Bits of Home

So, my boyfriend and I recently moved out together, into the cutest little basement suite inside a character home. It's down the street from the Gorge waterway and it's a beautiful neighborhood. 

I was thankful to find someone who shared similar tastes in home decor as me so I am in love with the way my home is turning out. Now we are a little slow on the unpacking, even though we've been here about a month now but It's coming together. So I thought I'd share some of our home! Even though no room is completely done yet, I am hoping it might help inspire that rustic, wood feel.

 (My favourite wall in our kitchen)

 (Artwork in the living room)

 (Our huge bathtub)

 (Decor in the bedroom)

 (My motivational/work spot)

Weekend Adventure

I have this goal to live adventurously and to have no regrets about things I never had a chance to do. I really want to travel but I know my boyfriend and I won't have the opportunity for probably another few years, so I want to do as much as I can on this island in the mean time.

We try to go hiking lots, try to be outdoors, and with nature. Even when I'm not feeling up to a hike, I give myself the excuse that it is training for the West Coast Trail one day. And I'm not even lying to myself because I WILL do that trail one day. But for now, 3 - 5 hour hikes will do.

This weekend, since we had to go back into town where my parents live for a family dinner, we had a chance to hike the old trails we always hiked before moving. So we got up early and bussed to Thetis Lake. We hiked around the lake to get to our usual side trails way out in the forest and made our way to one of our favourite mountains. It's not a terribly hard hike or long, but, in my opinion, has the best view.

You can see the ocean, the outline of the states, and the huge forest of trees that separate us from downtown. Now that we live closer in town, I realized how much I missed living in that shitty little area. There aren't as many trees out here and it literally makes my heart sad.

The hike was muddy. There have been a good few heavy rainy days lately so there were many washed out parts of the path, and overflowing streams. But we dressed in preparation so we trekked through them like proper adventurers!

I wish I could be out in the forest every day.

When Life Goes Wrong

I have recently started facing things in my life that have caused me great stress. The past few months have been some of the hardest months of my life so far. There have been ups, but mostly downs. Now, I am most definitely not the person to come to for coping advice, but I am learning slowly.

I started realizing that my stress was causing me to act out and shut myself away to the point that it was starting to effect my relationship. And this hurt me. My boyfriend is the most amazing, understanding person who has ever been in my life and even he could only handle so much. I was hurting him by hiding away from him while I (didn't) deal with my stress.

I decided, against my fears, to go see a doctor about what to do. That scared me, I didn't want a professional to tell me something was wrong with me. I mean, I had my reasons to feel stressed, I've been dealing with chronic back pain for over a year now, been dealing with excruciating pain around by right lower rib for about 6 months and neither have I been able to get answers for yet. It's frustrating to be in so much pain everyday, and not knowing what was causing it or how to fix it.

But upon going to the doctors, I have been faced with the realization that I have been dealing with depression, severe anxiety, and insomnia. Now anxiety I already knew about. I know it runs through the family, and it's something I've always had. I dealt with it fine until I started getting really bad asthma about almost 2 years ago. On a family road trip, I had the scariest asthma attack I've ever had, thought I was dying and there wasn't even a hospital in the small town I was in. It triggered such bad anxiety afterwords that for almost a whole year, I was so terrified of going outside and being by myself (because naturally those would be the worst times to get an asthma attack) that I was constantly worried. I was scared to go to school, scared to walk to a friends house, even scared to be home alone. I would go from one room to the next making sure my inhaler was right by my side.

My anxiety has stuck around since but I am better at relaxing and breathing through it. My insomnia however, started when I started college two years ago. I was stressing myself out so bad because I wasn't sure if I was in the right program and that I was making a mistake and wasting my parents money to the point where I wouldn't be able to sleep. Even though, since last April, I have no longer been going to school ( a whole other story), my insomnia is still with me. It's something I have also come to terms with. I can't really say its something you get used to, but it becomes routine. Staying up to watch a movie that I can barely keep my eyes open through, go to bed assuming that's a sign I will fall straight asleep and end up laying there for hours, so tired, but unable to fall asleep. And once I can finally fall asleep, I either wake up so many times through the night or wake up so early that I'm still so tired and out of it for the rest of the day. It sucks, but I deal with it.

But to now learn that I also suffer from depression. I knew I had it almost 3 years ago, after dealing with traumatic things going on in my life but I never really thought it hung around. But I guess after dealing with a few too many stressful moments over the last year, it has finally really caught up with me, making my anxiety and insomnia worse and creating such an irritable, sad girl to be around.

Even though I am more of a believer in holistic healing and not a huge fan of meds, I have been prescribed a very light dose of anti-depressants in hopes that it can at least make me happy enough to start doing things I used to love doing. If I can begin to start doing the things that make me happy, then the sooner I can get off the meds and start mentally helping myself get better. This is a journey that I'm terrified about but also excited about.

Researching more about depression and what causes it and how many people deal with has helped me to really see that I'm not alone. This is just that part of life where we have to learn how to deal with the rocks that come our way and that there is a way to get passed them and to learn how to better dope with it the next time. I know that if I'm scared, then there are other people who are also scared about this same journey. But, my favourite quote, “pain demands to be felt.” A quote that only now, I have so much love for. Feeling your pain and understanding it, is the first step at moving forward.