As an introvert, I suffer from probably what a lot of people suffer from. I have things going on in my head ALL the time. I am constantly thinking. It’s very hard to stop it. In my head, I basically have a constant to-do list. And it’s not even things that would normally go on a to-do list, really. It can be anything from picking up something that’s out of place in my house to blogging to watching a certain TV series I heard about on Netflix. It’s actually pretty ridiculous and can drive me pretty crazy sometimes. I like things to be neat, orderly, and under control, at least in the little part of the world that is mine (and if not that, then at least inside my head!). That’s one reason I like having a relatively clean house. When it’s not as clean and orderly as I’d like, or when this list gets so big that it feels out of control (which can easily happen), I get a bit stressed and feel overwhelmed. I absolutely hate that feeling.

I like to-do lists, but only sometimes. For the last several years, any time I make a to-do list it’s usually been on my computer or phone (or syncs between both – thanks to iCloud). I spend a lot of time with technology, so it always made more sense to me to use it for those things instead of paper. Recently I’ve started to reconsider this some…

I had seen on Instagram where a friend had bought a paper planner called the Day Designer. This friend is always buying cool stuff, so I thought I’d give it a look. I checked it out online, and it actually looked like something I thought I might like to use. Given the time of year (this was back in April, I believe), they didn’t have any new Day Designers in stock, but I hunted around online and managed to find one on eBay, so I ordered it. And I’d have to say, this thing has changed my life a bit.

A habit of mine when I buy something new is to check around online about it and read reviews and see who else is using it and sometimes how they are using it. This new purchase was no different. Upon searching for “Day Designer”, not only did I find plenty of people using it, but the way they used it was all different. From just using it as is to people customizing it with stickers and tape, the variety of things to do with a planner like this seemed to be huge. There is no end to the things you can buy to customize your planner. And not just the Day Designer – I was finding there was really a whole huge planner culture out there of people who organize their lives in different ways. And here I thought everyone was just using their computer or smartphone. I was SO wrong.

Honestly, as a kid who really got into her pens and pencils and markers and notebooks and folders in school, I have to curb myself a bit to keep from spending to much because if you are an office or school supplies nerd, there’s no limit out there to what you can buy. There’s even a couple of other planners I like even better than the Day Designer. One is called the Erin Condren Life Planner. I love how colorful and pretty this planner is, but it just doesn’t work for me for the day to day. I need a full page for each day for both my schedule as well as work and personal to-do lists, and the Erin Condren planner fits a whole week into only two pages, with just a skinny box for each day. But I like it enough that I’m now using one as a blog planner, which actually works pretty well. (Now hopefully it will get me to blog more too!)  There’s also another daily planner very similar to the Day Designer that I like and might get for next year called the Simplified Planner.

I’m just getting into this whole planner thing, but I’m kind of enjoying it. Not only does it give me a chance to go back to being a kid and hoarding school supplies, but it actually does help me cut down on stress a bit by getting everything out on paper as well. I feel a bit less flustered about getting everything done when I can see my whole day or week in front of me on a piece of paper.

So I’ve noticed something lately.  Actually, it’s something I’ve been aware of for a while, but I guess I’ve just never really thought about it before.  It’s become pretty normal, or more likely, been normal for quite a while, to dislike yourself.  I mean, I’m not saying that most people hate themselves (hopefully most don’t), but it’s normal to always have something you want to change about yourself or something you don’t like.  I mean, if you really think about it, doesn’t this strike you as kind of weird?  I mean, so we are all born into this world, a world filled with people of all sizes, shapes, skin colors, hair colors, eye colors, genders, sexual orientations, heights, weights, likes, dislikes, food preferences, and plenty of other differences.  The world is a VERY diverse place.  Which to me, is pretty awesome.  It makes it a very colorful and fascinating place to live.  But yet, we spend so much of our time wanting to be different than we are.  Wanting to be more like someone else is.  I’d dare to say that all of us have something we’d like to change about ourselves.  We want to be skinnier, “better” looking (based on whose definition of “better”?), stronger, smarter, or different in some tangible way.  Why is that?  In a world that could not be more diverse, why do we want to be anything other than what we are?  Why do we want to be like someone else?  If you look at it from an outsider’s perspective, doesn’t that seem kind of strange?

We’re all so unique.  I mean, it’s evident in what we do, what we wear, what we like, what we read, what we listen to, who we spend time with, what our jobs are, or in any other aspect of our lives.  But yet, still, we want to change ourselves.  More than that, most of us dislike ourselves.  Why?  Why do we feel the need to be something else?  In a world that obviously accepts diversity (in general… I get that not everywhere or everyone accepts it completely) or at the very least, allows its existence, why do we not celebrate our own uniqueness?

I’m guilty of it too.  My biggest dislike about myself is my weight.  I wish I was skinnier.  I wish I had a different body, one that was more “normal size”.  The truth is, there are people both fatter and skinnier than me.  Don’t get me wrong, part of it is that I wish I was healthier, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.  We should all want to be healthy and live long lives.  But in all honesty, even being healthy is kind of misleading.  Sure, you can make sure your body is healthy.  But can you protect it from all the things out there that could harm it?  Not really.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t want to be healthy, but don’t let being healthy deceive you… just living in this world causes all kinds of risks that your health cannot prevent.

But even healthy people don’t like themselves.  They wish they were better looking, smarter, or better at something.  It’s never ending.  Why can’t we just decide that we are awesome, no matter how or what we are?  Each of us is a unique person in a world full of unique people.  Makes it sound not so great, doesn’t it?  But I think it’s awesome… because it gives us permission to be different, and yet to celebrate what we do have in common… that we are all different.

There are so many things out there that make our differences a negative thing.  Fat people are looked down upon.  Racism is still an issue.  We make fun of people who do things differently than us.  Why can’t we just decide that it’s all okay?  We’re unique, we’re different, we’re a wide variety.  And that’s a good thing.  We don’t need to change.  There’s nothing wrong with improvement, but that doesn’t mean we can’t like ourselves exactly as we are… even celebrate how awesome we are, right now, before any improvements.  It goes against the grain, but I think if we choose to like ourselves exactly as we are, it is the first step in also accepting and even celebrating everyone else’s uniqueness as well.  I mean, think about it – everyone liking and accepting themselves and each other?  World peace?  What a concept, huh?

I’ll leave you with a video that I think expresses the idea I’ve got here a little bit, if not a lot.  SO many women chose average in this video… why is so hard for all of us (men AND women) to see ourselves as beautiful (and awesome just as we are)?

Yeah, strange title, I know. But honestly, I wasn’t really sure how else to put it. It does. It really does. I guess what spurred this post right at this time is a couple of deaths I encountered recently. One was the death of my mom’s best friend. She passed away last week. (I don’t know why I always tend to try to use “passed away” instead of “died”. It’s not like it’s any different either way. I guess it just sounds less harsh to me. Death’s a harsh reality, so maybe it makes it a bit softer? Not really. Anyway.) Apparently, she hadn’t been too healthy lately. Getting old kind of sucks sometimes too. But I remember spending a lot of time with her and her husband when I was a kid. They were my parents’ best friends, and they hung out with us quite a bit. They had known my parents’ since high school and were practically an aunt and uncle to me. My parents’ didn’t do the whole “godparents” thing, but if they did, I have no question that this couple would have been my godparents for sure. The guy passed away (there, I did it again) in 2004, and that had been difficult. He was a really cool guy. They never had any kids, but they were great with them. He was always a fun person to talk to. He was pretty into cars, and had this really neat slot car racetrack set up in his basement that I remember playing with as a kid. They were just a really neat couple. Everyone loved them. I know he has been really missed for a while now, and his wife will be now too. Especially by my mom.

The second thing that has this on my mind is the death of a good friend of mine’s dad yesterday. It sounds like it was pretty sudden and he had some health issues that didn’t really come up until pretty recently. I really felt for her when I saw her post about his death on Facebook. Losing a parent… well, there’s not really anything you can compare it to. And there’s no way to know what it feels like until it happens to you. There’s not really any way to prepare yourself for it. And there’s not any way to “get over” it. It basically just creates this hole in your life that will be there from then on. You don’t get rid of the hole, you just get used to it being there. It never gets any smaller. You just learn how to live with it. It will always hurt, you just figure out out to live with it hurting. Life goes on despite the pain.

I’m not really sure of the point of this post, other than just to articulate what I have been feeling. Losing loved ones changes you, especially losing a parent. There’s just no way to prepare yourself for the death of one of the people that brought you into this world and raised you. I know my friend will be ok, but I also know she’s forever changed now. I guess for me this scene from Grey’s Anatomy just sums it up. I know I’ve posted it before, but here it is again. Welcome to the dead dads club. I seem to have several friends that have been inducted into it now as well, and it pretty much sucks. But the rest of us members will do our best to help you through.