Making My Way Back

Hi, my name is Briana Symone. I’m a 26-year-old with three pets (two dogs, one cat), a fiancé and a tolerable job. Writing used to be my safe space. As a child and young adult, I constantly found myself building walls of rhetoric to protect me from the parts of the world I couldn’t understand. Writing has healed me, saved me, grounded me and shaped me.

About a year ago, I started working full-time and I’ve slowly watched my life shift to fit this new season. Working almost 50 hours a week has created a monotonous tone that now colors my everyday life. I’ve watched my physical body shift, my mental health falter and my free time slowly disappear. 8 months after starting my job, in the midst of planning a wedding and continuing to learn how to navigate adulthood, I’m ready to feel alive again. So, I’m on a journey to reinventing myself. I would also love to pay homage to the seasons of my life when I felt like my best self. To reinvent myself and feel alive in this *boring* season, I want to start by honoring the time that I spend alone and spending more time on my passions.

I’m challenging myself to write every single day. This post will be a compilation of what I’ve written for a week.

Today marks the second day of writing and I’m grateful for the ability to sit and write. I’ve missed the peace that enters my daily life when I take time to allow my words to flow freely. I had an English teacher in high school who would begin every class with a session of free-writing. She would encourage us to write without stopping even if we couldn’t think of what to write. These freewriting sessions were my absolute favorite part of class. They forced me to strengthen the bridge between my thoughts and the words I write (the invisible bridge running from my mind to the paper).

On a daily basis, I write text messages and I’m constantly formatting emails but I no longer ask myself how I’m feeling and I don’t find myself using writing as a way to navigate the world around me anymore.

It’s day three of writing every day for a week and this morning I had my first therapy session in a little over a month. It was nice but lately I’ve been feeling that I may be growing away from my therapist. This revelation feels incredibly strange since I’ve been seeing the same therapist for about 5 years. Now that I’m in a much healthier space, I don’t feel that I’m continuing to grow in the way I want to through my current therapy practice. Instead of constantly feeling triggered and learning to navigate my way back to safety, I need help learning the nuances that this season of tenderness requires.

It’s day four, I took the weekend off so now it’s a gorgeous Monday morning. I’m eating celery sticks and listening to a podcast. I’m a little sleepy but that’s normal for a Monday morning in my life. I’m going on a journey to be more intentional about the food I consume after I had a season of pancakes, eggs and potatoes followed by heavy pasta and then I would end each night with my absolute favorite PIZZA. The food combined with inactivity caused my body to shift in the midst of wedding dress shopping which became the source of a lot of late-night body affirmation sessions to combat negative thoughts.

It’s day five, I skipped Tuesday (unintentionally) so now it’s a very rainy Wednesday and I’m actually quite sleepy today. I’m grateful for the breath in my body and the ability to inhale fully so I won’t, complain. I haven’t done Pilates since Monday so I’m feeling a deep desire to move my body even though I stretched this morning. Today I’m feeling full and I’m not sure why. I’m watching a YouTube video and preparing for a beautiful and productive day.

Good Morning! It’s day six and it is a fantastic Thursday. It’s actually around 65 degrees today which feels very nice compared to the cold I felt on Monday morning when I had to wear gloves into work because it felt like 20 degrees when I stepped out of the front door. I read 80 pages yesterday on top of writing and drinking a healthy amount of water. I also received the dress I’ll be wearing to my engagement party in the mail yesterday so that was quite exciting since I’ve been looking for a dress for about a month now. This morning has already been eventful so I’m not all that sleepy. I went to sleep early last night and had no trouble preparing my breakfast quickly and running out of the door this morning. Tomorrow will be interesting though because I have to figure out a schedule that will allow me to get ready quickly then walk and feed my two hungry giants (aka my dogs).

Hello, hello, hello gorgeous people of the interwebs! It is finally day seven and I actually feel very very good. This morning, I got into the office super early. I thought it would take me two hours to get fully ready and walk then feed the dogs but all of it only took me around 50 minutes. I got into the office and realized that for the fourth day in a row, it’s blazing hot! So I trekked across campus to get a fan and now I’m enjoying the cool breeze in my otherwise incredibly humid office. I’m finding that writing first thing in the morning after answering a handful of emails or accomplishing a shortlist of tasks has been most beneficial for me. It doesn’t feel like a brain dump or a rushed endeavor, I’m able to approach it with intentionality, honesty and a clear mind. I love it! I can’t believe it’s been 7 days! I’m so proud of myself!

If you’ve made it this far in the post, I want to say thank you! Thank you for reading my words!

I missed writing so I dedicated about 30 minutes a day to sit with my words and I’m grateful for all that this exercise has brought me. I will be continuing my daily writing into another week so stay tuned for my post next week. I hope you enjoyed the musings of a 20-something. This exercise has brought so much to me and in this moment I feel immense gratitude that I was able to feed this love of mine.