Big @$$ Headache 💚

🖤

“I feel like I been rode hard and hung up wet
Swallowed by a mule and crapped off a cliff
I drank enough whiskey to fill up a lake
Woke up this morning with a big @$$ headache
Y’all I ain’t kidding this son of a b!tch hurts
Where the hell are my pants
Must be with my shirt
I still got my boots on but make no mistake
They can’t help me kick this big @$$ headache” 🤣

I feel every bit of this lol

I’m SO thankful my headache is better today, almost completely, and my appetite for life is back. Being physically ill takes more life out of me than when I’m depressed. No matter how bad my depression gets, even when it’s a full-blown major depressive episode where I can hardly get out of bed, I can usually still feel a very faint, faded, washed out spark of desire, even when it’s almost non existent, it’s still here.

I rarely to never get physically sick, but for the last few months, I seem to get a recurring respiratory virus of some sort, then yesterday I woke up with the worst migraine-like headache. It made me not want anything at all, but I wanted to want stuff. I saw green nail polish I wanted and just couldn’t (I got it today and painted my nails!). I wanted to want coffee and food. My body was so hungry, but I had no emotional desire and couldn’t eat.

I don’t actually have migraine headaches but something that feels like them because I have tmj dysfunction, a disorder in my jaw joint, I had since I was little. It’s chronic, and there’s no known cure or safe treatments that I know of but some very effective stretches and self massages. I’m very used to it; it’s not an issue, just a minor inconvenience. It doesn’t affect my health and is not progressive. It can have severe flare-ups, but I’m used to it, and they aren’t that frequent.

One of the symptoms is headaches of different kinds, including these migraine -like ones. I don’t usually get them. But when I do, they are terrible and almost debilitating. This was one of the worst ones. I am very high functioning no matter what and can push my way through anything. And that’s what I had to do yesterday as we are understaffed, and I can’t just take off work. But all day, I had to stop and rest my head against things. The headaches are gross, a sickly kind of ache. They make just the thought of food or water repulsive. I was dehydrated and extremely hungry all day but couldn’t eat or drink except a few drops of water I forced myself to drink. The hunger and thirst were adding to the extreme discomfort. As soon as I got home, I had to get right into bed. I couldn’t even drink Tylenol tea and couldn’t stand to get a shower (I did today though lol). One of the worst parts is how I wanted food but at the same second did not want it or wanted to want it but just couldn’t, something like that. Anyway, my lack of desire wasn’t natural but being blocked or repressed by something.

The headache was triggered because I laid on my pillow overnight. For years now, I can’t lay on a pillow or I wake up with a debilitating headache. I like to hold the pillow in my arms as I sleep better anyway so don’t mind. The pillow does something to my neck, and it affects my head. I know not to fall asleep on my pillow. But sometimes I wake up on it anyway. I don’t realize in my sleep that I’m putting it under my head. If I wake up on it in the middle of the night, I remove it, and it’s usually good in the morning. But last night when I woke up on it, I was so sleepy, I just said what they hey, and kept it there, falling back asleep. lol BIG mistake!! I woke up SICK. It wasn’t as bad til I got into a car, and the movement pulled on my neck a certain way, which worsened it. I don’t have neck or head pain in general. Just my neck was messed up because of the pillow then the car movement jerked it and ouch! Headache intensified.

They usually only last a day. Usually the next day I wake up with them gone. Today I woke up still with the headache, but it got better and better as the day went on. Thankfully!!! So this is me expressing my gratitude lol

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! ❤️

Xoxo Kim

Wth lol 😆

How on Earth does this happen? Lol I mindlessly tossed the keys on the steps, not even looking, and they stood up like this. This never happened before. I thought maybe there is something about the carpet that would make this likely, like it’s sticky or something, but it’s not. I intentionally tried to make this happen again, tried carefully standing them up just to see, and it wasn’t happening. I gave it a few tries and nothing. 😆

Just a random post because it’s funny lol

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!

Xoxo Kim 💋

List of Happy on the last day of May! 🌸❤️

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This is me in March 2020. I was super super happy (I’m happy in general when my depression isn’t flaring but sometimes I am in an especially joyful mood and was here 😁). You can see it all over my face! LoL

Anyway, here is my current list of Happy!

1.) My job! It’s very fulfilling and fun and joyful! I’m a pet nanny! 🐾😻🐶

2.) Iced green tea 🍵 matcha lattes! I love them and have been drinking them everyday. 💚

3.) My body/health. It’s beautiful and energetic and holds me well. It allows me to do everything I want to do and recovers so quickly. I rarely get sick and when I get cut, my cuts heal super quickly. When I contracted the plague in 2020, I never even knew it because I never got sick! (I did thoroughly lose my taste/smell for two months, thought I had nerve damage) I only found out donating blood! The Red Cross told me I have the antibodies. I have a wicked immune system. I’m not thankful for not getting sick then (I was out in public walking around not knowing, though did not go near anyone and always had a mask on) but just goes to show how great my body is.

4.) My photography/glitch art hobby – It brings me joy and I’m good at it!

5.) My online friends! ❤️ Sometimes online friends are better than the in person ones(not that I currently have in person friends but hope to soon!).

6.) Movies! I love horror and comedies and especially love falling asleep watching horror ones!

7.) Acts of kindness 💜

8.) Philadelphia – My true love 💙 I just love walking its streets all day & night. 🌆 🏙️

9.) Oldies music! ❤️ The main music I listen to!

10.) My ability to experience compassion and sadness for others no matter how old it gets. I keep seeing people seeing they are too numbed by the violence all around us to care anymore. Sometimes that happens to me when I am severely depressed and especially when also extremely overworked along with it. Depression can burn out all our emotions when it’s extremely severe (it’s nothing at all to do with being a bad or uncaring person, can happen to anyone) but in general I can experience compassion and empathy and sadness and happiness for others.

11.) The birdsong on Spring & Summer nights. I can hear it now! 💕 Beautiful!

12.) That beautiful tender loving feeling when a depressive episode or wave is gradually lifting. I have always said that it’s almost worth it to be so sick because the feeling of it lifting is so beautiful and amazing. And I don’t use the word “amazing” loosely. ❤️

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are and remember to look for the good even in the darkness. 🖤

Xoxo Kim ❤️💕

Spring 🌼🌻🌸

This is an Instagram post of mine I’m sharing here!

“Spring offers us an intimate experience of paradox. Colorful new growth emerges to inspire us, seeming to flourish only in conditions which we begrudge: pummeling rain, persistently cool temps, buffeting winds. Our longing for relentless sunshine and warmth would abbreviate the glory of spring to a mere few days, not the season of slowly unfurling beauty we love to savor.

Life is predictably unpredictable, yet assuredly filled with what we will welcome and what we will shun. And it is in this mix of conditions and great mystery that we are made wiser, whole, and who we are. It is in both the roadblocks and open road. The storms and the clear skies. The moments we suffer and survive, and the moments we sparkle.” (Gratefulness.org)

This picture looks so Wintery. I’m walking around trying to get Springy pics and Spring them up even more, increasing the warmth and looking for filters that play up the summery/spring vibes but there are so so many bare trees around still and an unseasonably grey chill in the air each day. I took this picture today and it has strong Winter vibes. I was trying to think of how I can make it look more like Spring then came to the conclusion that it can’t be done; it is what it is and decided to roll with it and exaggerate the Winter vibes instead, deceasing the warmth and increasing the tint and going easy on the saturation so the blue stays a bit on the duller side instead of the bright blue of Spring/Summer. So here it is! Spring, just like life itself, is a beautiful mix of a little bit of everything, grey and color, hot, cold, beautiful, painful, snow, rain and shine…

It’s Spring where I am! I hope you are having a beautiful day wherever in the world you are! 🌸🌻🌼

Xoxo Kim

Love 💕💜

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“Bravery can never be measured by a lack of fear. It takes guts to tremble. It takes so much tremble to love.”

Much love, Kim xoxo ❤️💕💜

Belongingness ❤️

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“When we feel alone, we belong to the grand communion of those who sometimes feel alone.” ❤️

We all always belong somewhere and are in a group with many others who have something in common with us even when it doesn’t feel that way. Whatever situation we are in, feeling we are experiencing, someone else is also. And we belong with them. I read this quote on gratefulness.org, a website I have been subscribed to for a couple years. They encourage us to practice gratefulness all year long and to summon feelings of belongingness with others, with the whole uni-verse. They send inspiring quotes to our inbox each day and have online events to participate in and send newsletters and essays on positive topics, each month.

I definitely recommend signing up for the newsletter and checking out their beautiful website! It’s a gentle safe space for all and a reprieve when we are overwhelmed with the world, life, anything going on that is stressful.

Whenever we feel alone in our situation or life in general, let us remember, we belong with the rest of the people who feel that way. ❤️

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!

Xoxo Kim

Happy Fall! 🎃👻🍂🍁☕🖤

This is an old pic because I’m out of storage space now. I have to see how to upgrade and see when I can get the money for it. I have the free and limited version now. I will post something better soon. I love to post at least once each month. I used to post much more. It’s a bit off putting to not have room for updated pictures and not exactly sure what I have to do to get more storage space.

I have been in the Fall spirit and the air here in Philadelphia is getting cooler and crisp each day! Hopefully stays that way now! The Summer was excessively hot this year!

Anyway, I hope you are having a great day or night wherever in the world you are! 🍂🍁☕👻🎃🖤

Xoxo Kim

Saturday Inspiration 🌞 🌸

“An old farmer was once asked at a meeting of the Agricultural Congress to give his opinion on the best slope of land for the raising of a particular kind of fruit. ‘It does not make so much difference,’ said the old man, ‘about the slope of the land as the slope of the man.’ Many a farmer who has the right slope makes a good living and gets a competence on very poor soil, while the farmer who does not slope the right way barely exists upon the richest soil. Happiness does not depend so much upon our being favorably environed as upon the slope of our mind. It is not enough to extract happiness from ideal conditions; any one can do that. But it is the self-mastered, the self-poised soul who can get happiness out of the most inhospitable surroundings. ‘Paradise is here or nowhere. You must take your joy with you or you will never find it.’ The trouble with us is that we expect too much from the great happenings, the unusual things, and we overlook the common flowers on the path of life, from which we might abstract sweets, comforts, delights.”

Xoxo Kim 💜

Honoring the present moment 🌸

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This is a beautiful blog and blog post by husband & wife, Marc & Angel. I love their wisdom. I recommend this blog post to all! I think it’s a reminder most of us can use now and again. 💗🌸🥀⚘🌱🌷🌼🌻🌺


“Admitting the Hard Truth, and Embracing It

Where you are and what you’re doing at any given moment is absolutely essential.

Because it is the only moment guaranteed to you.

You are not on your way somewhere else.

You are not progressing to a more important time or place.

The present is not just a stepping-stone: It is the ultimate destination, and you have already arrived.

This moment is where your greatest power lies.

This moment is your life!

It might seem obvious, but, again, I forget.  And I know you do too.

All day, every day, many of us feel like the present isn’t enough—like our life isn’t worthy of our full presence.”

“What if we admitted that life is slipping away right now, and saw the fleeting time we have as enough, without needing to share it on social media or capture it or alter it in any way?”

This is true. I have found a balance of both, treasuring the present moment while also capturing its beauty to share with others. I take in the beauty and if it’s still there after basking in the presence of it, I take a pic. When I’m standing under a cherry 🌸 blossom tree and there’s a butterfly or sparrow on one of its branches, I first allow myself to be in the moment and if it’s all still the same a few moments later and I can get a picture, that’s amazing, and if not, that’s great too! But experiencing it, fully, is more important than getting a picture and interrupting the full presence. Sometimes I look out a window and see a beautiful scene with traffic and people and I have an urge to run and get my phone for a picture to capture it exactly as it is thwn before it changes but I know if I turn to get my phone, it won’t be the same when I get back, so I just stand and accept the beauty as it is in that fleeting moment without a picture.

One Hard Thing You Must Admit Before Your Life Slips Away by Marc & Angel

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! 💗

Xoxo Kim

Spring🌸

…just to be alive is a grand thing..

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