Found while cleaning out my grandpa’s house after he passed, so we don’t know the story. At first glance thought it was a ukulele, but the frets and the way the strings are grouped two and two had me curious, and so far my internet searching has not given me a straight answer.
I don’t know exactly how to word this question, but basically I’m just wondering what is the best way to lay out my order for the barista? For example, I usually like a 12oz iced latte with almond milk, and I’ll sometimes add a flavor like vanilla or lavender or whatever. Is it best to start with the size, type of drink, hot or iced, etc? I feel like I do it differently every time and I just always wonder which part actually gets entered first into the system, or if it even matters/is different everywhere. Just curious :)
Hi all,
It’s been a minute since I’ve posted here. I’ve been on my EMDR journey for almost a year now. This experience has been one of the most transformative of my life. I can’t quite say I’m on the other side of things yet, but I already feel like such a different person.
I have more energy. I am sleeping so much better. For as long as I can remember, I have been the worst sleeper. Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and god forbid I ever attempt to sleep past 7am on a lazy Sunday. In the last few months I am finally sleeping. And rarely dreaming. Which I am okay with, because the dreams I used to have were not always good ones.
There were lots of reasons I got into this therapy, but a big one was growing up with a difficult mother. I live several states away from my family, but have been back visiting for a few weeks and staying in my parents’ house the whole time. And I am experiencing a kind of peace I never expected. My mom’s behavior hasn’t changed. But I find I am so much less triggered by her. I don’t get combative like I used to, I don’t feed into her goading. I just let it move by me. I can’t change her. I can’t control her. All I can control is my reaction. I don’t want to not have a relationship with my parents, that’s a choice I’ve made for myself, and being in this new head space has done wonders for that.
I find I am able to speak and think more comfortably about a lot of the experiences I had that brought me to EMDR. It’s exactly like what they said before starting this therapy - the memories didn’t change or go away, they just don’t hurt me anymore.
Something I didn’t expect is how different I feel about my life in general. I’ve been a bit unhappy with my life for a few years now, which was part of what drove me to do EMDR. I felt I was hiding myself away from the world to avoid getting hurt, and in the process my world became very small. I’m building it back up now, but I’m also less sure of things I used to never question. I don’t know if I want to stay in the city I live in now. But I also don’t really know where I want to go. Or if I do truly want to leave. I just feel this strange distance with a lot of my current life. Where I live, my job, my friends. All things I have loved for so long, and it’s not that I don’t anymore, but I don’t really know what it is. It just feels different. That feeling was really scaring me for a while, but I’m starting to settle into it more. I don’t know what it is, but I know I will figure it out eventually.
I don’t know yet what’s next for me. But I can be okay with that. And maybe even be excited by that prospect. In a way it helps me to be more present. I’ve always been very susceptible to future-tripping. So worried about making the wrong choice, so focused on these arbitrary timelines and goals I’ve set up in my head of where I’m supposed to be in my life by a certain time. I’m turning 27 in a few weeks. Everyone around me is getting engaged and married. Moving in with their partners, finding their soulmates. That hasn’t happened for me yet. I haven’t been in a relationship for years, largely due to a fairly traumatic experience I had a few years ago that I’ve finally really started to work through. It’s hard not to feel like I’m a few steps behind everyone else, but I’m coming into a new frame of mind with it. I don’t need to be in a rush. I am on my own schedule. I’m making peace with myself first.
I read this quote somewhere: “If you’re trying to love yourself, you already do.” Because the love is in the trying. When you start to put forth an effort into your relationship with yourself, even if you’re still having a hard time with it, you are already doing it. You have already succeeded. I have long been so hard on myself for so many things. Frustrated with my differences, my shortcomings. But this is the body I got to live this life in. I’m learning to see that as a privilege, and to treat it as such.
Sending love and peace to everyone here. Y’all have made this experience so much easier, so much less scary. To know I was not alone was a huge saving grace when nobody in my life could understand what was happening to me. Again, I’m not across the finish line yet. Maybe there isn’t really a finish line. But I’m excited at the prospect of the progress continuing. Because I really can’t believe the difference between where I was even a few months ago compared to now. The future is a mystery, and I look forward to what it might bring.