Hey, Happy New Year. It’s still January albeit heading into the third week, but I can still say that, right! Haha
A lot of things have happened since I’ve been away! Wheeeewwww. I needed a damn mental break! 😅
One of those things was a WordPress update. Yikes! I sorta, kinda hate it, but I gotta live with it until I can devote some time to figure out how to fix my plugins. ::shrug::
Anyway, 2018 was a big year for me and the last quarter DEFINITELY put me through my paces. There were some good highs, but baay-bee, the lows were hellish.😩
A couple of high points were that I was able to take two (much needed) vacations. It was a strange coincidence that I had vacations at the beginning and end of the quarter, and subsequently, the beginning and end of the shitty, hard times!
So, what HAD happened was…
The Highs (in a chronological nutshell):
- Went to Cuba 🇨🇺
- Harvested the first grow 🌱
- Found the hopeful beginnings of a solid social and educational communities for The Kiddo🤞🏾
- Found an amazing designer for my graphics 🖌️
- Launched my first t-shirt store 👕
- Went to Vegas The Kiddo 🏙️
The Lows:
- Broke up with Dean 👋🏾
- Car trouble – BOO! 😩
- Struggled heavily with home school 🤦🏾♀️
- Worked 7 days a week (mostly both jobs and with a third in rotation) 🤪
- Depression and anxiety came out to play 😟
- The Kiddo was feeling lonely 🙇🏾♀️
A ton of other things happened, too, but those listed were the big ticket items. So, for a three month time span, it’s pretty obvious things got dicey for me.
I found myself in unfamiliar, or long forgotten, circumstances. There were times I truly didn’t know how I would figure it out, but somehow I did. I came to that realization that we all do, we just don’t take the time to acknowledge it.
For whatever reason, it’s beneficial for us to personally reflect on our accomplishments just like we do the pitfalls. Why is it so easy to beat ourselves up for the bad decisions, but difficult to acknowledge our successes?
Anyway, somehow during the last three months, I drastically and dramatically lessened my smoking. There were so many reasons why I stopped, but they all blurred together. Time (or the lack thereof), loneliness, and depression were all factors.
As far as the time constraints go, because I was gone all day from 7 to 10 most days, with a 2-4 hour break at home for home school, having the time to effectively medicate was almost zilch.
When I could smoke, I was smoking the sativa from my first grow. While sativas are my favorite strains to smoke, I discovered they are no fun when you’re emotionally trashed.
Part of the enjoyable aspect of smoking for me is the social engagement. I am a very social person and I value making connections and spending time with people. I love having conversations, sharing laughs, or just being present.
Without Dean in the picture, I didn’t have the companionship during the high seshes. That part made me sad and thus I was less inclined to smoke sativa. The few times I had sativa, I became hyper aware of the hurt I was harboring inside me.
In hindsight, I can say that it’s a good thing I became aware of the brewing storm because I was able to grow immensely from it. But you couldn’t tell me that during the time. I just felt shitty.
All I knew was it was too late at night to be smoking energy inducing sativa strains alone and so I didn’t. 🤷🏾♀️ I decided it was important for me to still medicate with indicas to allow pensive self-reflection, while also helping me sleep at night.
My nighttime rest included getting 3, maybe 4 hours of sleep a night on top of long, mentally draining days. Indica strains became my go-to, which meant I couldn’t smoke them in the daytime because otherwise I’d be exhausted all day.
I needed to find the balance so I made adjustments to the strains I smoked and the time frame during which I medicated. This is what I love about cannabis! I can adjust my own dosage based on my personal needs at the time without f*cking up my body with synthetic chemicals in the process.
Because I know indicas and sativas very well and how they work for me, I was able to customize my dosage based on my needs. Dope, right? Cannabis/weed/marijuana/ganja (whatever you want to call it) is truly is a medicinal blessing!
Anyway, because I was smoking my favorite indica strain, King Louis XIII, I also wanted to eat, Eat, EAT! And during the most fattening time of the year, too! The NERVE! I had lost quite a bit of weight until then, and now I’m looking a lil plump again. 🐖 Hehe
Unfortunately, when the depression came out to play, the King Louis didn’t provide the mental and physical energy I needed to combat it. What it did give me was reflection and I was able to look at all of the problems I faced and examine them closely.
It helped me begin the healing process. I was able to mentally break down the issues one by one and identify the sources. This is HUGE because there was a time I couldn’t do that in a way that didn’t make me more depressed/sad.
I was able to turn off my overstimulated emotions and look at things for what they really were. That skill REALLY helped me move forward in a productive way, even though I was struggling to rein in my depression while managing my day-to-day responsibilities.
The Bright Side
Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:
- The Breakup: I began to see my breakup for what it was: LIBERATING! I was able to breath easier and relax when I was home. I was able to develop my ideas into what I wanted them to be. All the little things we compromise on in a relationship were no longer necessary. I could just live and let live. Totally fabulous and freeing!
- Working 7 days a week: It was physically EXHAUSTING, but allowed me to sleep a little easier knowing that I was productively making ends meet and more. I was able to make some small investments and start designing for my website and t-shirts. The cherry on top was being able to have a blast with The Kiddo on our vacation. Definitely a huge win.
- Car woes: While I was pissed as sh*t about having to fork over what felt like a billion dollars, I took the lesson that procrastination is NOT the way to go. Haha Duh, right? I finally got all my shit together for my car and was able to drive around without the nagging anxiety.
With those three examples, I was able to look at all the lows and turn them into positives. I had to figure out the best way to manage my time and money so that I could devote myself to the things that were important.
While that sounds easy peasy, it’s not so easy when you’re barely hanging on to your sense and sensibility; when your emotions are all over the place; or your body is beyond tired.
When it came to home school–look, I ain’t sugar-coating it–it was kicking my ass, periodT! I felt like I couldn’t get a grip. It finally became clear to me (after having a super emotional breakdown and crying for two days) that I needed to adjust my expectations.
I needed to focus on Savannah’s individual needs and desires; not mine! Let me tell you, as a single mom, that is HARD TO DO, but I needed to acknowledge that my needs weren’t important. So what did that mean for school?
Well, I laid off the super strict, regimented lessons we had. The reality is that public school kids are only used to 75 minutes of instructional time in their classrooms (startling, I know) and here I was doing 2-4 hours of hard learning for the kid.
She was super overwhelmed and began to hate home school! Once I finally unschooled (home school term referring to unlearning public school practices) my mind, I decided to really customize our “classroom.”
It became more about how she learned and what she wanted to learn and less about everything that we “needed.” Now, don’t get me wrong, we definitely still did and do a lot of the hard, boring stuff, but I gained a clearer grasp on how to plan things for the upcoming semester.
I concluded that more outdoor learning was needed. She’s a spatial and nature learner so sitting in the garden or in a park is beneficial for her to absorb the information.
The local library and I became good friends and I dove into a ton of research looking for resources/curricula for spatial/nature learners. I got a lot of good ideas and set to task making arrangements.
Now that we are at the end of the semester, I’m actually excited about the upcoming semester AND so is she. She’s enrolled in all kinds of varying activities, including a sea club for marine biology lovers.
The long and short of it is, things are looking up for us immensely in this home school journey. YES!!!
In addition to getting things ironed out with school, I FINALLY succeeded in finding a Girl Scout Troop that’s a good fit for us. It’s within our community and a couple of students are homeschoolers, as well! WIN-WIN!
And since I’m on the topic of my baby, let me highlight the wonderful 4 day Christmas break we had. We went to Vegas and stayed on the strip, just the two of us, having a ball. We ice-skated on the Cosmopolitan roof top, drinking hot chocolate and giggling together.
She dove head first into her new Xbox from my parental unit, giving Fortnite and Minecraft her best shot; we had some of our best home school lessons (even she enjoyed them, haha); we watched movies and had breakfast in bed; we cooked together and generally enjoyed our time.
Those four days were a reset for both of us. We maximized our time in a lot of ways and came home refreshed and closer than ever. She had that familiar spark back that had been missing and it was not only refreshing, but relieving to see.
My Headfirst Dive Into CBD
It was a day before that Christmas break that I dove into CBD. I hadn’t previously used CBD without smoking so I didn’t know how it would work for me, but at the time I was just drained.
I was looking for a way to get my sativa in without eating an edible or smoking. I didn’t have the time to smoke and I didn’t want to be too high from smoking, so a hybrid CBD oil tincture, Humboldt Apothecary Uplift, was the solution.
I hit my local dispensary, LA Cannabis Co , and two hours later, I felt nature giving me (and my symptoms) a hug. I could actually sense it hamper my anxiety and quiet all the self-doubt, fear, and sadness I’d been feeling.
It’s not like I wasn’t aware that those things were there, but I didn’t give them attention. I gave the attention to the sources of those things: what’s causing the anxiety, why did I feel sad, what was I afraid to do? The answer to those questions is what I try to give energy to.
The sativa gave me the physical and mental energy to do that. I had the clarity AND the energy to focus on putting some elbow grease to those issues physically. I started writing for my blog again; I started cleaning my house; and opened my little t-shirt shop!
Anywho, needless to say, I gained a new favorite in that lil bottle of CBD oil! I didn’t smoke the whole time I was gone (not even my nighttime indica). I was able to sleep peacefully and I was energetic when I needed to be.
A couple of days after we returned home, I began adding sativa strains to my day in the morning. Since I wake up at 5 (or earlier) 7 days a week, I figured it was the perfect time to wake n’ bake and it DEFINITELY was a great move.
In fact, this blog post is a result of my first wake n’ bake work session. So, basically, we just had the first undistracted Active High Sesh. I have to admit, I absolutely love it!
No TV, no music, and no company to distract me from my purpose. Can’t believe this is what I’ve been missing out on all this time. Hahaha! Don’t get me wrong.
I love the fun aspect of the AHS posts, but I just hammered out over 2000 words effortlessly. Pretty dope to me.
Alright, it’s almost time to get dressed to head to work so I will have to leave you all here. It was awesome to catch up and it feels so good to be back. I truly hope you enjoyed the read. Stay tuned…there’s so much more in store for us.
Til next time, tokers…
