July

Honestly, better late than never. I also feel like I've said that for the past seven posts... you know whatever. We are halfway through August, but it's now or never to reflect on July. 

To be quite frank, July kind of (overall) sucked. Nothing bad necessarily happened, just a lot of nonsense and mundane obligations consumed me and ultimately my happiness. 

I had high hopes for the month seeing as Lauren came up to Seatown to hang out. We soaked up some rays, even biking to the Ballard Farmer's Market and Fremont Sunday Market for fresh food and and finds. 

With the weather being the complete opposite of this awful winter, I somehow managed to go to the beach three times (Golden Gardens, Alki Beach, Magnuson Park) in the first week and convince myself to purchase a doughnut floatie while catching some sun. I'M WORKING ON MY TAN. Don't worry mom, I'm wearing sunblock too! However, no matter how many times I got outside, the weather was unbearably hot. It was the kind of hot where you go to bed sweating with the window open and fan on. It also doesn't help that our house has absolutely no air flow. 

Later on, I drove to the Eastside for first FRIDAY (take note, it is not Thursday like I thought) to go to the Bellevue Arts Museum for free. 

For National Ice Cream Day, I gorged myself on ice cream from Central District Ice Cream Company, Shug's Soda Fountain & Ice Cream, and Full Tilt Ice Cream and cruised around Lake Union for work team bonding. 

Later in July, Kass was visiting Seattle and I was able to meet up with her and Parker. The three of us grabbed a quick lunch before Parker had to dip back over to work. Kass and I spent the whole rest of the afternoon catching up and wandering from Pioneer Square all the way over to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center. For Parker's birthday, we celebrated with drinks overlooking Seattle and Lake Union at MBar. 

I rounded out July with Capitol Hill Block Party which was fun, but maybe too condensed for that many people. The musicians were amazing; I'd say my favorites were NoName, Mura Masa, Manatee Commune, and Lizzo. On the last day of Block Party, I managed to convince Molly to go with me to the Renegade Craft Fair with me in the morning where we swooned over every booth and restrained from buying EVERYTHING. This outing made me realize the importance of budgets. 

Filling my time in between these little outings, I was scurrying around the market nearly everyday and working quite a bit. I managed to cross off MBar, Bellevue Arts Museum, and a general year goal of going to a music festival.  

That was all super fun and dandy, but I found myself dominated by stress. The stress of finding somewhere to live, adjusting to a full time work schedule, and other random instances (which I probably blew out of proportion to some degree). 

Still, complacency settled into my daily life with no obligations like homework and school. I would come home and lay around, wasting time doing absolutely NOTHING, then proceeding to hate myself for it. 

In July I was jaded. Jaded towards everything I was doing and all the decisions I had made. Why didn't I just go straight into higher education graduate school or medical school? Why did I not even bother to attempt to apply? Why am I not going out on any dates? Why am I staying in Seattle? Do I actually have goals? Why am I watching these random youtube videos? Am I actually making any progress or personal growth? Why am I wasting my time? 

What the heck am I doing?

And it makes me sad to become aware of the little motivation I had. I haven't been doing the activities I truly enjoy like blogging. I didn't make any time for it. 

This isn't depression or anything; I've been there - it's not fun. This feeling, this attitude, was sour and highly self critical especially coupled with the comparison of this individual going to Thailand for five weeks or so-and-so moving to SF for their new six figure job at this startup. It's hard to see people achieving and making moves while you're contemplating, nay calculating, your next move with this daunting internal fear that you will make a grave mistake and be riddled with debt or have to start all over from square one. I realized I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing. I have a general idea of what I want the next two years to look like, but beyond that, my mind is racing in a thousand different directions. It hit me that it truly does matter to me to have a purpose, because otherwise I'm simply existing and falling into the grind waking up, going to work, then coming home, repeat. Now that I have experienced it, I see how easy it is to plunge into this cycle. 

I had a very negative outlook and to a degree still hold this to be true. I'm also too hard on myself and "you don't have to have it all figured out yet". However, July was eyeopening and for the first time forced me to critically weigh my decision of staying in Seattle. Restassured, I'm sticking around and desperately making August more enjoyable.