4/9
Day 7: Quality Time w/ Dad- I woke up not feeling so hot. Thank goodness it was Sunday, I was able to give in to my body's pleads not to move out of bed, well at least for a lot longer than if it was a week day. My initial intentions were to do some house keeping for my mom as my intentional act of kindness. But not able to shake the lethargic vibe I had, that didn't happen. Instead, I opted for something a little more low-key. I mustard up some emotional energy, went, sat & chatted with my dad for a while. I turned the T.V. off and had an actual conversation, full focused quality time. He showed me pictures of his Utah trip, talked about his goal and hope to take my mom to Salt Lake City next summer and other small conversations. My parents' situation is different than most people in their 70's, it doesn't allow for retirement and relaxation like they would like. It's nice to create a moment where he had the chance to talk about something positive.
4/10
Day 8: Surprise, I made time to spend with you and give you this "I thought of you gift!"- As one of my earlier acts of kindness, I randomly bought a small gift that reminded me of a dear friend of mine. Today is the day I'm going to give it to him. But not in a "drive-by gifting" way, we had a pancake & coffee dinner friend date planned.
Something I struggle with is my flakiness. The ironic part is it's one of my biggest pet-peeves when it's done to me, so I'm super hard on myself when I'm flaky towards a friend. But, sadly, this doesn't stop me. I can use my anxiety and bouts of regular depression as an excuse but no matter the reason, I'm still letting down my friends. This I'm very aware of. My anxiety allows that evil lady & her over-thinking friend into my head and have full control of it. The exact thoughts and worry can change depending on the situation and person but it boils down to being completely worried of having to be good enough, friendly enough, entertaining enough and perfect enough for the person I'm with. This is such an exhausting thought because I know how much energy doing so & pretending to be consumes. And that anxiety causes me to cancel plans more than I would like to admit. It's not just a worry or nervous feeling, I get hose too. Well it kinda is, but multiply it by a million and imagine that worry to consume every thought in your head to where you feel it in your body. Pretty sure it feels like my soul is about to explode. The only relief comes when I know I don't have to do it anymore. Of course, there is the guilt that comes after, so I'm not totally off the hook with myself.
Honestly, if I wasn't holding myself accountable for my daily acts of kindness, I would've allowed for another mental forfeit and canceled with my friend. I even threw out a "sort of" excuse to see if he would bite (it was a somewhat valid excuse) but he didn't, so I sucked it up, put some make-up on and went. You know what? It turned out to be a fantastic night!
