Sunday Blues… I guess

September 16, 2018September 16, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ 8 Comments

Hey!

I wanted to write something quick in the hopes to get over this bit of anxiety I’m feeling. So, damn near a month ago, I went to the doctor because I had months of constantly being tired. She did some bloodwork and the results say that it could indicate some kind of autoimmune disease. My doctor is stressing that she cannot tell me what it is over the phone and instead told me to schedule a doctor’s appointment.

I JUST went back to school which is two hours away and it is the busiest semester because it’s my senior year. I told her I wouldn’t be able to come in until the end of the month and she told me to wait until the end of the month and come in.

I have been stressed about this for weeks now!

Not only am I still feeling the same side effects butI’m also trying to get all my shit done!

I feel like I’m better at complaining about this vocally than writing. I should really get back into making videos.

I’ve been looking up my results and googling them. I went to a doctor on campus hoping she would give me info but literally sat there while she googled everything I did. Lol.

I am upset because I had to wait this long speculating and thinking about the worst case scenario. Did she not think I’d be worried about having some kind of disease from the results? That’s just ridiculous. Even in the results, It said that it could indicate SLE or drug-induced Lupus.

I swear there is nothing that woman could say to me that would make me feel like her silence was okay.

When it comes to my health! I feel like I deserve to be told what is wrong at the earliest convenience. If it’s something big or something small or something that needs more research. I should be told. Especially because I’m away at school and the thought of having a disease is constantly on my mind.

The thing is though, I knew something was wrong and as serious as an autoimmune disease is, I’d rather be told that I had it and learned of a way to feel better than being told that absolutely nothing is wrong with me.

When I tell people what’s going on, they always pray that it’s nothing but I think I’d hate that more. That would mean that this constant fatigue that is getting in the way of getting my work done and fucking up my focus is just all in my head. I feel like that’s worse.

I’ve gone to the doctor’s complaining about joint pain and they would say it’s “growing pains”. I found myself in so much pain that I refused to work out because it just hurt. They never gave me anything to help sort things out. I was just in pain to just be in pain.

Now I know that yoga does help with my joint pain but it’s still frustrating being in pain. You know? I wake up and get out of bed, landing on achy ankles. I try typing my homework or blog posts and my wrists begin to hurt. I want to find solutions to my body problems instead of being told that it’s just how my body is and feeling like it could be something more.

I went on a tangent. I’d say sorry but this is my stream of conscious blog post.

On Wednesday, I will be finally heading home and seeing my doctor. I am super nervous for the appointment but I also want to see what’s up. I will put up another post that night at work if I hear anything substantial.

This post is kinda just for me to have as a memory. I’m posting it just so that I can log this for future Djenne!

I was hungover for an entire day.

September 9, 2018September 9, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ Leave a comment

Hey!

Okay, so… let me explain!

I wrote in a previous post about having to “break up” with a great friend and love. At the time, I felt like I had all my shit together. I felt like dumping a friend and moving forward was super easy and I felt like I really had it but then all of a sudden sadness hit me.

I was wondering how life would be with that friend in it and moping around about hypotheticals, I’m a REALLY SAPPY bitch. The first Friday back to school, I tried “drinking my feelings”. I was screaming to the entire campus about my sadness, taking shots of vodka, tequila, rum. I gave zero fucks about the next day. I wanted to go big because my feelings were hurt.

The next day, I felt like shit. obviously.

I thought that if I hydrated then I’d feel better.

That didn’t help. I laid in bed with my head spinning and wishing it would end. I was finally able to eat by the end of the night. Then I had work the next day for five hours.

I’m only mentioning all this so that you all can see my mistake and the gravity of it so that my next moves would make sense.

While at work, I finally had time to think without my head spinning. I noted how unhealthy my actions were. For me, a child of alcoholics, I go straight to drinking when I am hurting. Especially when my feelings get her. I wallow in every bad way possible. I eat food that’s bad for me and just all around sad.

It wasn’t until I had a session with my therapist that it finally clicked in my brain why I was behaving like this.

I have issues with my self-image. My father was an abuser to my sisters and me. We were constantly told that we weren’t good enough. I feel like it stuck with me. When I have issues in my relationships where I begin to feel like I’m not good enough, I lash out and start treating myself as such. I think it’s why I have such a hard time living a healthy lifestyle, it’s because a part of me doesn’t see myself as worthy of a healthy lifestyle.

I seriously hope that because I now have a conscious thought, I can now start caring for myself the way I deserve.

The thing is, I spent years not feeling like I was good enough in moments but still forcing myself to push through and keep moving forward.

“Like so what I am missing this relationship, I still have to stick to a blogging schedule.”

Then my blogging schedule will be fucked up (as it has been), and then I will still be sad about this heartbreak and not writing up my posts.

Let me clarify. This heartache I’m feeling, I don’t take the time to be patient and gentle with myself because I would feel like I am both not good enough and “strong” enough to get through it without taking time to sort out my feelings.

When it comes to my feelings, I have this idea that these feelings will go away quickly. I feel that even discussing it with some friends, it would be too annoying to complain so these feelings should end fast.

I’m finding it more and more important to be more gentle with myself. Reminding myself of how precious I am. I want to call myself “babe” and give myself patience and love because I deserve that!

My favorite thing about this year is all that I’ve been learning about myself and all the growth that is happening. I notice how much I’ve been changing.

I am not so excited about changing how I see and handle myself. I want to be handled with care by everyone around me but it all starts with myself.

Recommendations:
Watch Doctor Who & do an MCU binge
Do your work on weekends so you can chill all weekend
Don’t drink your feelings. Just learn how to get through it. Write letters to lost loves and take a bath or something.

My First CurlFest

August 21, 2018August 21, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ Leave a comment

I know this post is a LONG time coming but way back on July 21st, I went to my very first CurlFest.

CurlFest is a festival where curly natural hair is promoted and a bunch of POC come through with our natural hair and enjoy each other and the discount and sometimes free hair products.

As I said before, it was my very first time going so I can tell you first hand how every other time went. I do know that they’ve changed their admissions process. Before admission was free and it was first come, first serve to get a goodie bag with hair care products. This time, you had to get a special ticket that was around $20, I believe in order to get the hair care goodie bag. I was super broke so I knew that I’d have to wait to get the free admissions ticket.

I busted my butt getting enough tickets online only to arrive and realize there was no ticketing process. CurlFest is in prospect park and there were no gates or admissions area that I saw in order to check to see who arrived. My crew and I just walked into the crowd.

I will say right now that CurlFest is such an amazing and beautiful festival. There were so many black people gathered around and appreciating and supporting each other. People were selling their art and good food. It was all smiles and good looks. I loved it. I love being surrounded by people who look like me. I felt so comfortable and happy. I freaking love my people.

I’m not sure how CurlFest worked out in the past and I don’t know if my being late had any effect on this but it was super chaotic.

Once I got into the mix, there were so many lines and I had no idea what was being sold or given away. I was just on lines standing and waiting. The lines were so long and I gave up on so many of them because I didn’t feel like that line was worth it. I spent that time inline thinking about ways the process could be better.

When I went to BookCon, they had specific times when certain ARCs (Advanced readers copies) would drop. So each booth had a schedule of when people could come and wait for that specific book.

I think if each booth scheduled at what time they would drop products, people would know what they are waiting for, when the allotted time will close and when of if they will start giving it away again.

For example, Shea moisturizer could giveaway a package of leave in conditioners between 12 and 1 and at 1, they will stop giving them away and if there is more then they give more away at the end or at 4pm.

Between that time they could give away the edge control gel from 1:30-2:30. And any remaining gel would be given away at the end or at 5. And then maybe do goodie bags at the very end.

It’s a thought. I just felt like the system was confusing for me to navigate. My crew and I wandered and enjoyed every beautiful POC within an hour and then we left with a few free goodies we could get.

I am definitely going to CurlFest next year because I have a big love for black people. We are so amazing. I would just like to see more structure. I’ve gone to other festivals and conventions where there was more structure. I know that CurlFest is different because they giveaway products along with having discounted prices. This makes people very eager to participate and because of this, I think there needs to be a way to understand how to jump into it all.

I was standing on lines with no idea what I would receive at the end.

Feeling Ugly

August 17, 2018August 18, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ Leave a comment

Hello!

Lately, I’ve been feeling ugly.

I know it sounds weird but I’ve been feeling it.

Though if anyone had the freaking nerve to call me ugly, I’d argue with them and tell them I’m beautiful. But when I look in the mirror, I don’t feel it at all.

I want to be completely open about this because I feel like it’s normal to stop feeling yourself as much. I think it’s okay that this is happening even though I hate this feeling.

I finally acknowledged the feeling this summer and now that I noticed it, I know I’ve been feeling it for the past few months. I’ve been hating my look and my outfits and stress eating. I’ve felt so gross about my body and my skin. I feel like I’m missing that glow. I’ve noticed that I’m not as happy and I wake up tired all the time.

It’s really hard for my to put this out there but I want to grow.

I want to feel better about my look. I want to feel sexy and confident and feel like I can kick some ass.

I want to branch out of my comfort zone and do things that make me feel uncomfortable because I think I could gain more confidence by doing things that make me uncomfortable. I want to challenge myself by making healthier choices, eating healthy, sleeping on time, working out. I want to be healthy and happy and do everything to ensure that I become successful.

I’ve been slacking on doing what makes me happy and with taking care of myself. I’ve been letting myself eat all the gross junk foods that I see or eating whatever is easy. I really want to change that up.

I want to do what makes me happy and write more blog posts, stories and edit and upload more videos. I really want to finesse my Instagram. I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and get shit done. I want to do more excersises and eat healthier.

To start off my new lifestyle, I’m doing more yoga and I got grey hair braided in recently to give myself a whole new look. I even got a bob instead of my long hair. It makes me happy to change things up. I feel like I’m becoming a new person. I like it. I know I have so much more growth coming. I like that I am making moves towards becoming the person I want to be.

I want to bring back my weekly recommendations, so here goes:

Do Yoga with Adriene
Read Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
Watch Gilmore Girls and The Bold Type

Thanks for reading!

Most Anticipated Books (Fall-Winter ’18)

August 3, 2018August 24, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ Leave a comment

Howdy!

I am back on my bookish flow. Excuse my lingo because I am watching Gilmore Girls and I’ve taken to speaking like them… yea, it’s frustrating me too.

Anyways, I am super excited about some of the awesome books coming out this Fall-Winter. I desperately wanted to get some ARCs at BookCon but I wasn’t so lucky.

but without further ado…

First, Kingdom of Ash I LOVE SARAH J. MASS! I can’t wait to finish the Throne of Glass series but I’m also dreading it. I’ve been so in love with this series. It’s bittersweet to see it go. It comes out October 23rd and it’s already preordered!

Vengeful by V.E Schwab, she is becoming one a new favorite author. I love her social media presence and her writing. I finished the Shades of Magic Trilogy and soon I will read Vicious and Monsters of Verity books. I cannot wait to finish reading all that she’s written because I think she is awesome. I love finding awesome new authors. I found her at BookCon during my hunt finding Tomi Adeyemi… MY QUEEN!

Wildcard by Marie Lu, I wanted to get this ARC so badly at BookCon and I didn’t get one! Marie Lu was one of my first faves authors and I love her and her writing. I read the audiobooks for Warcross and it made me so happy during my semester!

Cruel Prince by Holly Black, I don’t know much about the book but I’m interested in reading more books by Holly Black. The book sounds so interesting.

Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson. Once again, I haven’t been fangirling about the book but the author interests me and I’d like to read more!

Peace out! More bookish posts are coming soon!

My Summer So Far

July 26, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ Leave a comment

Hello and please allow me to go the fuck off about this summer.

PSA: I plan on being hella raw and incredibly vague for those who are involved with this summer.

When this summer started, I had a list of all the things I wanted to do (check it out here). I’ve done some but the things I found most important are still undone. I wanted to write the first draft of my novel and create an entire outline for my senior project. I wanted to hang out with my friends that I hold so dear to me but… you know… things fall apart.

I knew from the very beginning of this summer that it was going to be about my own growth. I knew that this summer was gonna throw shit at me that I don’t want to even deal with. Like the reality that one of the relationships that I valued was going to go right down the toilet and that another one of my relationships was going to change in an uncomfortable but much-needed way.

People grow apart all the time. In my case, it was always because of a lack of communication. When I noticed that both of these relationships were falling apart, I reached out to them both. One of them listened and expressed their own concerns until we found a loving and mutual agreement and the other… well… I believe we are both lying to ourselves, each other and everyone about what we desire from the relationship. That lack of communication finally ended our relationship and as much as it hurts. I think it’s for the better. I am in no way shape or form ready to just move on from what felt like a very important part in my life so, I’ll allow myself to grieve and keep moving forward.

Relationships end whether you want them to or not.

I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t give up on people but at this moment, I am putting myself first.

Now onto my writing!

So, I got this CRAZY job opportunity where I am basically teaching these kids to be a bit more creative (it’s far more than that but long story short). This opportunity popped up out of the blue and then I kept getting slapped with a bunch more positivity like this dude from Barnes and Noble, who just happens to have graduated from my college and in the same major, offering to help me with my senior project. It was super wild how my life kept throwing positivity at me. I was so wrapped up in work and getting everything done perfectly that I completely forgot to look into my senior project work and to finish my draft of my novel.

I only have a month left of my summer and three weeks of work. HOw the hell will I squeeze in everything? Thankfully, for my SP, all I really have to do is read books. That was all they asked of me. I was trying to go above and beyond since I wasn’t expecting to work.

I’m slightly overwhelmed but I am also super excited about attempting to finish it all up. This summer was not at all what I expected. I adopted a dog and realized the responsibility was bigger than I imagined so I gave him to a loving family. His name is CJ. This summer really REALLY tried it but I know that I will be ending this summer strong. I’m not sure when I’ll be writing again but I hope it’s soon.

My diary entry is now finished. LOL. Thanks for reading.

P.S. I learned how to make Chai Lattes!

Patience is Key!

July 8, 2018July 8, 2018 ~ DjenneGrant ~ Leave a comment

Hello!

I have such a hard time staying focused on my healing. I feel like I always jump back to bad habits. The habits that make me feel like garbage inside out and that I just don’t move forward. I have no many wants and desires for myself but getting there seems like the hardest thing ever

Staying true to my diet and my physical fitness so that I don’t have ankle pain or fall into a depression or to get a high cholesterol, again. Being on my game seems so hard but doing nothing at all is so easy. I want to be a motivator to get people into doing what is best for them but I feel like it’s a battle for me to get there

I don’t mean to be that hard on myself because I know that everyone grows on a different level. I just want to get all this done. I’m so tired of waiting. I just want to move forward with myself.

I’m not going to finish this with some intense mission statement like I usually do, I just want to mention that things aren’t easy. Things take time. It’s great to be easy on yourself but also, realize when enough is enough. I have a million and one excuses not do what I need to get done. I know what I need to do to get over these hurdles, I just keep making the choice not to. For me, right now, its all about choice.

I look at other people and their success and start believing that everyone else is better than me at putting things out there or finding their own theme. Forgetting that I have my own vibe and my own principles that I stick to make my brand my own. I have the power within myself.

It’s the process that gets me, the middle bit. Once I start, I want results immediately. I’m trying to practice patience. It’s always been hard for me to be patient.

Thanks for reading!