I’m no doubt going to eat my words in a few days when DOMS sets in.

Not the kind of doms I’m referring to, but you could argue that it, too, hurts so good.

I’m already starting to feel some of the delayed soreness in my arms, so I’m trying to keep my vision of Badass Jess in my head. This pain will eventually become muscle, and then I too can become an intimidating dominatrix— I mean, a completely wholesome but buff woman that definitely does not engage in BDSM.

Except my Bible Study/Discussion Meetings.

My workouts so far have been a half hour of biking following by fifteen minutes of weight training for the indoor portion, and a 45 minute walk around the neighborhood for the outdoor portion. My wife has been very much on board with taking daily walks, and our talks during these lengthy walks have been doing wonders for both of our mental health issues and our relationship as a whole. I’ll probably want to up the ante in a while to something a bit more strenuous, like biking or jogging, but I’m kind of loving these little walks with my girl.

4. Read 10 pages of nonfiction/self-help/something that will make you suck less as a person.

Ah, yes, my favorite part of the challenge, and a big reason I decided to take it on. I love this idea, and I went above and beyond assembling a set of books to navigate through in the next few months. I’m starting by alternating between two titles that are relevant to my struggles with ADHD — Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K. White, and You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham. So far, I’ve been killing this part of the challenge, reading more than required daily just because I’m hooked. Honestly, I forgot how much I love reading, especially nonfiction books, and these particular titles are helping quite a bit already. I’ll probably review them on here once I’m finished with them. Next up on my list is How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age by Dale Carnegie and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, although I admit I cheated a bit and parsed through parts of them already. I guess it’s better to read too much than not enough.

5. Drink a gallon of water.

I lied. This is probably the easiest part of the challenge for me, and strangely enough, it seems to be the hardest for everyone else. I don’t know why I just drink so much water naturally. Was I a camel in a past life? Who knows.

6. Take a progress pic daily.

I’ve taken my pictures, and I’m not gonna lie, I always remember to do this when I’m about to jump in the bath and have already disrobed. So my first two days are a bit NSFW. I’ve already exceeded my spicy limit for this post, so I won’t be sharing them here. That’s for my OnlyFans.

I’ll take a clothed progress pic tomorrow probably and share it here eventually. But the official first and second day pics are for my eyes only. Gotta leave something to the imagination, ya know?

So that’s a quick rundown of how things are going. I’ll continue updating everyone on my progress, if only to keep myself accountable. But honestly, I’m excited to become less of a Bubbles and more of a Steak, and I think I’m off to a good start on my journey to beefy goodness.