Discombobulated. What a fun word - it's practically carbonated, phonetically. And it sounds a lot more put together than "completely *not* put together" or "messy and disorganized", which is what it actually means.
PREFACE
Starting tomorrow, I'm going to try to post something to this here blog every. single. day. Even if it's just a picture, or a paragraph, or makes little to no sense. I edit myself, a lot. And to prevent a gross misunderstanding before going further, this does not mean that I do not still talk a lot. It just means that I'm growing to learn that having a filter, or a 7-second delay, so to speak, is really important socially, and if my go-to, ranty, exasperation squawk is going to continue be "Seriously!?! Get a filter!" then I should probably endeavor to use my own a bit more frequently.
However, I am not a born filter-er. Some people are naturally pretty zen, and deliberate, and well, filter-y. Tactful, if you will. I greatly admire and envy this natural disposition. (Note: I do not greatly admire or envy, or actually even tolerate well, passive-aggressive emotion-stuffers who pretend everything is fine when it is not and go to extremes and actually damage relationships in order to avoid conflict. That is very *not* zen).
However, as previously mentioned, I am not one such person. I scream (screech?) and freak out and go off over little things, with relative frequency, and am perfectly fine moments later most of the time. This leads to confusion as to when I am truly upset about something (along the lines of crying wolf, except I'm not crying wolf the other times, I'm just generically a little shrill); unfair ruffling of others who do not level back out to zero quite as quickly (i.e., react appropriately to being screeched at, or even around, in the most sensitive of cases); and unfortunately, a reputation/sense-of-self as a bit of a drama queen, even though I really don't handle "drama" in the traditional sense very well - again, it's just the "shrill and reactionary" thing. So like I said, I've been working on it. But in my attempts to cram this square filter into my round piehole (if you will), I end up not so much filtering, as saying nothing. And I think we all know I can't say nothing about much of anything for long, so instead of my thoughts being polite and filtered, as I hope and intend, they end up more like too-old play-doh being squashed through a pasta maker - sort of exploding through, messily and unexpectedly.
And so I'm hoping that by practicing a little self-editing in print here on the bloggeroo, that it will begin to come a little more naturally when I speak. Since I'm in that purgatory of being wide awake but too sleepy to do anything legitimately productive, I figured I'd give it a little practice.
CONCLUDE PREFACE
So, since I tend to give myself a blank slate on basically everything each Monday (and have a hard time doing so before then, in any given week), I've developed this weird habit of using Sunday to prepare for my "I'm going to completely change everything I'm doing wrong instantly this week beginning Monday" binges, almost to test-drive various new strategies and plans and "systems" (my "systems" strike fear and eye-rolling in the eyes of all who've ever been subject to them. God help you and your spawn if you don't read the pantry shelf labels and replace items accordingly! But I digress). Since most of you probably won't see this until tomorrow, consider this my little list of things that actually make a huge difference in helping you feel more "together" all the time, regardless of whether you're working 3 jobs and raising kids and look spectacular doing it (in which case you probably don't really need these, and shouldn't be wasting your limited free time here) or barely have the energy/motivation to feed yourself cereal (aaaahhh, there we go, that feels more like home). So here we go!
Top Tips For Feeling (or Faking) Combobulated:
1. Wash your makeup off EVERY NIGHT. This is not because it will keep your skin healthy, or young-looking. This is not because of it's importance in your "sleep hygiene" ritual. This is because if you don't, you will wake up feeling behind already, looking just as trashy and sloppy as you feel (because your mascara and eyeliner will smuge all under your eyes, and your concealer will still be caked on right where you left it but your foundation/powder/primer/etc will be deeply embedded in your pillowcase). Your feet will hit the ground, you will shuffle into the bathroom to pee, and be greeted with the face of Ke$ha, despite your 9:30pm bedtime. And before you even have your first sip of caffeine, you will feel ick and ugly and behind for the day.
Then, when you decide to get ready, you will have added an easy 3-5 minutes to your routine scrubbing off your face, just so you can slather it back on. And trust me, makeup is always much harder to remove after being slept on. Especially if you used primer. (Although if you did a good enough job the night before, and didn't sleep particularly hard or otherwise face-smeary, using primer can often allow one to quickly touch up over last night's makeup before running morning errands, if need be. Hypothetically. So I've heard. From a friend.)
Well. Um, Tip #1 turned in to more of a column unto itself than a quick tip, so perhaps I will continue my tips tomorrow.
I gotta go wash off my makeup and hit the hay.
No comments:
Post a Comment