to be real

that last post felt and sounded nothing like me.

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for real.

like, really, in retrospect…what?

doling out skin care advice doesn’t sound like me. it’s not what i want to write, what my heart asks me to bare.

i continuously move away from the true nature of this blog: a means for me to cope (and, i guess, technically, an open journal for the anonymous).

to be honest, this blog is more for me than for anyone else. call it self-ish, it’s okay. i don’t feel self-ish. the internet offers virtual communities. so. this is a way for me to connect and start dialogues until, eventually, i can start ones with the people in my life face to face. call it practice.

you may wonder why i chose to post so candidly. i’d hoped by now you’d have picked up on the openness of my nature. i like to talk, discuss and, occasionally just kidding like all the time, to the dismay of friends and family, over analyze. sorry. that’s in my DNA make-up, too. i have always been interested in the answers behind the questions, in investigating. i like the nitty gritty in life. the shadowy details. some people don’t.

i am here for those who do. i am here to share this journey alongside yours, to connect to other humans experiencing the experience of life and living. because you know, it’s not easy. this whole living business.

skin care just isn’t on the agenda, kids.

i can’t wish away the feelings i feel. no matter how i try to avoid them, ultimately they’ll round a street corner on some tuesday afternoon and link arms with me again. talking about them talks me through them, before, finally, talking me out of them.

i did not ask for the life i landed. something or someone somewhere put me in the ‘really, really ridiculously lucky pile‘ and threw in some baggage for good measure. no one can be ‘really, really, really ridiculously lucky’.

every person carries sadness. did i not say that earlier this month? well. it’s time i start believing it. it’s time i start allowing that sadness, that anger, that nitty gritty, to be felt instead of covering it up with a superficial, poorly concocted happiness/gratitude blend. i can’t guilt myself out of experiencing authentic emotion anymore.

i’m done apologizing for what bubbles up, for being ashamed every time i sigh.

starting.

now.

namaste

zoe

a post about skin-care

so you might have noticed how often i say, “we’ll talk about that later!”

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and you might have noticed how rarely i follow through.

well, kids, lucky for you (purely an assumption) i am following through!

this is a big moment. i suck at following through. something i am conscious of and working on. starting…NOW!

today i want to talk about skin care.

my interest in skin care ignited back in the day of middle school and seventeen magazine reading. i poured over the “better skin!” articles, read up on benzoyl peroxide like other people did the articles of hot boys. yeah priorities! (well that and i always though those boys they did stories on were, um, ugly). i’ve tried everything — proactive, neutrogena, cetaphil, aveeno, et. al. (aka: any product on the shelves of your local rite aid/target/CVS).

i was always lucky, though. my genetics gave me generally clear skin. sometimes a little oily, sometimes a little dry, all depending on the weather. but i was never acne prone outside of a few zits around my period. i escaped high school relatively clear-faced.

want to know when all that changed? (i promise it’s not hard to guess)

when i stopped eating and started exercising like the world was ending the next day.

i started to break out with in the first couple of months after turning vegetarian and upping the number of runs i did each week. in places i never broke out — on my cheeks (i usually broke out on my chin, forehead, and right around my nose. and by “break out” i mean i got like, one or two zits). on top of that, i got cysts. big, painful ones on my cheeks. guys, i flipped my shit. because, what the fuck, i wasn’t 16 any more! i was twenty, a woman! not a teenager battling against hormones!

this is the best picture i can find to show you. what you can’t see: a smattering of under-the-skin, small zits all over my forehead. this was about two years ago, post-20th-birthday-cyst on my left cheek (you can see it).

(also, i look like such a baby).

anyway, it got really bad. really, really bad. gnarly whiteheads. painful bumps on my face and neck. i was embarrassed and uncomfortable. i had never dealt with any of that before. and i’m sure being sad and stressed all the time did nothing to help my skin along. i tried a million products without success.

it all changed when i hit my breaking point. my skin turned around almost immediately after i re-introduced animal products to my diet and stopped running. in fact, i’m pretty sure i haven’t had a whitehead on my cheeks since. (yes, i am knocking on wood right now). changing my diet changed my mood, my overall happiness. i upped my water intake along with my food intake, too. healthy skin needs a lot, lot, lot of H20 kidlettes!

additionally, i started looking at the ingredients in my face cleansers. if i didn’t eat anything i couldn’t pronounce, why should i use anything on my skin i couldn’t pronounce? especially when said ingredients leek into the body via the skin anyway?

today i use very, very little on my skin. i wash it every other day (though every day with water). once a day. at night, before i sleep. i use dr. bronner’s soap bars because i can read all the ingredients fluently and know what they are (rose scent is my favorite). i follow up my night-time face-washing ritual with a little coconut oil to moisturize and to replenish the oil i might have stripped away. twice a week or so i exfoliate with a coconut/brown sugar/vitamin E scrub my friend made me for christmas (i use it on my body too). it’s awesome.

and, again, i drink a LOT of water. i try really hard to not touch my face, as hands carry a lot of germs. likewise, i try really hard to not pick my face if and when i get a zit (way, way easier said than done, especially with whiteheads). a healthy diet helps tons, too. vegetables make my skin glow!

but that’s it. no fancy nothing. no expensive anything. just a cheap-ish bar of soap and some natural coconut goodness. my skin hasn’t looked or felt this great in years.

(yuh, i’m a dork-us. but without breakouts!)

what are your skin-care routines, if you have any? what works for you?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: please know that this is what works for my skin. it took a ton of trial and error to get here and your routine might end up looking different for you because your skin is different!

p.p.s: i’ll blab about haircare sometime later this week!

p.p.p.s: HAH. i totally didn’t mean to make the same face as the first photo. clearly, i haven’t changed much in two years when it comes to posing for photos. that or i’m awkward.)

music monday + monday lessons

mmm monday.

(san francisco on saturday on random street walks with my friend)

a light breeze, fat clouds, sunshine kind of monday.

i woke up intending to work out the whole day because i ate cake last night and militant, dictator zoe ordered it to be done. under strict authority, i laced up tennis shoes after i slipped out of my sheets and dreamy early morning haze. i skipped breakfast too for good measure. funny how plans figure their way out, though.

because the television spazzed out. and my brother came home sick from school. and my stomach grumbled loudly. and i picked up a pen and undid my tennis shoes. and i wrote into my journal. and i realized: “i still think my weight matters in the measure of happiness. so i still chase it as being the problem of all my problems” (journal quotes). silly anxious and negative self. it’s just cake, not the devil. calm yourself.

so i ate some breakfast, ate some more cake, laced up my tennis shoes, and took the walk i actually wanted. i listened to two pod-casts, did some yoga in the park under the sun, felt the grass beneath my feet. three or so hours later i am home, rested and happy and not thinking about that cake from last night or the cake from earlier. just how awesome my legs feel and how settled my heart is in my chest.

and how awesome this song is.

because i am in love with bon iver.

and mondays, for that matter.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: please don’t steal my photos. thanks!)

self-love sunday

before i start a recap of sorts:

(flowers on a walk the other day)

today my little brother turns eighteen.

kind of like cinderella pulling her whole transformation, my brother is an adult now (though not in a dress and carriage-made-from-pumpkin), suddenly. an adult. like, legal. which is weird because i remember when he was born, how little he was in my own little arms.

to commemorate the occasion, i am making chili bread bowls, per his request. and cake. because birthdays are not birthdays without cake in my eyes.

yup.

anyway.

so, i am working on friendships. on connecting and reconnecting with people who truly, deeply matter. often times we chase friendships or people who clearly show no interest in slowing their retreat. we wonder, “why am i left behind?” while the solids in our lives trail us, wondering “why doesn’t she turn around?”.

confession: i am a die-hard chaser.

i pour attention and affection into friendships my intuition chirps are “one sided”. i did it in early friendships. i did it in high school. i did it in college. i do it now. worrying about how i stand in the lives of part-time friends prompts the burn of anxiety. of loneliness. of depression. it also hurts the real friendships i have, as those true sources of joy distance themselves, shaking their heads at my breathless game of catch and release.

slowly i am understanding the need to balance the energy i put into relationships, including the one i hold with myself. i cannot give away my reserves so quickly, so willingly, so entirely to people.

i spent a lot of time with old friends this week (ones from college and one from high school). i noticed the goofy ultra-dork reemerging. easily and naturally. there was never a sense of “am i good enough?“, only “god i missed this”. i did not experience a need to be anyone other than the person i am, to prove something my mind made up. there was no judgement. no anxiety. just a lot of laughter.

i know i am never alone. i know a lot of the time i think myself into a space for one and tell myself no one cares (not true). i am getting there, though. realizing i make myself alone when i concentrate on those part-time friends, when i forget all those beautiful people in my life who are, always, open and willing to embrace me when i need it the most, not when it suits their schedules.

do you ever find yourself worrying over relationships that bring you more unease than ease?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: did any of that make sense? i feel like that was a bunch of word-vomit.)

thoughts from long walks

i am currently waiting on cookies in the oven and kale chips in the dehydrator.

(on a walk the other day in sonoma county with a close friend)

a good metaphor for my life, don’t you think?

i’ve got no big message today. no deep, thought out words.

nothing is A-FUCKING-MAZING. and nothing is particularly soul crushing. i am merely existing today, enjoying the seventy-eight degree sun rays and the smells of my kitchen. i am reveling, simply.

last night i preformed poetry again. words direct from my heart. unlike last week, i showed up with a louder voice and more nerves. i stumbled a bit though i spent hours and hours burning the lines into my memory, talking to an empty house, the bay, passing cars and, finally, a circle of strangers. practice doesn’t always mean perfect. nothing means perfect because perfect doesn’t exist.

a funny thing happened when i finished and reclaimed my seat: nothing attacked me inside. yes, i shook and tripped over a few lines but that negative voice stayed locked inside. in fact, i heard nothing. just felt a sense of release and empowerment i am still trying to wrap my mind around. just thought, “i did it” quietly while the words of others filled the balmy san francisco evening.

i took a walk with my self and my headphones this morning. drank a decaf americano. danced the whole way home. thought and rethought those hopes i scribbled for the new-year.

i’ve spent a lot of time since we jumped into 2012 thinking i was a big fat failure. thinking i was doing nothing right, making no progress, only sliding, minute by minute, backward to a place i never wanted to see again.

today changed that.

as cars drove past me and sunshine soaked into my bare arms i understood: i am progressing. i never wasn’t.

i am opening my heart to the world, to people, to myself. i am shedding warped ideas of self and happiness. i am gaining a sense of peace and an understanding of life i never thought i would.

perfection has no place in my life anymore. i am reclaiming the person i used to be. the person i always was.

bumps and all.

namaste

zoe

i’m not sure about that bottle of pills

on tuesday i woke up at six for a doctors appointment i called salvation a month ago.

(photos of birds i take on long walks)

yet, even as i heard “chemical imbalance” and even when i picked up my first bottle of oblong blue pills, i did not feel saved. just skeptical. and mildly uncomfortable.

the mood swings i swing through scare me sometimes. leave me trembling underneath the question of “is this normal?” (really though, what the fuck is “normal”?)

in conversation where stories of sadness and hardship are traded, i realize how unbelievably human it is to struggle. my problems and issues shrink. i become one in a whole. we’re battling, collectively.

it’s just no one talks about it.

post-tuesday-morning-diagnosis i wandered. i walked. i smoked a bowl and sat in sunshine (because february think its spring). i breathed deep and practiced a few heart openers (got all warm-and-tingly in the chest. good signs). one thought sparked two hours of feverish writing. gentle contentment replaced heaviness. i smiled at the idea of knowing how to process.

but, as i am human, subject to an ever changing scenery of emotion, the mood shifted come nighttime. stubborn insecurities i cannot shake heated up cooled over anxiety. late-night sobs stuck to the hollow of my throat. i cried words and tears over my journal. wrote furiously into pages before occupying the land of dreamers and their dreams.

naturally, i woke up today agitated. to an alarm calling for my attention. to a lack of voice. to bitterness. to another long car ride filled with music and sadness. to a therapy appointment actually scheduled for next week. to more tears, to hands too jittery from coffee i never drink, to heart filled up with fear and loathing…

to, eventually, suddenly, nothing but pure joy.

wednesday morphed into endless laughter, seventy-something degree weather, unbounding love.

and i realized:
the more i feel, the more i release.

and i realized:
sadness is normal. crying is normal. anger is normal.

because i realized:

this is the human experience.

this is okay.

i’ve got a bottle of pills now. mood-stabalizers. if i am being honest, i will say i am scared to take them. i am scared to lose this ability to feel, something i just gained access to after years of feeling nothing. i am curious about this lost anger and misplaced sadness.

also, i’m not as scared of my feelings as i was a month ago, on the desperate day i called around for someone to grant me reprieve from my mind. i just feel more human. and, oddly, more connected to people. i’ve knocked some perspective into my life, opened up the dialogue, listened and listened and listened to friends pour their souls out because every one needs an open ear. simply focusing on the people i love and opening up to hear their frustrations has been enlightening. suddenly, i am not alone. suddenly, this isn’t all about me anymore. because it never was. we’re all going through troubles together. despite those quiet moments of deep loneliness, you are, truly, never alone.

life, pills or no pills, keeps happening.

every second i breathe, i pulse. over the course of my waking hours i am one emotion and another. i am human.

and i think i’m okay with that.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: yes, i am going to take the pills, just to see what happens. it’s an avenue i think i need to explore, if only to say, “yes” or “no”.)

music monday

music makes monday so much better.

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or, really, any day better.

before the music though, an astrology announcement:

(because i nerd out over shit the stars tell us)

we transitioned into pisces today so the mood’s all dreamy and spiritual and light and dark all at the same time. i feel happy, calm, motivated, and creative right now. the spiritual energy we wade through under pisces’ influence can be difficult to manage. advice: go with the flow.

if you’re interested at all, i highly recommend checking out here and here. they’ll explain it all a bit better than me, i think!

okay.

nerd session over.

music:

feist! honestly, i generally have to be a feist mood to listen to her…but not with this song! i could listen to this all day. every day.

and, because it’s monday and because monday can have to potential to be lame, here’s a remix of the above song by another guy i love. boyz noize is just one dude from germany and he fucking kills it. i heard this version of my moon, my man first, actually! (warning: this one may not be for everyone. heh…)

may the start of your monday be all kiiiiinds of musical!

namaste

zoe

self-love sunday

i don’t even know where to start today.

a lot happened this week. words, however, are not lending themselves to me, rendering me a writer without expression. i’m just a big ball of feeling.

i am learning to trust my feelings, to question my thoughts. to listen to the whispers of the heart, not the analytical murmurings of a brain. i forget i live in my heart, too.

today, on two feet with arms stretched to the sky, i am open to the world and the universe and abundance. last night, a momentary ‘pop’ released pain in my left shoulder. pain i’ve carried for months. the night before i went to a restorative yoga class and cried. i am releasing.

i am creating space.

i am opening.

i keep thinking, “i don’t know what ought to be.”

over and over.

among other things.

(found in jan spiller’s book cosmic love…or astrology for the soul, i can’t remember. i stumbled across this the other day in a bookstore. i sat there and read for an hour).

love inflates the emptiness felt feelings leave behind.

i breathe deeper. fuller.

there is still salt in the sea water of my life. still waves i navigate. but i am buoyed to a warm, steady happiness.

i am learning how to float.

what are you learning?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: thanks for the comments on the last post. you’re all so supportive and awesome. thankyouthankyouthankyou. i have a lot more to say about voice and speaking and discovering. soon enough!)

yesterday

yesterday i walked around san francisco.

all day.

in boots and orange tights.

with a very close friend.

alight with deep happiness and warm from february sunshine.

then, something funny happened. last night. something out-of-character but so in-character.

i took a deep breath.

stepped into the middle of a circle ringed by people and more people — strangers.

and, in front of all these faces i did not know, i read my poetry.

aloud.

can we talk about fears that are irrational?
can we talk about how calm my heart felt in my chest as i performed?
can we talk about evolving?
can we talk about liberation?

can we talk about how fucking great i feel?

namaste

zoe

some things, funny and not-so

today is a mountains behind mountains kind of day.

(this was the other day)

no clouds. blue sky. glorious sunshine.

oh yeah. it’s not february or anything.

(just kidding it rained last week for two days).

i am very happy today. very settled. after two or three very unsettling weeks. let’s not dwell on that. it’s done and gone. here now is happiness. i like that.

i like silly, random thoughts too. a lot have come up today.

like 1) next month marks my two year blogging aniversary. can you believe i’ve been blabbing into space for that long? i still can’t believe people bother reading sometimes!

2) i fell off my bike today. while not moving. it hurt. but i still laughed despite stinging knees. because really. reaaaally zoe?

3) my soft, gentle, self-love voices sounds like zooey deschannel’s character jess from new girl. i don’t know why. just like i don’t know why zooey spells her name the way she does.

4) it’s my ex’s 23rd birthday today. last year it was raining. i made him cake and we made dinner. the next day, we ended our relationship and my life disintegrated. today, a whole year later, i looked at the sky with a smile and wished him the brightest, happiest birthday.

5) i can’t.stop.dancing.

6) i can’t stop cooking, either. i developed TWO recipes (TWO!) this week so far. vegan dishes i’ll share with you another day.

7) i am, slowly, slowly, feeling my feelings. yesterday i woke up sad. not the immobilizing sadness depression brings, just normal sad. my mind raced for a quick fix, to feel anything other than sad. instead, i laced up my shoes and walked my ass along concrete side walks. i kicked rocks. i cried a little, caught soft sobs in my throat. by evening, i was laughing and conversing and enjoying beers with a friend. BECAUSE I FELT THAT SHIT OUT, YO! (i’m weird.)

(8 ) and i like that, too)

9) i haven’t washed my hair with shampoo in well over a month. it’s healthier than it’s ever been. (i’ll talk about beauty/grooming stuff soon. it’s a secret passion of mine.)

(think i need to touch up my roots? heh…)

10) i am loving on vegetables lately. finally getting back to my roots of wellness. finally remembering what i loved about health and happiness.

11) i am so damn grateful today.

what about you? any silly things you’re kickin’ round up in that head of yours you want to share?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: yes. i took all those photos. please no stealing )