Reflected #22: Wake up call
Welcome to Reflected, a weekly newsletter about the learnings and reflections that emerge from my daily life.
I cover topics like personal development, relationships, sexuality, diversity, and uncommon lifestyles.
If you like the sound of my project, I’d love it if you shared Reflected with someone.
I’m writing from Buenos Aires city. I came to visit my girlfriend. And her cat, of course.
She and I have been spending more time apart since her Medical School opened up some in-person practice at hospitals, after almost a year and a half of virtual lessons. That means she has to spend more time in the city. Since I’d rather spend most of my week in my house in the suburbs, we’re working out a routine where we visit each other.
As you may have (or may have not) noticed, I didn’t send out last Friday’s issue. That week I had a huge wake up call and decided to skip the email so I could focus on myself.
I wasn’t doing good, two weeks ago. I didn’t feel ok with myself; something was off. One day, I ranted at my manager in a meeting. Another day, my girlfriend almost broke up with me because of some stuff I said.
I realized I had endangered many deeply valued things for me. My work, the relationship with my manager, the relationship with my partner. And the relationship with myself, because I wouldn’t forgive myself too easily if I screwed everything up like I almost did.
Fortunately, writing has saved me before and it saved me now. In my darkest hour, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down some statements of how I’d like to treat my partner from now on. In that solemn act I connected with myself. I’ve read out loud my writing every morning and tried to stick to it for the rest of the day.
Weeks like that one are humbling experiences that tell me to put my head down and get to work. There’s a lot to do before I can become something else.
This week has been so much better. I caught up with work I had behind. I jogged and/or practiced yoga almost every day. I cooked and ate healthy. My calendar was packed of to-dos, but I managed to do them without a headache.
I’m not yet fully recovered from my wake up call - there’s still a lot I’m processing. In regards to this newsletter, I’ve been thinking I’d like to:
Go back to telling a bit about my week, because I enjoy doing so. From time to time, I like to mix things up and write about different subjects than the ones I usually write about. I also like to give a few more updates on my life.
Sharing more content from others. Sometimes I find people who’ve written extensively about female-female relationships, homosexuality and family planning, online writing and more. I’d like to visibilize them as they guide me to become a better writer in those subjects.
Keep sharing one or two reflections per issue. That won’t go away :)
I’ll experiment with these guidelines on next week’s issue and see how it goes. I’m excited to know how it will turn out.
Until next time,
Delfi
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