Reflect to move forward.
What was - and what August will bring.
7.13.25
It is nearly 230am Sunday here. I cant sleep. I have my PET scan on Monday to evaluate and check for multifocal tumors. Fingers crossed all goes well.
All I can do is contemplate life… think about wanting to finalize some ideas I have in my head to start a business of my own in order to feel like I have purpose.. and I am wanting to work through what it looks like to hop back on the shopping ban wagon.
With August comes big changes. I was accepted into the Grad Program I applied to - so classes start roughly a month from now. I have budgeted out everything to a T for what we need to stick to in order to reach our finance goals.
Now comes the hard part - am I going to stick to the same boundaries as last time for the shopping ban?
Clearly those didn’t fully work. In my grief I found loopholes. I found ways to numb the hurt I was feeling with serotonin, dopamine, and endorphin hits. I still took joy in the little things I wanted to buy that were allowed, as a way around the shopping ban. I allowed food to obviously be unrestricted.. but leaned heavily on take out during health flareups or heavy grief instead of cooking at home.
So only being allowed to cook or eat at home is absolutely one change to the shopping ban guidelines that I will be making. I want to stay accountable while also allowing myself to be gentle and realize I did what I could to survive when things were too much. Yet, I want to do better.
It’s science. Shopping can be therapeutic. Don’t take my word for it, Cleveland Clinic does a way better job at explaining the reasoning behind it than I ever could. Check out their article here : Why ‘Retail Therapy’ Makes You Feel Happier .
I want to be sure I find healthier ways to process all of this grief I carry and find the best ways to work through my coping. I want to (when my body co-operates) use yoga or easy workouts to gain those endorphins. I want to CREATE and transmute this pain into art. Whether that is art in word form (looking at the word vomit of my blogs and social media lately), craft form, or in messy garden form.
I want to create. I truly believe that creation can save us from drowning in the grief.
When I began this blog, I told myself I would stick to keeping it professional and all about the numbers, rules, and limits.. about the practical application side of shopping bans.
Lets not be silly here.
Lets be REAL. I am a DEEPLY emotional creature. It wouldn’t be ME if I didn’t monologue for days about the FEELINGS behind it all.
&Feeling deeply I am.
So here goes the breakdown of life’s events in the last year and a half:
Buckle up because it doesn’t even feel real to me - all the things that have changed and shaped my life to the point of being unrecognizable.
What started with an emergency room trip on Valentine’s Day 2024 for what they believe was a systemic allergic reaction to the cold.. quickly snowballed (pun intended) into:
A ton of diagnosed allergies.
Heart echos, endless referrals, talks of heart surgery, a mild mitrovalve prolapse diagnosis, but then other specialists not having much concern there because of how slight it is.
A strained marriage.
A traumatic situation that hit too close to home.
The loss of my career that I spent 11 years building - through 7 years of college, countless jobs to build my resume, low wages, and endless hours sacrificed to get to where I was.
The death of my biological father who I had a deeply troubled relationship with and hadn’t spoken to in over a decade.
Reconnecting with my brother who had been in foster care, who I hadn’t seen in over a decade and a half since he was roughly 4 - leading to more heavy trauma unpacking.
Injuring my back to the point where I was unable to move my legs for over 6 hours - functionally paralyzed from the pain.
My dog passing.. who was so much more than just a dog to me.
The rare Cancer diagnosis - Neuroendocrine Tumor of the GI tract.
The POTS diagnosis and lifestyle restrictions - being told not to carry anything up the stairs, to sit while showering, sit while cooking, sit while doing hair or makeup, not to raise my hands above my head or reach above me, not to walk long distances without prescription grade compression socks, etc.
The loss of a friendship that spanned nearly 20 years. I walked away from it from feeling so misunderstood and unheard - after a blow up that happened over me saying how alone I feel in all of this grief - despite being told not long before they purposefully would leave my messages unread or unanswered - that still stings.
A scheduled evaluation for Elhers Danlos Syndrome because of hypermobility and constant chronic joint pain.
A continuous rocky relationship with my mother.
And now just this past week - the death of my oldest sons great grandmother who took me in as a single mom at 19 when I had no where else to go.
All of that - all in the last year and a half.
Safe to say, I let myself spiral. I let myself lean on any glimmer of feel good anything I could gain from making little allowed purchases.
I think my “falling off the shopping ban wagon” is misleading.. because I have STILL stuck to the allowed list, but I didn’t attempt to keep that allowed list from being impulsive. &I feel I could do better.
So here I am. Open. Vulnerable. Raw.
This is my full breakdown:
WHY this is important to me.
What life has been filling my plate with.
&Where I plan to go from here.
Next up - Shopping ban rules - reevaluated.
If you read all of this, thank you. Sometimes sitting in the depths - each of us just need to feel seen and heard. Not fixed. Not mended. Not even okay. Just - not alone.
With all of my love and light -
Jessica