THE AMUSED LIFE BLOG

My name is Anna and I live with and manage anxiety based depression. I have probably dealt with symptoms of it since I was 16 years old or from what I can remember. Sadly my memory is often spotty throughout my life. I find that a lot of that spottiness is around traumatic events that I have experienced. Sometimes it's related to increased symptoms of my illness or a "flare up" of the kind that causes the anxiety or depression or both to get to a level that I can manage. At this time in my life I find myself in a few existential quandries that make me feel like I am a huge ball of yarn completely tangled up so perhaps this year is where I begin trying to unravel the tangled mess that is me.  I've struggled my entire life with never feeling "good enough" and sometimes I'm unsure if that feeling is tied in tightly to my illness or just an additional learned script I have running through my brain. I've tied that feeling frequently to people's...

I love bread. Carbs are, in fact, my favorite food group. Beyond that, I believe in body-positivity and health-at-any-size. I don't want anyone in this world to buy into weight loss/exercise obsessions because they feel pressure from any external sources including family, friends, media, society and beyond. So understand that my decision to make some personal changes in my life is in no way because I feel un-loved, under-valued or most of all un-desirable. I love myself most days and the days that I'm angry or sad with myself are built around mental health struggles with depression and anxiety and are actually in no-way related to my feelings about my appearance or my sense of self worth. Alas, I'm 46 as I type this. My mother passed away suddenly at the young age of 58 for reasons I cannot 100% confirm because we didn't have an autopsy (a decision I wish now we had pursued), for multiple reasons.  I'm making some decisions to just focus on reducing my body size a b...

It's a routine I've known for at least 30 years. I know it like I know the feel of each bump on my skin as I rub my arms. A familiar 8 count of part self-flagellation, part-curiosity it's a dance I do in the wee hours of the morning when my mind is still running around like a kid on pixie sticks at a birthday party rental at the dance studio. I point my toes and leap, deep diving into the familiar dance routine and steps...search google, look up "XYZ" and just tap dance through posts to see how life is treating them.  It's when you stumble trying to remember dance steps that you did when you were in your twenties that you realize you're getting too old. The bones hit the floor harder these days and when you come across a post dated 2015 where you are referenced as a "much-needed and much-desired divorce", you realize that the old wounds from your early years still throb a bit every now and then. Mind you, I wasn't completely floored by that ...

Today, the change of power took place in our great country of the United States of America. Listen, our country has been through a LOT over the past year, the past four years and honestly since we decided to declare our independence let alone step foot on this land we now claim as our own. So this post isn't about just the inauguration of Biden and Harris, it's actually about the shock and awe (in non-military terminology), that I have for this country I live in and love. I've always been proud to be an American and I still am. Does that mean that I'm blind to the atrocities that our forefathers have committed. No. From the pillaging of indigenous people's lands, to slavery, to our history of human and equal rights violations, interment camps for Japanese citizens and now those who crossed our border to the South and that's just a quick smattering of the blights on our conscience. I hold no illusions that we have made many mistakes. We are a country founded by h...

Before you say anything. I read tarot, but when I want clarity at times I like to go to another reader to get my mind out of the reading/interpreting work and just let it flow through someone who's not me. It's like counselors seeing other counselors...it's something you SHOULD do. I have to share that I just had what will be my annual reading/guidance session with Ash Mac and I'm going to be going for my check up in 6 months; and I'm honestly honored to spend this time with her. Last year, she met with me right after my car accident and pretty much laid out the landscape ahead with a lot of clarity and I told her that everything fell into place, not like I expected but it was the right thing and what I needed to have happen. [1] If you haven't had a reading from Ash, please consider it. Honestly it's like meeting with someone who genuinely wants the best for you but lays down those cards and gives it to you straight. She's a very cued in and atuned spir...

Today I started one of my few artistic/pop-culture challenges for myself of the new year. I'm calling it the Best Picture A-Z Challenge: watch an Academy Award Best Picture Winner for each letter of the alphabet plus a numerical entry. Oh and add in one catch...it has to be a film that I have NOT yet seen. So I build my list and then if there's more than one choice I offer up a vote to suggest which one to watch.  This first challenge is the letter A and so here were my choices: AND after the votes were in, my "A" challenge became to watch: 1960 ‧ Romance/Comedy ‧ 2h 5m Insurance worker C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) lends his Upper West Side apartment to company bosses to use for extramarital affairs. When his manager Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) begins using Baxter's apartment in exchange for promoting him, Baxter is disappointed to learn that Sheldrake's mistress i s Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the elevator girl at work whom Baxter is interested in himsel...

If this 2020 taught me anything, it's that what happens in my four walls are 1001% my responsibility. I've allowed overworking and over-engaging in distractions to keep me from participating in some small way from bringing the holidays into my home. I mean we do the traditional food basics on the high-holy-holidays of Thanksgiving and such; but no decoration. No specific traditions. Something that I realize now was a gift my mother gave me as a child. What I mean by that is, the creation of household traditions and decorating for a holiday gave this growing girl a sense of wonder. Holidays were extra special because the person I loved so much made them special. The traditions were steeped in family and home. The sense of love was so real and now reflecting on everything I and others have survived in this year, it's time for me to forge some beloved traditions of my own.  I think I didn't do this sooner because I've been silently grieving the reality that having a ch...

I woke up today very early. My significant other and I have a young puppy so that's part of the life at this time. Disturbed sleep. I woke up and just thought well, it's Thanksgiving, let's just be thankful today. I was in a good frame of mind. I had made the decision to just be present today as much as possible. But...in the wee small hours of the morning my always present depression and anxiety had other plans. I went to message a friend of mine. I connect a lot on Facebook so I went into messenger to just let her know I was thinking about her and I couldn't find her. At first I didn't worry, I figured that she and I were both struggling with the election stress and maybe she just went dark for a bit. I get that. I understand taking the mental health break if need be. Alas, she didn't just go dark.  Upon investigation I came to understand that I had a friend in real life that I care about deeply. I would try hard to check on her and send Erik over with various...

I'm taking some time just to be me for me as I keep evolving into a hopefully better and better version of me.  Not to entertain but to just get my projects promised this year but not yet accomplished because of my accident, my covid and instead take time to catch up.  To move all my posts from my former blog to this blog.  Just to get my world ready to hopefully go very mindfully and intentionally into 2021.  With that...there will be no new episodes of AUTHENTICALLY YOU until 2021 as I have some great interviews lined up in December and will debut them in the brand new year. No I don't think new years are magical panaceas but they do allow you to set intentions and try to hit those intentions. I just want to take this time to reflect on what went well this past year, what I'd like to see change and how I can see more of my friends while still being safe. It's been one helluva year y'all. One that's changed all of us in ways we can't fully explain. In some ...

Originally posted on a previous blog May 1, 2020. What's in a number? For example...let's take 365. It's the number of days in a standard calendar year. It's apparently the name of a song from Katy Perry. It's also the amount of pounds that are currently loaded upon my 5 foot 6 inch frame. Not a frame on my wall. On my body. Now don't get me started on feeling bad about it. I don't actually feel bad about the number, I do currently feel bad because as I've aged being a plus sized woman since age 16 means that eventually a larger number does start to take it's toll on your body. For the MOST PART, I'm very healthy. I have great numbers cholesterol wise, I am not diabetic and it's taken me this long to show any signs of hypertension which both my mother and father had. I mean, I'm blessed to be this size and this healthy. However, I am fighting the advancement of my blood pressure. I am dealing with (for the first time in my life), a wideni...