We choose to do things. Every day we make choices about whether or not we go to work, meet people, call people, go to that place, make that meal. But are there choices you find yourself regretting that you didn’t make that day? That USED to be self-care for me. I would run myself ragged taking care of everyone else, every single day, while neglecting the ONE important person in the whole world it matters to. Me. My body. My soul. Time for God. Time for peace. Time for rest. REST. The thing we neglect so easily, even though it is such an important part of self-care.
With the work I am doing with my therapist, I am learning about different faces of self-care. I uncovered a repressed memory from my childhood in which the girls in my class made up a horrible name for me and said awful things about this person. Because I wanted so badly to fit in, I actually joined in the ridicule. Until one day, one of the girls couldn’t take the guilt anymore. She pulled me aside and said, “The person they are calling fat, ugly and disgusting is YOU.”
I was humiliated. Destroyed. For a chubby 9-year-old just trying to fit in, I was absolutely crushed. I cried for months afterward. I never told my parents either, simply because I didn’t. What could they do? Call their parents? Make the girls hate me more?? So I swallowed it. Stuffed it away. Apparently, I stuffed it SO deep down that when the language resurfaced in adulthood, I was the one saying it. Fat. Ugly. Disgusting. I had taken that brutal knife and turned it toward myself. Funny thing, that transference, isn’t it?? When a man rejected me – fat, ugly, disgusting. When I gained five pounds of water weight – fat, ugly, disgusting. Over and over again.
Then stepped in Self-Care wearing a Supergirl cape (and NOT that drunk mess 2026 version, I’m talking about my Helen Slater from 1984). I started slowing down. I started really looking at the woman in the mirror I had been calling fat, ugly and disgusting.
My therapist gave me a practice. TWO TO FIVE MINUTES A DAY. Tops. THAT’S IT. Start one practice that you do EVERY DAY. No negotiation. It is NOT a choice. It is a requirement. This is the time I give myself every single morning for self-care. It may not fit inside some perfect little definition of what self-care is “supposed” to look like, but this is what I am STARTING with. And so far, I haven’t missed a day in eight days.
Last Saturday, that little non-negotiable practice took me somewhere I had somehow managed not to really see in the entire three years I have lived here: City Lake Park in my own town. I stopped. I walked. I looked at the water, the fountain, the trees. I was there. And what started as one little act of self-care somehow opened into an entire morning of peace.
That matters because I have had other routines I tried to keep. I had a night cream routine, a brush-my-teeth-with-the-new-fancy-electric-toothbrush routine, a make-sure-all-my-makeup-gets-wiped-off routine, a leave-in-conditioner-stays-on-my-scalp-giving-me-that-cool-freshness-every-night routine. GREAT routines. Did I stick to them? NOPE. Cream, toothbrush, special makeup remover, leave-in conditioner – all sitting on a shelf, abandoned.
This form of non-negotiable self-care is what my former health coach used to constantly drill into my head. Her mandate was ONE non-negotiable walk a day. It didn’t matter how long. It only mattered that you DID IT. I stuck to that really hard for a while, but apparently if there isn’t a drill sergeant screaming at me, I am not doing it.
I think most of us like to believe we have discipline, but honestly? We have selective discipline. Discipline not to have a drink? Sure. I am five years sober. Discipline to keep up with my nightly skincare routine? Not so much.
But I think I have made a real breakthrough with this daily practice because I finally stopped demanding some gigantic transformation from myself. It is a small step. I can’t go to the moon, so I better stop trying. But I can look up at the moon and say, Yes. I see you today. I can give myself two minutes. I can take the walk. I can stop long enough to notice the lake that has been sitting in my own town for three years waiting for me to see it.
And maybe that is what self-care is beginning to mean to me. Not some perfect routine I buy supplies for and abandon on a shelf. Not another giant plan I fail to follow. Just one small thing I refuse to negotiate away.
Because last Saturday, City Lake Park finally saw me.
And, maybe more importantly, I finally saw myself.
It is almost a no-brainer when people say, “You’ve got to have the right mindset to be successful.” But how exactly is that achieved? What do you do? Where do you start? Do you sit there with ChatGPT and have it create some elaborate 14-step plan for you?
You and I both know, through all the AI nonsense, you are absolutely NOT sticking to that plan.
I recently joined the Small Business Center at a local community college right behind my house. I went to a community college early in my career, and I absolutely loved it. Community colleges really are exactly what they advertise themselves to be: places for the community to learn and grow.
It was extremely serendipitous that I met the director of the Small Business Center while line dancing; yes, line dancing, lol, at the Continuing Education building every Tuesday night. She gave me her card, I came in and signed up, and suddenly I discovered this absolute gold mine of resources available to small businesses in the community, especially entrepreneurs.
So, what the heck does any of this have to do with having the right mindset?
Well, after being NYC-driven for so many years in my career, I am used to going to work. Getting dressed. Leaving the house. Sitting at a desk. Having somewhere I am supposed to be and something I am supposed to accomplish while I am there.
Working from home is an entirely different animal.
It requires an incredible amount of discipline because comfort can absolutely become a HUGE problem when you are trying to be productive. There’s the TV. There’s your ridiculously comfortable bed. There’s the couch calling your name. There’s the kitchen. There’s the random pile of stuff across the room that suddenly becomes incredibly important to organize the second you’re supposed to be doing actual work.
And there goes the productivity plan for the day.
What I’m starting to realize is that, for me, having the right mindset has a whole lot to do with having the right environment.
Mindset is influenced by what is around you.
It doesn’t always come from sitting at home and forcing yourself through sheer willpower to become disciplined overnight. Maybe that works for Wonder Woman and Superman. It does very little for the rest of us.
So I decided to stop fighting myself.
I have blocked out two hours a day, skipping Wednesdays because I actually want to get out and network in the community. Every other weekday morning, somewhere between 8 a.m. and noon, I find two hours to go to the Small Business Center with my laptop and work. Really work.
I bring my notebooks, pens, notepads, highlighters—the whole damn office supply aisle, basically. I even have their desktop computer at my disposal in an Executive Office designed specifically for small business owners.
And guess what?
It’s working.
I have already scheduled a meeting with my second client. I have more usability research hours blocked out. I am sitting down and actually getting things accomplished instead of spending half the morning thinking about everything I should be accomplishing.
I have been more productive than I have been in years.
And I have the miracle of community colleges to thank for part of that. I have the resources available to small businesses here in North Carolina to thank. But I also have to give myself some credit for finally having enough sense to recognize something very simple:
My home is not conducive to productive work.
I love my apartment. It is my sanctuary. It is where I relax, watch movies, write, eat, sleep, and live my life. But maybe that is precisely the problem. My brain knows that place as home.
The Small Business Center feels like work.
The moment I walk through the door with my laptop bag, sit down at a desk, pull out my notebook, and start setting everything up, something switches on in my brain.
Okay. We came here to get shit done.
And suddenly I do.
So, if you want the “right mindset” to be successful, maybe Step One isn’t changing your entire personality, buying another planner, making another vision board, or asking an AI to design the perfect life you’ll abandon by Thursday.
Maybe Step One is much simpler:
Change your environment.
Get the hell out of the house.
Get dressed. Pack your lunch. Grab your laptop. Go to the library, the community college, the Small Business Center, a quiet café, wherever you can sit down and actually feel like you came there to work.
Because sometimes half the battle isn’t convincing your brain to become productive.
Sometimes you just have to put your brain somewhere that productivity makes sense.
And for me?
Apparently, all it took was a laptop, a good ole peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an Executive Office,
People love to say that we are not defined by our circumstances, but those circumstances sure as hell help shape us. Lol. I am a product not only of the environment I grew up in, but of everything that environment, and life itself, did to me. I didn’t ask to be bipolar. I didn’t ask to become an alcoholic, go to jail, become homeless, or face every future job application with that one condemning question:
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
I didn’t ask for the wreckage. But somewhere inside all of it, I found grace, mercy, faith, sobriety, and resurrection.
So are we shaped more by our experiences, or by who we already are?
I think it is both.
Maybe we enter the world with certain raw materials already inside us. I was always loud, determined, rebellious, emotional, funny, impulsive, and completely incapable of doing anything halfway. Then life got hold of those qualities and threw them into every kind of fire imaginable. Some of those fires nearly destroyed me. Others revealed parts of me I never knew were there.
I once heard that a horse must first be broken before it can become a prizewinner. I don’t know if that is actually good horsemanship, it sounds pretty damn cruel when you think about it, but the idea stayed with me. Are we required to be broken before we can become something greater? Do we have to crawl through fire before we can recognize the light?
And what about people who live relatively ordinary lives without enormous trauma? Are their lives better because they were spared the destruction? Or do they sometimes wonder what might have happened if they had taken the risk, left the familiar road, or allowed life to shake them up a little?
I live at the extreme end of that theory.
I went from being a loudmouthed Brooklyn girl with giant hoop earrings to the high school party girl rocking a pink pager and running her own fake-ID business. Yes, I was apparently an entrepreneur before I was even old enough to drink legally. I was always all or nothing. Unfortunately, that same attitude eventually followed me into alcoholism, mania, a destructive marriage, criminal charges, and incarceration.
But that all-or-nothing nature did not disappear when I became sober. It simply changed outfits.
The same kick-ass grit that could probably sell Grandma her own retirement back to her, (morally, I would never do that, shame on anyone coming for Grandma’s pension), now drives nearly everything I do. I gave up alcohol, but I eventually realized I had not given up my habit of becoming completely consumed by something.
Yeah. Do the math on that one.
For the past two years, I buried myself in church work. I was baptized. I joined the Legion of Mary. I became a lector and stood at the podium during Mass, reading Scripture aloud. I became a Eucharistic Minister and brought Communion, Jesus Himself, to people who were sick, elderly, or unable to leave their homes. I attended novenas, volunteered at events, helped with parish projects, and made myself available whenever someone needed something.
Now, let me be clear: I was not trying to buy my way into Heaven with volunteer hours and church casseroles. As a new Catholic, I genuinely believed this was what I was supposed to do. I had been given a second life, so I thought I needed to pour every drop of it back into God.
The work was meaningful. It still is. My faith is real. My service is real. But once again, I had gone all in. And while I was busy building a beautiful life in the Church, I quietly let go of the community that helped me build that life in the first place: my AA home group.
Much to learn, young Skywalker still has.
And then some!
AA was where my shattered life first began becoming whole. Before the church committees, the podium, the Communion visits, and the holy work, there were folding chairs, burnt coffee, terrible cookies, and people who understood exactly what it meant to wake up ashamed and still try again. That room held me when I had almost nothing.
This past month, I spent more time with my parents and began gathering all the old pieces of my recovery story: papers, books, folders, notebooks, letters, jail memories, and rehab materials. It was like opening a time capsule from a woman who did not yet know whether she would survive. When I got out of jail, my parents told me I was absolutely not moving in with them.
BEST PARENTS EVER. 😂
At the time, I probably did not appreciate the brilliance of that decision. I had just come out of jail, my marriage was collapsing, I had nowhere to live, and my parents were essentially saying, “We love you deeply. Now go to the homeless shelter. But they knew me. They knew that if they rescued me too comfortably, I might never learn how to rescue myself. So I went into a shelter and then rehab. I learned how to live sober, follow rules, manage my own life, and begin again without hiding inside my childhood bedroom.
Today, I live independently in a beautiful apartment only about thirty minutes from them. I have peace, privacy, friends, responsibilities, and a life that belongs to me. That independence exists partly because my parents loved me enough not to make my recovery easy. That was not abandonment. That was wisdom.
Sobriety is where my strength lives. I would not be the person I am today if I had not learned how to fight the demon that brought me to my knees for most of my life.
Recently, I walked past my five sobriety chips sitting on my entertainment center. Five years. Five little circles marking thousands of choices no one saw me make. I took a picture and made a post on Reddit. Yes, Reddit, the giant black hole of the internet where you can find emotional support, conspiracy theories, and someone arguing passionately about the correct way to toast bread, all within five minutes.
But the response to that post shook me.
It was not only the seven-year and ten-year sober veterans giving me digital high-fives. There was someone who had relapsed. Someone with five months. Someone just beginning who could not imagine ever reaching five years because five years felt impossible. Every stage of sobriety showed up beneath that post.
And suddenly I realized that while I had been swallowed by church life, I had become blind to another group of people who needed my voice. Not because I have everything figured out, God knows I do not, but because I have walked through something they are still trying to survive.
My story mattered there.
My five chips mattered.
The woman I had become mattered.
And then the revelation came, clear as anything:
Go home, Lynn.
Go home to your home group.
Walk into that room without shame. Walk in quietly. Do not go all Brooklyn, prancing through the door like the prodigal daughter has arrived with her own theme music. Go in humble. Sit down. Listen. Remember who you were when you first found that room.
I had arrived there fresh out of a marriage to a drug addict, a man who had isolated me from my friends and nearly dragged me into another crime while I was still fighting to remain sober. I was frightened, angry, newly independent, and barely holding myself together.
My home group gave me community before I found my church community. It gave me language for what had happened to me. It gave me people who did not flinch when I told the truth. It gave me a place where shame did not have the final word.
Somewhere along the way, I became so involved in being useful that I forgot I was still allowed to be supported. That is one of my oldest patterns. I know how to give. I know how to perform. I know how to throw myself into a mission until there is no room left to hear my own thoughts.
But when I looked at the crucifix on my wall, I felt Jesus smiling at me as if to say:
“You don’t have to give Me or the Church up. We can exist inside your sober life.”
Now, I better slap that revelation onto a recovery lunchbox and get my ass to the noon meeting. Lol.
So, are we shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?
I think who we are determines what we carry into the fire, but our experiences decide what comes out on the other side. I was always fierce. Life taught me where to aim that fierceness. I was always loud. Recovery taught me when to listen, and the Church gave my voice somewhere sacred to carry.I was always all or nothing. Now I am learning that a healthy life cannot be built entirely in extremes. It needs balance. Church and AA. Service and support. Independence and community. Giving and receiving.
What happened to me is not the whole definition of who I am, but it changed me. Jail changed me. Homelessness changed me. Alcoholism changed me. My parents’ difficult love changed me. Sobriety changed me. The Catholic Church changed me. The people sitting in folding chairs at AA changed me.
Grace changed me.
The tragedy of my life did not disappear. It became the beginning of a redemption story. I am not grateful for every terrible thing that happened. Some things were simply terrible. But I am grateful that they did not get the final word.
I did.
God did.
And five years later, I am still here—sober, independent, faithful, deeply imperfect, and finally finding my way home. So yes, I believe what we go through shapes who we become.
There is a lot of radio silence in my relationship.
That is just the truth of it.
We have evolved to a point in this long-distance thing where constant contact is simply not realistic. His life is incredibly full, incredibly burdened, and wrapped up in responsibilities I honestly cannot even fathom. Children, obligations, exhaustion, life coming at him from every direction; I knew that going into this. I understood from the start that loving him was never going to look neat or easy.
But understanding something and not hurting over it are two very different things.
When I miss him, I miss him terribly. The long silences can stretch for days, and no amount of maturity or perspective makes that ache disappear. It still hurts. It still catches me off guard. It still leaves me staring at my day thinking, now what do I do with all this love, all this wanting, all this energy?
And that is exactly where the positive change comes in.
Instead of blowing money on nonsense, comfort shopping, or anything else that gives me five minutes of relief and leaves me exactly where I started, I finally made a real investment in myself: I hired a health coach and personal trainer. And let me tell you, that felt huge. Not glamorous. Not cute. Huge.
My mom, especially, is so proud of me, and that means a lot. Because one of the deepest hits to my self-esteem over the years has been my weight. After thyroid surgery, everything seemed to spiral. My body changed so fast it barely felt like mine anymore. Add in the chaos of chasing my ex-husband and his insane drug habit, and somewhere in the middle of surviving all that madness, I completely let myself go. And I do mean completely. Gaining 50 pounds in three months will do a number on anybody’s confidence.
So, this feels bigger than fitness. Bigger than calories or workouts or whether I skip the lava cake this weekend.
This feels like me finally coming back to myself.
And the timing could not be more perfect. I am in a season of my life that is full in a way I never thought possible. Not perfect, not easy, not painless; but full. Rich. Expanding. I have a life now. A real one. An independent one. A meaningful one. If Mr. California is burdened and short on time, then I can take all that “missing him” energy and pour it somewhere that actually builds me instead of draining me.
And believe me, my life has been opening up in ways that still leave me stunned.
I became a Eucharistic Minister, which means I now get to bring Communion to the sick; something that feels deeply sacred to me. I read on the radio for the blind twice a month, and there is something about it that is hard to even explain. It is joyful in a way that sneaks up on me. I am back at the podium every Monday at Mass doing the readings, which feels like its own kind of holy foreshadowing, a steppingstone toward finally using my voice the way I always knew I was meant to. The second part of the podcast I guest starred on about my life was just released and got such beautiful feedback. My voice acting work is slowly beginning to stir and show signs of life. Doors keep opening that I never, ever thought would open for me.
And now this.
Now, the health coach. The trainer. The commitment. The choice to stop abandoning myself.
No, my relationship is not ideal. Some people would probably look at it and say it does not even count. That is their business. To me, it is heaven in its own strange form; knowing that somewhere across the miles is a shy, bashful, incredibly sweet man who loves me the way I always wanted to be loved when I was a teenager. The passing-notes, decorating-his-locker-because-he-is-so-damned-cute kind of love. The kind that feels rare. The kind you do not confuse with anything else. The kind that never needs help finding a spark, because whenever we come together, the whole thing is already on fire.
But in the meantime, while life stretches and grows and sometimes goes painfully quiet, I am building something too.
I am rebuilding my confidence.
I am rebuilding my body.
I am rebuilding the way I see myself.
And I have to tell you, that feels powerful.
For the first time in a long time, I am not just waiting for life to happen to me. I am participating in it. I am shaping it. I am investing in it.
And who knows? Maybe somewhere in the middle of all this, I really do end up with that killer body.
But even more than that, I am becoming a woman I can feel proud of again.
Star Trek: The Next Generation has got to be one of the shows I’ve obsessed over since childhood and well into adulthood. Commander William Riker had my heart for most of my adolescent years, totally unbeknownst to me that years later I would fall in love with my own “Mexican Riker,” and that it would become an ongoing joke between us. Mr. California loves it when I call him Mexican Riker. Just this past Saturday, we spent hours browsing different Riker-themed TNG shirts based on famous episodes. He picked The Royale because it was one of his favorites, and the shirt looked really, really cool. I even found myself watching that old classic episode again this week, mostly because I was thinking about my hunky Mexican Riker, but also because it has always been one of my favorites too. It’s one of the best things me and Mr. California share, this bond through nostalgia that we aging romantics absolutely love.
I have to say, though, all this happiness and fun comes with a price. I have been living in silence for months in this relationship because of the aftermath of my bipolar episode in 2024. Imagine Riker in the episode Frame of Mind. He goes through one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable, trapped in a mental institution and unable to tell reality from delusion. That is exactly where I was two years ago, and it absolutely terrified Mr. California. I still don’t know how our relationship survived that, especially since I was gone for three months in different hospitals, and he had no idea what had happened to the love that had changed his life forever. Since then, there has been a huge wall between us, a boundary he put in place, one I keep bleeding into with reassuring, loving voicemails and emails. But it is costing me. My resolve is breaking down. I can no longer sustain reaching out into the void for him, loving him out loud the way he used to love me, without getting much in return. It is costing me my dignity, my self-respect, and honestly, it humiliates me on a daily basis.
But there is one thing I learned, especially through Star Trek: The Next Generation. For all its themes of love and romance, everyone had a purpose. A goal. A job. Something they believed in and were proud of. That was the utopia of it all. No war, no greed, no scrambling for meaning, just peace, exploration, and becoming. I remember watching that as a child and dreaming of a future like that, a life where I was working toward something bigger instead of destroying myself over whether or not a man calls me. That is the lesson here. The wonder. The growth. The bigger picture. Mr. California does love me. He absolutely does. But he is confined by a life that demands everything from him, and our dreams changed course because of what my manic episode did to both of us. He is no longer the man who loved me out loud the way he once did. Maybe I hold on so tightly because I still hope I will get that version of him again someday, even when he tries to shut that door. He loves from fear now. I don’t. And that is one of the hardest things I have ever had to swallow.
But I remain hopeful. I still look at the stars. I still watch Riker on my screen with those dreamy eyes, and I still spend my nights with my Mexican Riker and his dreamy voice. At this point in my life, I have no husband, no children, and yet I live the most independent life I have ever had. Nothing can buy the freedom and joy I have today. Me and Mr. California always knew it would be years before we could build a life together, so this is my time to shine. My friends. My mom and dad. My beautiful work in my church. The voice acting career I am just beginning. My new position at a radio station, on air, helping put together radio programs for the blind.
This is my destiny. This is my purpose. Between jail, institutions, and homelessness, I truly have gone where no one has gone before.
And somehow, the future has never looked brighter.
If I’m brave enough to tell the real truth, ungraceful, unapologetic and messy, I have to admit this: what I complain about the most is silence.
Not the peaceful, sacred quiet kind that feels like rest. I mean the hollow kind. The echoing kind. The kind that makes your chest feel like an abandoned room. The kind that feels like being forgotten. Like being quietly set aside. Like a sentence handed down for loving too much.
I complain about waiting. About hoping. About checking my phone too often. About staring at empty spaces where reassurance should live. About the space between messages, between promises, between moments of closeness that never quite settle into certainty.
I complain about loving with a heart that refuses to be quiet.
I complain about the not-knowing, so much emotional limbo of almost, maybe, soon, someday. About caring more than feels dignified. About longing so loudly it sometimes disguises itself as frustration, impatience, or anger.
But if I strip it down to the bone, here’s the confession underneath the complaining:
I don’t complain because I’m shallow. I complain because I’m so damn fragile. I don’t complain because I’m ungrateful. I complain because I’m wounded.
Sometimes it feels like I’m being punished for the size of my own heart. As if loving deeply is a crime. As if longing is something I should apologize for. As if the depth of my devotion is a flaw that needs to be corrected by distance, silence, and restraint.
It can feel like I’m being taught, over and over, that wanting is dangerous and no good. That hope should be smaller. That love should be quieter. That the price of depth is learning how to suffer politely.
I complain because I feel like I’m always the one reaching. Always the one waiting. Always the one trying to make peace with uncertainty while my chest quietly caves in.
My complaints are grief in disguise. They’re devotion with nowhere to land. They’re love pacing the floor, restless and unsheltered, aching to be answered.
I complain because I feel too much, way too damn much, because my heart doesn’t know how to do anything halfway, because when I attach, I attach with my soul, because silence can feel like abandonment even when it isn’t meant to be.
And beneath all the venting, spiraling, and overthinking, there’s a softer truth I don’t always say out loud:
I’m not angry. I’m aching. I’m not bitter. I’m grieving. I’m not dramatic. I’m hurting, and trying to understand why love sometimes feels like a punishment instead of a gift.
Maybe what I complain about the most isn’t other people, or circumstances, or fate.
Maybe I complain about how much I love, and how much it hurts to keep loving anyway.
And maybe that isn’t a flaw.
Maybe it’s a confession. Maybe it’s evidence. Maybe it’s proof that my heart is still fiercely, painfully alive.
Decluttering has been on the New Year’s list for a while, not just the kind where you throw out expired mascara and ask yourself why that same DVD has three different damn cases, lol, but the kind that clears out the mental clutter, too.
I’m not saying I’m a hoarder, but… let’s just say my cozy apartment has been leaning a little too far into the “cozy” lately. Piles of things I don’t use, mystery objects I swear I’ll get to someday, gifted items I don’t even like (but feel weird throwing out), it’s all starting to close in on me. And that’s just the physical clutter.
Don’t even get me started on the mental mess.
My brain? Oh, she’s on her own schedule. Jumping from grocery lists to emotional spirals and crying fits, to story ideas I never write down, to “did I ever respond to that email from three weeks ago?” to the soundtrack of that movie I once knew so well, but now seems corny as hell. It’s like living inside 47 open browser tabs with music playing from somewhere, but you can’t find the source. “I know there is music playing where are youuouuuuu???!!!!” Lol.
So this year, I’m on a mission. A clean-sweep-everything-down-to-the-soul mission.
🧠 The Mental Declutter
When was the last time you actually just sat with yourself? Like no phone, no Netflix humming in the background, no doomscrolling until your eyes pops out of your head?
When was the last time you imagined something for fun? Told yourself a story in your head? Danced around your living room like Tom Cruise did in tidy whities?
It’s wild how distracted we’ve all become.
I live alone. I could be doing this every day. But between shows to binge, apps to check, and brain fog to battle, I somehow forget I even like myself when the screens are off.
That changes now.
I want my mind to have room again. Room to wonder, to dream, to remember who I am when I’m not overstimulated and under-inspired. I want to lie on my couch, open a book, and stay there for a whole hour without reaching for my phone. I want to breathe slower, daydream more, maybe even get a little bored – did you know it’s not a bad thing to be bored? Why is it so bad to have nothing at all to do – I mean NOTHING, just do nothing, why is it we always have to do SOMETHING?
🧺 The Home Declutter
As for my apartment? We’re going in. Stuff I haven’t worn in years? Gone. Weird, gifted knick-knacks that haunt my shelves? Thank you, next. Anything that doesn’t spark joy or at least serve a purpose besides being mildly cute and collecting dust? Bye-bye.
I want my home to feel like a hug again—not a storage unit run by someone who’s emotionally attached to old tote bags.
💌 And Yes… The Clutter of HIM, Too
Now… we do have to talk about a certain man I call Mr. California. Because as much as I’m decluttering, his name still takes up premium real estate in my brain.
Yesterday was all quiet on the Western front but today brought a warm little message. I know he’s under a lot of stress; he’s having to reapply for some of the benefits he needs for his daughter, and the system, as usual, is an unholy mess. It hurts to see someone I care about deal with so much unnecessary pressure. And I know he’ll need support. The kind I’m very good at giving, ALL kinds of things. I think that will include turning him into a pile of unkept, spent, breathing, post-coitus mess too, lol.
But I’m learning something new this year: I can love him and still make space for myself.
My love doesn’t have to come at the expense of my peace. And his silence doesn’t get to stop my momentum anymore.
So yes, out with the old, in with the soft, the joyful, the meaningful, the uncluttered. In with mornings where I don’t wake up instantly anxious. In with shelves that actually breathe. In with dance breaks and books and wild imaginings.
Because this new year? It’s not about perfection. It’s about lightness.
I can never stick to a resolution, so I never make any at the beginning of the year. Why set myself up for failure when I can just… keep things ambiguous and filled with vague hope?
I’ve been working on a book for the past twenty years. Yes, twenty. That’s two decades of “almost had it” and “just one more scene” and “where’s my snack?” And don’t even get me started on this so-called weight loss journey—if we’re being honest, it’s been less of a journey and more of a layover in a food court. I’ve gained 40 pounds in the wrong direction, and my emotional compass is still somewhere between “I should try” and “pass me the big piece of chocolate cake.”
I deeply desire to stick to my goals—but here’s the kicker: I have the discipline of a drunken sailor who just got shore leave and hasn’t seen a woman in a year. I get bored. I get overwhelmed. I spiral in silence and disappear into the vortex of chatrooms, forums, and omg Reddit, yes Reddit, that damn Reddit – and existential dread.
But I do have one incredible, titanium-strength win in my corner: I’ve been sober for five years. That’s not nothing—that’s huge. If I can do that, surely I can manage to shake my ass to a few dance workouts and open a damn Word document without melting into a shame puddle. Right?
Maybe.
We’re gonna find out.
So, here’s my baby-step blueprint—a Two-Week Plan for the Undisciplined, Unruly, and Unapologetically Human—to build new habits, sweat a little (but cutely), and stop collapsing every time life goes radio silent, (when he doesn’t call and my whole world crumbles into shame, guilt and hours of crying, how pathetic).
🔥 Two-Week “Get-It-Together-Lynn” Plan™
⭐️ Week One: The Warm-Up Week
Barely Doing the Thing is Still Doing the Thing.
🕺 MONDAY: The Great Unfurling
Goal: Just move. No expectations.
Action: One dance video. Literally one. Even if I flail. Especially if I flail.
Book Work: Open the doc. Scroll through it. That’s it. I don’t have to write, just reacquaint myself with it like it’s a long-lost ex I’m stalking on Instagram.
Mindset Move: Say this out loud: “Discipline isn’t sexy. But I am.”
🍜 TUESDAY: Meal of Queens
Goal: Eat one actual vegetable. Not a garnish. Not salsa. A real one.
Action: Cook or order something green. Bonus points if it crunches.
Dance: One video + freestyle my own silly routine after.
Book: Write one paragraph. Doesn’t have to be good. Just has to exist.
💡 WEDNESDAY: Midweek Miracle
Goal: Make Mr. California’s silence work for me, not against me.
Action: Set a 15-minute timer. Do something focused (book/dance/clean/anything) with no distractions. Then reward myself with the dumbest meme I can find.
Book: Write a list: “Scenes I still want to write.” No pressure. Just play.
📦 THURSDAY: Shuffle & Declutter
Goal: Clear the chaos just a little.
Action: Clean one thing. A drawer. A shelf. A pile. Blast music while I do it.
Dance: Put on a song that makes you feel sexy and MOVE.
Book: Re-read something I wrote that I like. Bask in my own brilliance.
🌙 FRIDAY: Fancy Friday
Goal: Romance myself.
Action: Dress cute, even if you’re I’m home. Light a candle. Make my coffee like it’s a $7 café drink.
Dance: One routine. Lip sync like I’m auditioning for The Voice.
Book: Write a love letter to my main character. Remind them (and me) why they matter.
💤 SATURDAY: Lazy, Not Dead
Goal: Gentle motion + gentle kindness.
Action: Stretch for 10 minutes. Then nap like a Victorian heroine.
Silence Prep: Make a Silent Survival List: stuff I can do when everything feels empty.
Book: Set a timer for 10 minutes. Brain dump whatever is in my head.
☀️ SUNDAY: Soul Reset
Goal: Reflect, reset, recommit.
Action: Take myself on a solo date (even just to the living room). Journal three things that made me smile this week.
Dance: Put on a slow, romantic song. Move like I’m dancing for someone I adore. (Yes, maybe him. Or maybe you.)
💥 WEEK TWO: Gentle Repetition = Real Habit
We’re not being “good”—we’re just being better than yesterday.
This week? I’m just repeating Week One. No fancy upgrades. No overachieving. Just loop it again—with slightly more confidence, slightly more consistency, and the knowledge that I didn’t crumble.
If I miss a day? I start again the next. There is no failing in this plan. There’s only showing up with my messy hair, last night’s mascara, and a desire to not live in chaos forever.
I may completely be undisciplined with procrastination in my bones, but dammit, I won’t let these big challenges break me this year.
How many of you are just so done with every damn thing being redone, recycled, rebooted, regurgitated from the past? I mean seriously—how many more Spider-Men, Batmen, Ghostbusters, or girlbossified reimaginings of once-perfect classics do we need? It’s not even nostalgia anymore—it’s like a copy of a copy of a blurry VHS tape that someone tried to turn into a TikTok.
When I say I’m nostalgic? I don’t mean the algorithm spoon-feeding me another reboot. I mean unplugged. No computers. No phones. No texts dinging every five seconds. Just the clink of change at the bodega, where you could get a bacon egg & cheese and a cup of coffee for under five bucks. A foam cup, too. Not some hipster compostable oat milk nonsense.
Lately, nostalgia’s become a dirty word. Like people are gripping the past so tight they forget how to actually create in the present. Especially in Hollywood. It’s like ever since COVID hit, every last creative gene got flushed down the nearest vaccinated toilet and now we’re stuck watching pixelated Frankenfilms stitched together with AI and celebrity cameos.
Okay, but listen—every now and then, the universe throws me a bone. I thought that reboot of Anaconda with Jack Black and Paul Rudd was gonna be absolute garbage. But it actually slapped! I laughed, I got that good hit of throwback dopamine, and I didn’t feel like I was watching a bloated corpse of my childhood favorites being paraded around like a puppet. Win-win. And don’t even get me started on Stranger Things—remember how that show used to feel like a love letter to 80s kids? Now? The episodes feel like AI wrote them on a deadline. The lowest ratings on IMDB don’t lie, folks. Writer gods, why hast thou forsaken us?
So yeah, when I crave nostalgia, I’m not reaching for some streaming app’s Top 10. I’m popping in a DVD—yes, a real one—and curling up on the couch next to my giant plush Scooby-Doo with the phone on silent and the world locked out. You know why? Because I want to pay attention. Full, undivided, sacred attention. Not that split-screen, scroll-and-watch nonsense we’ve all been guilted into calling relaxation.
And can we talk about how all these notifications and constant pings have turned half the population into jittery squirrels with burnout? I mean, growing up in Brooklyn in the 80s, nobody had ADHD. Why? Because we were OUTSIDE. Drinking from hydrants. Playing manhunt. Getting lost on purpose. And if someone wanted to reach you, they had to leave a message on the one phone. With the one answering machine. On the one little cassette tape. And guess what? You didn’t check it till you were good and ready. We had freedom, baby. Sweet, unreachable, unbothered FREEDOM.
To me, nostalgia is about stillness. It’s about choosing to be present in the quiet—wrapped in a soft robe with a Walkman on, letting the songs play in their original order without skipping. Maybe even dragging out that dusty vinyl from the closet and letting it crackle under the needle. Or wandering into a used bookstore, sitting on the floor, and reading a random chapter just because it caught your eye.
God, I remember walking into Barnes & Noble back in the day and seeing people sprawled in the aisles, devouring entire books like their lives depended on it. Back then I’d grumble, “get outta my way”—but now? I miss them. I miss the chaos. I miss the realness.
What do you miss most?
For me? It’s that hit of a song on the radio I haven’t heard in a decade. Not a curated playlist, not an algorithm—just a lucky stumble into memory. It plays, and suddenly I’m sixteen again, in platform sneakers, lip gloss poppin’, talking to boys I had no business talking to, and absolutely thriving.
But maybe, just maybe, nostalgia doesn’t have to mean “going backwards.” Maybe it just means making space for the parts of yourself the world forgot to love. The unplugged version of you. The one who still knows how to sit still, sip a bodega coffee, let a record play, and just be.
So yeah, Hollywood can keep the remakes.
I’ve got Scooby, a DVD player, and a killer memory bank.
“Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us.”
Those infamous words have followed me through so many seasons of my life, and lately, they feel spoken just for me.
I’ve always loved the night.
It’s where the noise fades, where the world exhales, where the sharp edges of the day soften into something forgiving. Night has never demanded anything from me — it simply opens its arms and says, come as you are. In the quiet hours, inhibitions loosen, laughter feels freer, and the most honest versions of ourselves slip out from hiding.
As a teenager, the night was rebellion and adrenaline — sneaking out with a fake ID, neon lights flickering across sweaty dance floors in New York City, music vibrating through my bones as if it could rearrange my future. Later, the night became contemplative — long hours spent stargazing while the rest of the world slept, lying still beneath constellations that reminded me I was small, but never insignificant.
Through all the ebbs and flows of my life — the chaos, the heartbreak, the rebuilding — one thing never wavered. My love of the night stayed faithful to me, even when nothing else did.
These days, when the sky darkens and the house grows quiet, I find myself wrapped in the soft intimacy of Mr. California’s presence. Hours slip by on the phone, carried by shameless flirting, tender laughter, and that delicious teenage-crush energy people spend decades trying to rediscover. There is comfort in knowing the night will end with his voice — low, warm, and familiar — weaving its way into my thoughts.
The night tastes like Mexican hot chocolate, rich and slow, and sounds like the softest, sexiest voice in my ear, talking me into calm, into closeness, into that suspended space where nothing else exists. There’s desire, yes — but there’s also devotion, playfulness, and the kind of emotional intimacy that feels rare and sacred.
Things aren’t perfect. The distance aches sometimes. The longing stretches thin on certain nights.
But what I’ve never had before — not like this — is independence. My days belong to me now. They’re full and busy and bright: friendships, purpose, movement, freedom. I live my life fully out in the world, loving the woman I’ve become. And then, when night comes and I retreat into my own space, I realize something quietly astonishing.
I have everything.
I have my freedom. I have my peace. And I have a man who is absolutely, undeniably crazy about me — who meets me in the dark hours not to consume me, but to share the night with me.
So yes. The night belongs to lovers. It belongs to whispered conversations and stolen smiles across time zones. It belongs to longing that feels hopeful instead of desperate. It belongs to us.
And honestly? I wouldn’t trade these nights for anything.
