Journal #13: Providing peace for myself ❤ ☮

03/01/25

The right way to have a wrong start

I had a really good day today. I woke up late and was slow to get moving (I didn't eat breakfast until three o'clock), but that didn't really faze me.

Ordinarily something like that would put me in a bad mood. I have a bad habit of putting too much pressure on myself to be productive, especially on my days off. Things like sleeping in and schlubbing around make me nervous. I don't like wasting time.

I feel like I have to maximize my free time. Maybe because my work weeks are so draining. I work second shift, so my work days are always stuck in a weird limbo where I can never fully be productive or fully relax; I'm either preparing to go into work, or once I'm off, winding down to go to bed. Everything feels like a waste of time, but the time I have at my disposal isn't optimal anyway, so what's the point.

I'm hoping to get a better job soon and start working day shifts. In the meantime, I am trying to be gentler on myself.

I think today was a good day to practice that. I didn't finish my breakfast until well into the afternoon, and that's okay. I just shrugged it off.

Faff off

After my late breakfast, I sort of faffed around. Faffing around is my new favorite thing.

Faffing is a British term I picked up from my wife. It's just sort of screwing around, wasting time. I think it's usually used in an annoyed sort of way. Like if I was supposed to be somewhere but got distracted or was moving too slow, that would be faffing around.

But faffing around is good for you. It helps me not be so hard on myself. We all need to do it every once in awhile.

My wife is always reminding me about stuff like this. Sometimes I literally forget that I am depressed or have a chronic illness, and get frustrated when I don't feel up to certain tasks. My wife always gently reminds me that I'm just human, and I require moments of rest and recovery.

Lately I've been trying to trick my brain into letting myself faff around. Like I'm penciling in some faffing time. I make it into a task unto itself, which helps my brain stay satisfied while I get some much needed downtime.

Here's some photos of me faffing around with Marley and playing with light:

Appreciating the moment

I'm still learning what faffing around looks like to me, and what it means. I don't think it's about doing certain things, or not doing them. Rather, it's more about how we do something.

I really struggle just sitting around. But I'm not too productive either. I always get stuck in this anxious state of inactivity, paralyzed by nervousness, indecision, perfectionism, and the like. It leaves me too overwhelmed to do anything, but then I can't relax either, so I just buzz around until I wear myself out.

Today was a really nice day outside. I keep telling myself it's just another false start to spring so I don't get too comfortable. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.

I went outside to my backyard and sat at the patio table and read a book¹ while listening to the breeze and the windchime my wife bought for our first anniversary. It has both of our initials on it! :) I love it so much.

Here are some pictures:

I also recorded some audio and video because I thought it would be nice to share. Not sure how to share the audio yet, but here is the video:

Here are some pictures of me! :)

And here is a picture of the sun over the house:

I don't know the last time I sat outside and got some fresh air and sun. It was really really nice. As the weather continues to improve, I want to make a point of going outside more.

Before I had my driving license I would walk a mile to a from work each day, which ensured at least a good 30 minutes of time spent in the outdoors exercising. Now sometimes I'll go two days without leaving the house.

I don't think it can be understated how much open air and space helps our minds. It was a really good decision and helped set my frame of mind for the entire day.

I also refilled the bird feeder that has been sitting empty under my watch since my wife's last visit to the US. I'm hoping all the birdies will return soon, I miss watching them flit about in the trees.

Pretty yogurt

I want to make another post about this, just for the sake of having a dedicated #cooking tag or something maybe, but I tried out a new chia seed pudding recipe. [ETA: Here is the post!]

The first one I used was from my tried and true vegan meal prep cookbook. It's banana flavored. I liked it a lot (bananas are my favorite fruit, tied with raspberries), but I wanted something more plain that I could dress up with different fixin's I can experiment with.

I found this recipe online and liked the look of it (see above parenthesis).

I picked up some cheap almond milk yogurt from Kroger and blended it with the protein powder and raspberries. It turned out so pretty!

I haven't tried any yet—I'm actually probably going to have some after I post this blog post—but I love how it looks!

I also bought these really nifty mason jars. I like how they're shaped—perfect for yogurt, overnight oats, pudding, etc.

Here are some pictures! ❤ ❤ ❤

Marley wanted to taste some so bad! 😭

Harvest Moon DS

I've been playing my 3DS a lot the past few weeks. I jumped back into Animal Crossing: New Leaf² last year; since then, I got inspired to check out a lot of 3DS titles I missed previously, which eventually lead to me going back further to DS and GBA games. (At some point I will make a proper post about my modded New 3DS!)

I played Friends of Mineral Town on the Gameboy Advance when I was a kid every now and again, but I really loved Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and its sequel, Another Wonderful Life, on the Gamecube. I would rent either title over and over again from Family Video (along with Pokemon Channel). Eventually I started renting it off Gamefly. I inevitably stole AAWL by mistake after failing to return it for however long, My rouge copy floating around somewhere.

Anyway, I never played the DS games, so imagine my surprise when I found out they were set in Forget-Me-Not Valley, with the same characters and locations in AWL/AAWL! I can't believe these escape my notice for so long.

I've put in close to eight hours so far. I forget how little older games would hold your hand. I've been spending a lot of time on GameFAQs and old school fansites reading guides.

The game is super quirky and weird. I love it! I'm just now nearing the end of Spring. I was originally gonna shoot for the Witch Princess because I love her design, but romancing her is a huge grindfest and also requires you to be literally evil and let tons of your farm animals die, so I'm gonna have to pass.

As a kid I really liked Muffy³ and Celia, so I think I'm going to romance both of them and see who I like depending on their cutscenes and dialogue.

Most of my time is otherwise spent trying to balance the grueling stamina/fatigue system. I'll make a separate post soon with screenshots, etc.

Writing

My wife and I have sat down every Thursday for the past month and dedicated time to our respective writing projects. We usually bounce ideas off of each other for an hour or so then split up and write on our own, checking in every once in awhile. It's been a bit of a slog lately, but for the first time in awhile I was able to hit a good momentum and had a lot of fun writing! It was so exciting.

Right now I'm just warming up with fanfiction, but I've got some original fiction I keep batting around in my head.

At peace

Overall I've felt really at peace the past couple days. I think I've exhausted all my existential anxiety about myself, my life, and the world at large.

I think I'm slowly internalizing the lesson that we can only provide peace for ourselves. Looking outside of ourselves for peace, reassurance, and validation is a losing game.

Of course, our environment and the people we surround ourselves certainly play a part in how we feel, which is why it's important to cultivate healthy habits and relationships. But that all comes down to exerting the control we have over our own minds, and making decisions that are in our own best interest.

I've found myself a lot more resilient against doom and gloom recently. I think it's because of days like these, where I've made an effort to take care of myself and put myself first.

If you can be kind to yourself, keep yourself safe, and provide your own encouragement, comfort, and protection, nothing outside of yourself can get in the way of that.

Take care. <3

✘ Posted on — 03/01/25
✘ Last modified — 5 months, 2 weeks ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/journal-13-providing-peace-for-myself

Footnotes

#books #cooking #gpoy #home #journal #marriage #mental health #photography