foliage + flowers / being / wellness girlies and draper are two sides of the same coin

Daily writing prompt

What gives you direction in life?

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Maybe it's because life has been slow, maybe it's because I'm a woman trying to learn how to be human again...the act of being is the only thing that has given me any sense of direction in life of late.

I can't recall a time in my life when authority figures/peers ever encouraged me to stop and smell the roses. On the rare occasions when an authority figure would say the above to me, I felt as though their words were empty. Clothing disheveled along with a cup of coffee in the other hand--wake up and smell the coffee != stop and smell the roses.

Being has done wonders for my anxiety. These days, I hate the way doomscrolling makes me feel and I can't do that anymore, along with filling myself up with junk food, entertaining the company of people who don't believe life will get better, being in the company of family members who talk about pain and suffering all the time...all things done to run away from the self.

I like believing that life gets better. I like believing that times of pain and suffering are only meant to exist in our lives for a season--the Divine is absolutely on all of our sides and sees no need to prolong our suffering, as long as we cultivate hope.

Yesterday, I wrote the following: childlike wonder is not naivete; the quality of being hardened is not strength. Now I'm thinking about Hozier's song "Too Sweet." Somehow, "I'll take my whiskey neat" reminds me of Don Draper and an old fashioned.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4IadxL6BUymXlh8RCJJu7T?si=caf81714cad64498

A man so incredibly broken, living a dangerously inauthentic life so much so that alcohol can be found wherever he is along with a dalliance with yet another insanely beautiful woman. I'm not a diehard Hozier fan by any means but I think Hozier is some form of Draper and girlies who drink only bone broth a la Instagram wellness culture are two sides of the same coin...is what I imagine the song lyrics to mean.

It's ironic, in a sense. I make bone broth a la the old Chinese/Korean way with pork neck bones during the winter months as a form of indulgence something something I skim excess fat out as a should but I'd be lying to the world if I said I didn't like fatty soups. The lean bone broths of Instagram wellness girlies feel like dogmatic adherence to austerity in service of telling the world "I'm someone who takes care of herself."

On the other hand, I no longer drink as much as I used to because I hate the way alcohol messes with my sleep and I love not smelling like a bonfire. I'm just a girlie i'm just a woman forgive me for wanting to smell like a bouquet of flowers when I wake up every morning hahahahahaha.

Something something there is a point in everyone's lives where the things you do to run away from yourself become senseless. German chocolate pie consumed on a weekly basis is no longer sweet. Whiskey consumed as a means to tell the world that you're hardened instead of drinking this shit because you actually like whiskey is a cop out. Lean bone broth consumed daily for your Daily Fix of Toxin-free Nutrition probably helps to a certain degree, but I doubt wellness girlies are happier for it.

I've been some version of all of the above at different points in time. I wanted so desperately to be a wellness girlie when I graduated from college. In college, I denied myself the company of wonderful souls I perceived to be "too sweet," because I thought a childhood of domestic abuse condemned me to a lifetime of suffering. When I got my first job out of college, I ordered german chocolate pie every week.

Anyway, different things at different points in my life have all given me direction...the act of being, on the other hand, has given me the only direction I'll need for the rest of my life. :D

Anyway, happy first day of the month.