volume one hundred and sixteen
lockdown diaries (part 6)
📍Written and scheduled ahead of time from a random Seattle cafe after an opening-time fail on my part kept me from accessing the Seattle Public Library as planned.
✏️ This is part six of my lockdown journals. You can read part one here, two here, three here, four here and five here.
2021
January 30th: I woke up still a little high* so it was a slow start to the day. But I am in the best mood! Giddy and giggly and pure joy!
*This was all in part 5 and was a bad time.
January 31st: I was so hungover and tired this AM. I woke up and went to wash my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, “You look so old!”*
*A pivotal moment for me, I still remember it so clearly. What I really looked like was that I was dying which came out in this entry with my limited vocabulary as “old” as usually if we are lucky, we are old when we get close to death. My face was grey, the dark under my eyes on a whole new level, completely lifeless in my complexion, I had sunken cheeks, I was dehydrated and dry and simultaneously breaking out all over my face as my body was rejecting every way I was treating it, I was ready to puke as I was on most mornings, I had a raging headache and on this morning I finally saw it as I lifted myself up to look in the mirror. I say lifted because my hangovers were so dizzy and nauseous I was unable to stand up straight, usually walking from the bed to the bathroom hunched over in half with my head at my knees.
February 1st: I am officially 30 this month! I’m so excited to be 30 and be in my 30s. This is going to be the best decade to date, I can feel it. My 20s were about finding my feet and passions and travel bug and strengths and right time at the right place and belief in myself and more. My 30s are for putting all that into motion with motive to create the life I dream of year in and year out.
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I’ll also not be drinking unless it is the weekend for a bit (Thursday*, Friday, Saturday, Sunday) so that I can take care of myself more and sleep better. I will try a smaller dose of mushrooms over the weekend and try to maintain this clear head.
*Hey reader, not sure if you know weekends, but I do, and Thursdays are not the weekend. This was a fun round of many rounds played over the years of the “Convince yourself you’re fine” game before I accepted I needed to change.
February 4th: I am feeling a little fed up! While I’m so grateful for all the patience, self-care and self-discovery these past 12 months have brought, I’m also really kind of done and over it and I want to be able to travel (and afford to) go to see my family. I pray that it will be possible for Christmas. Flights are $20k right now.
February 5th: I watched a movie and had a few wines and cried my fucking eyes out. Then I fell asleep* on the couch for a few hours before taking myself to bed.
*Passed out, babe. Sending love to you.
February 6th: I am bored! I look forward to when I can look forward to something. There was no reason to go outside today so I didn’t. I broke my rule and brought my phone into the bedroom in the AM… three hours passed.
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The reality of this bullshit coming up to almost a year and just being FUCKING OVER IT!
February 7th: My Sunday! I forgot I like to spend Sundays like this — with afternoon drinks!* I am glad I spent the last Sunday of my 20s like this.
*Look, not everyone will understand, but some of you do, and this is the addiction and disease of alcoholism, one day you realise you’re killing yourself, and not long later you’re excited about Sunday sessions.
February 8th: Tomorrow the podcast launches! I am so READY and very excited for this next chapter! I am so proud of what I have accomplished (with amazing help) in such a short time. This is exactly what I am supposed to be doing and I’m going to enjoy every second.
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Nan was sad on the phone and I am really feeling for her. I wish I could be in two places at once so I could be around her.
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WRITE! While I have been thinking about it, [my life coach] brought it up in our session. Stories? A pilot? Poetry? Web series? Use your mess as your message!*
*Whispers.
February 9th: OH MY! Podcast release day and the response has been OVERWHELMINGLY positive! Wow wow wow! SO many friends and people I admire have reached out to congratulate and/or thank me. It’s been an absolute day full of so many HYPING me up and I am so fucking happy!
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What would 12-year-old Lauren say to what you’re doing now?* She’d think you are so fucking cool and wouldn’t ask how much you’re being paid to follow your dreams or how famous you are. She’d be so stoked that you’re KICKING ASS!
*Without a doubt I listened to Armchair Expert that day, as this is Dax Shepard's wisdom at its finest and this is far more true today than it was on this day and for that I am so grateful.
February 10th: I am ready to be 30 tomorrow. I can’t wait. I think I am perfectly lined up in all aspects for where I want to be right now and I enter this MAGICAL decade knowing it will be my best yet and the world is mine for the taking.
Lovely reader, are you or were you excited to turn 30?
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here are three things I struggled with this week:
🍩 My doughnut addiction is becoming costly, by the time this lands in your inbox I will be in Australia so thankfully it can become a Zooper Dooper addiction, which is much more cost-effective.
🌀 Thinking about what I need to do tomorrow, and the next day and the next day and not just being here, one day at a time. Hoping I can shift this once the long moving to-do list is complete.
🍎 Discovering more food I am allergic to is a good thing to know but a hard thing to learn, well… the hard way.
here are three blessings from this week:
🐧 The Sandman. I think there might have to be an entire entry written about that night and all the events leading up to it from childhood, but for now, I will say it was the most joyful night of my life and I also cried so much that my mask was soaked with tears.
👕 Dogs who have an entire crate of t-shirts that I get to choose from each day. “Are you ‘Tiny and Tough’ or ‘Stay at Home Dog’ vibes today?”
🪩 Inspiration is everywhere if I am looking/listening for it.
here are three goals for the coming week:
🐨 Move to Australia!
🦘 Settle in and be gentle with myself as I do, in Australia!
🦈 Start my new chapter in Australia!
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to, at the time of writing this, write a new joke and then climb a tower for a good view. At the time of you reading this, I will be off to attempt to operate as a fully functioning human being with Canada-to-Australia jetlag.
I admit I don't remember turning thirty. It would have been my last birthday before I moved to the US, but before I knew I was moving. Presumably spent it with family, which is what we usually did.
i miss you & i love you <3