Nothing tastes as good as thin feels....except a Blizzard

It amuses me that I can go three weeks feeling so overwhelmed that I consider never writing a blog post again and then one day I wake up and think of all the things I want to blog about. Therefore, I am now officially considering blogging a sign of health. If I feel good enough to want to blog, my stress level must be manageable.

Last week my stress level was not manageable. I was in one of those places where you are either very hostile or crying. One of the themes this blog revolves around is self-care. It's a very social workery term but it's got a great meaning that everyone should adopt. Self care is what it sounds like: taking care of yourself. But it's really more about the awareness of the ways you are already doing it or making a conscious effort to do more. Or, really, acknowledging that you need to take care of yourself because things are hard and taking care of yourself helps.

For example, yesterday I had a crappy afternoon of working with a struggling mom and facing stupid restrictions from big systems that are supposed to help such as the welfare/homelessness system. As I was driving away from a maddening meeting, I turned on the radio to help distract me. The first verbal commentary from the dj was about how it's  hard to believe Rihanna playing a "tough girl" in the movie Battleship after "you know who did you know what". If I began to tell you how infuriating I found this, it would be a very long, very unfunny post about social injustice so I will spare you but I really hope anyone reading this recognizes how un-okay that is! Someone isn't weak because they were victimized.

Needless to say, I needed to do some self-care STAT. Lucky for me, I just happen to drive by a Dairy Queen on my way between jobs. A good friend often jokes about "eating her feelings" and that's so what I did. And you know those people who say "nothing tastes as good as thin feels"? They lied. You know how you look back at pictures and think "wow, I looked good" but you remember that, at the time, you didn't think you looked good? When you are thin, you often don't feel thin enough. That doesn't feel good! But a Blizzard....it really did feel good. By the last spoonful I was even dreaming up new Ryan Gosling Tumblrs!! That's a drastic turn around and you can't even deny it.