No idea why I chose Frank Sinatra lyrics to name my last post on this here site, but here we are, ending as weirdly as we began. For the last few years, I’d been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole here on ye olde blog. I loved having this space of my own to write, and I cherish how this is a scrapbook of most of my life from 2009-2019. I often will google something like “banana phone picture site:preppyrunner.com” to find a picture that I know I posted here but have no idea where else it would be.

This site has given me so much: friendships in IRL and friendships that will only ever live in comments and DMs but are still just as valid as friendships. This led to so many professional opportunities and changed the trajectory of my career from a reporter at a legal magazine to working in social media for magazines and fitness companies. It even played a part in my decision to become a therapist—actually because of those connections I made. I was so lucky to have so many people pour their hearts out to me after I bared mine, and I realized how much I wanted to support people one-on-one.

I provided some resources to you all, but I am so so grateful for the resources you all shared with me over the years, too, particularly when I was struggling with physical health, mental health or grief.

This just isn’t the right home for me any more…but don’t worry! I started a newsletter that, honestly, will probably be a lot like this blog—a little smorgasbord of everything. You can sign up below.

Thank you so much for all of your support over the years, it means the world ❤️

*I do hope to one day make some time to add some of my best posts to this page.

**If anyone could tell me a good way to download all of the images, that would be excellent.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve really been going through it with headaches. They’re largely tension headaches, which means that while I don’t usually deal with nausea or light sensitivity, they’re not quite as straightforward to treat—there’s a lot more options for treating migraines than there are tension headaches.

I am getting closer to figuring out some treatment options after exhausting A LOT, but one of the causes of tensions headaches is—you guessed it—tension. Some helpful doctors have said “just reduce stress!” like it’s that easy. As someone who is in grad school/interning/freelance writing during a global pandemic, it’s hard to find opportunities to destress—but I also know I really need to not just for myself but if I want to actually have a career in this field.

My therapist and I have talked about the pressure I (/society) put on myself being part of the pressure I am quite literally feeling in my head—which would be pressing in. But recently I’ve started to picture the energy as trying to burst out.

I’ve been trying to journal more again (these are my fave notebooks to use to journal) to try to unpack more of those feelings myself between therapy sessions, and I just keep thinking of Mexican jumping beans struggling to be contained.

The other night as I lay in savasana, two strong visuals came to mind. The first was a caterpillar going through metamorphosis and busting out of their caterpillar skin (this is probably not actually how it works but stay with me) to become a butterfly. The second was of Superman jumping out of his Clark Kent clothes and into his Superman suit.

There’s something inside of me dying to come out, and I’m not sure what any of it means yet, but it’s there.

(Or maybe my head just literally is about to explode, unclear.)

Weird side notes:

• in writing this, I learned that jumping beans are actually larvae turning into moths, which tracks with the butterfly thing!
• there’s a real hole in the market for pretty illustrations of metamorphosis, so if you’re an illustrator, you should get on that
• this is the most I’ve used the word metamorphosis since third grade science class.