Life According To Jazz

Confidence is playing hide and seek with me

“Sometimes, if you fake confidence long enough, you’re going to be confident.”

— Elle King

I remember back in spring 2018. I was on top of the world. Finishing up college. Loving my sorority. Hanging out with friends any time I wasn’t in class. Pursuing my career plans (at the time) and feeling like I could achieve anything I set my heart to in that field. Dating this amazing guy. Discovering makeup for the first time. Just enjoying life and LIVING.

Everyone jokes around about when they “peaked.” Much like a mountain, “peaking” is when they reached the top. About when they reached their greatest potential. Looking out at life with their chin up and shoulders high, barely a care in the world. Spring of 2018 was the last time I truly felt that moment 100%.

Since then I’ve realized the career I studied for so hard and intended to be in for the rest of my life wasn’t made for me. Since then I’ve realized the sorority that brought me sooo many great things left me only a single true friend that I know I can count on: my Little (and unfortunately we are so busy with adulting we rarely get to see each other). Since then I came out with one or two other friends from college, but most of my college friends act like I don’t exist and if I reach out, I can feel the half-assed energy they give me in return down to my core. Luckily I’m still with the amazing guy, although we’ve been through our fair share of ups and downs. Makeup is still a learning process for me and partially lead me to my next career step, so that’s a positive as well. However all of this change since my self-designated “peak” has left me broken at times, frantically picking up all the crushed pieces and forcing them back together. As a result, I would say that the confident girl that once was fully there is still there, but loves to play a good ol’ game of hide and seek…fairly often.

It goes kind of like this: I could be having a wonderful day. Taking care of myself and my living space. Talking to one of my few friends or close family members. But out of nowhere this feeling creeps in, and it goes unnoticed at first. Then I feel suffocated by this strange feeling that something is wrong. Something in my life isn’t how it should be. Of course I take it all personally due to how hard I work on myself and what I choose to surround myself with. It’s in these moments that I know I’m about to play another game of hide and seek.

I go through the rest of the day, feeling the void forming and growing. The negative thoughts start rolling in as I try to discover a clue to finding the confidence that has run away again. “Why aren’t I settled down with my career?” “Why don’t I have a group of friends I can call and chat with or grab lunch with whenever?” “Why do I have high expectations all of the time?” “Why can’t I just enjoy the state of life that I’m in without wanting to prepare and plan everything else ahead?” The thoughts get deeper and deeper and eventually I find myself trapped in this hole, clawing my way out, only to be sinking lower.

Lately when I catch this all happening, especially if I can catch it before it reaches that point, I try to shift my focus on a new activity. Unfortunately my natural instinct is to focus on distracting coping activities such as sleeping or Netflix. Recently though, I have gotten back into writing to cope, as well as artwork. When I see the end result of a good blog piece or painting or collage, I feel at peace again. I can start focusing on how well I did and what I bring to the table on a regular basis.

These activities are one of the very few that I do purely for ME. I can’t say this a lot about what I do/think in a day. However, the fact that I do these only for ME allows me to find that confidence that was wavering and hiding from me and bring her out again and embrace her in the warmest of ways. It’s not perfect every time. Sometimes the reunion is bittersweet and I wonder why I ever got so hard on myself in the first place. But I guess when you have a heart that cares about everything and everyone (wayyyy too much at times), it’s bound to happen. My goal is to play less hide and seek, and just to be creative and find little ways to help life shine again. Hopefully by doing this, I’ll get rid of the hide and seek games forever, but only time will tell.

Jumping through hoops

“Don’t pick a job with great vacation time. Pick a career that doesn’t need escaping from.”

As hard-working Americans, we hear the same, repetitive daily routine. We wake up at the butt-crack of dawn. We wash up in the morning and eat breakfast (if we’re lucky) as we are running out the door. We realize on the way to the job we hate that we are going to mentally fatigue at literally any point in the day, so we stop for some coffee at the nearest Starbucks or gas station. We sit in traffic and run into work to clock in right on time. Then the day starts, we drag through it, and we endure traffic until we are finally home again, too tired to cook or clean. Order food or make a microwave meal, scarf it down, and crash into your pillow to get some type of sleep before doing it all over again.

I don’t get why that has to be the narrative of modern-day “adulting.” It’s just so gosh dang monotonous! I feel stuck in a rut when I go through all of this because I end up just walking through the motions, zombie-like, brain on autopilot. Why can’t you find something you love to do, genuinely LOVE and look forward to, and start to change the narrative?

I began my career years as a teacher. It’s something I had wanted since I was a little girl. However, doubt started creeping in while I was in college…second semester, senior year. At that point, it was obviously too late to change and start all over, and even if I could’ve at that time, I wouldn’t have a clue what direction to pursue. So I went with it. Two years later, I can say that was a HUGE mistake. From teaching at one of the highest rated public schools in the state, to substitute teaching, to working at an inner-city charter school, a lot has come of the last two years, and not much of it healthy. After leaving my last teaching placement, I really got to thinking and started questioning everything I’ve come to know about careers and the workforce.

I obviously wasn’t chasing money (teacher salary is a JOKE—but that’ll be an article for another time). I’ve always chased HAPPINESS in every workplace setting I’ve gone into. It was very hard for me to stand up for myself at a place where I didn’t feel loved or appreciated at first, but now I can tell in a few months if I like somewhere and if I don’t, I say goodbye without turning back. I just remember that life is wayyy too short to stick around where you aren’t valued. I feel like so many adults feel trapped by a job they hate or that they aren’t treated well at, and they don’t feel confident enough to leave or challenge things. It took a while for me to develop, but it’s one of the most liberating experiences of my life thus far.

Teaching didn’t fill that happiness factor for me—if anything, it created a deep void that I am still trying to fill. However, one day, I came across a pop-up advertisement that read the words: “Turn your passion into purpose.” I knew at that point that I had just received a clue leading me closer to career satisfaction.

That was the slogan outside of Empire Beauty School. An hour later I was there for an academic consultation, and two hours later, I committed to enrolling in the esthetician program. As someone who focuses on self care so much and making sure people know how beautiful they are, it just seemed like the perfect direction for me.

I like to joke to people: I like pretty people, pretty places, and pretty things. I am hoping with all of my heart that this new path will help me break the basic daily routine of robotically meandering through each day. Beauty is huge for me, and making people feel great about themselves is even better, so why not get paid for it?? This decision to change my career is the beginning of a new chapter of life, and hopefully this one won’t be as sad and boring to read or hear about as the careers others out there are waking up to every morning with grumpy distain on their faces.

The secret to a happy, lasting relationship

I love to ask older couples what their “secret” is to their relationship. I love that it normally comes with a beautiful story of how they met and how they’ve grown. I am going to start a running list of real quotes that answer this question from couples that I encounter. ❤️

“Be with each other all the time. Do everything you can together. Why wouldn’t you want to be alongside your best friend?”
“Respect is huge. Never call each other negative names. Never go to bed angry.”
“Compromise. You have to push and pull in order for your relationship to work out. Without a little leeway from time to time, you’ll never last.”
“Make time for each other. Life gets so busy. Make sure you talk every day, even if you have nothing to talk about!”
“She’s always right.”
“Choose to love each other every day. People nowadays become so comfortable in their relationship that they end up losing that person out of pure laziness. You have to date [her] every single day of your life.”
“Communication and compromising. If you tell them what’s on your mind about something, you also have to discuss how to move forward with that little issue so that it doesn’t turn into a big problem. Some days will be harder for one person than the other, but those are the most important.”

Comparison is the thief of joy

Short And Tweet is listed (or ranked) 2 on the list The Funniest Instagram Vs. Real Life Memes — Photo Credit: https://www.ranker.com/list/instagram-vs-real-life-memes/nathandavidson

“The reason why we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”

-Unknown

I’ve always struggled with the comparison game. Soccer used to be my competitive outlet. Once that was gone, I had to find something to silence my inner craving to compete. Unfortunately that something for me was social media. Instagram especially.

I was late in the game when it came to social media. I didn’t go through the AIM chatroom phase or the MySpace phase. I was in the later part of my sophomore year of high school when I was allowed to have my first form of social media–Facebook. And I posted ALL THE TIME. I look back at the cringey “on this day” notifications I get and OOF. I took selfies all the time…with my digital camera. I posted things like “Spanish project DONE!!!!!!! amen, now time to watch some pigskin 😀 ❤ Football” (true post from 8 years ago today). I didn’t really care what other people thought about my posts. I posted what I wanted, when I wanted, just because I felt like it.

I didn’t get my first smartphone until I was 18. That’s when I discovered Instagram. My camera quality has never been the best (even today, due to my cute little iPhone SE–which if you do not know came out after the iPhone 5 but before the iPhone 6 so yes it’s tiny and old). Nonetheless I was posting like 3-4 pictures on Instagram a day. I had a problem. And it would be silly things, like my penguin lunchbox or my soccer cleats that I colored/designed with Sharpies. Around the time I took Senior Pictures, I started posting pics from that shoot and noticing how much attention they got comparably. That’s when the competitive side of me came out. I started strategizing how I could get more likes. This was a dangerous mindset to adopt right before college. However, I felt that college opened up so many opportunities to take awesome pictures of even better memories.

I was always that friend that insisted on taking pictures at every event and hangout (which I now feel silly doing because of how much everyone pretended to be bothered by it). There’s just something so magical about entrapping a memory–a space in time–and looking back on it at any point later in life, just to be transported right to that exact moment. Because I loved my friends so much, I would of course post these pictures to Instagram. After a while it went from innocently capturing memories to wanting people to see how much fun I was having in college (which I really was). Summers, however, turned into another competition because my summers were very uneventful. I was surrounded by people on social media taking trips, going to concerts, and hanging out with all their hometown friends. I did none of that. And the competitive side of me started to get angry…and then sad. I started comparing nonstop.

Food For Thought is listed (or ranked) 22 on the list The Funniest Instagram Vs. Real Life Memes — Photo Credit: https://www.ranker.com/list/instagram-vs-real-life-memes/nathandavidson

*Why does she look so pretty all the time?

*Why do they get to go to all of these amazing places while I’m stuck here?

*How can they afford that *insert materialistic possession here*?

It became less of sharing fun moments in time and much more of trying to be the best…for other people’s approval. People I didn’t really care about as much as I was portraying. This is something I still battle today, years later. It was really hard after college because you lose all of those awesome campus events and friends that are just down the hall. It made me feel very lonely and very unsuccessful in life. I would look at my other recent-grad classmates and see that they bought a house or got engaged or got their dream job and then look at my life like…well…I’ve gone through a major career change, I live paycheck to paycheck, and the close friends I had in college have all faded and only talk to me when I reach out first. Then I am sent in a spiral of negative thoughts produced from constant comparison.

But just like the quote up top says, what people post is what they choose to show to the world; it’s their highlight reel. They could be going through the exact same things, or even worse, but their content that they choose to post could be hiding that. I try to remind myself not to compare what I see with what I am struggling through day-to-day. I step back and start counting my blessings. I remind myself that comparing is not a healthy way to bring my competitive side out.

A Moment Of Paws is listed (or ranked) 6 on the list The Funniest Instagram Vs. Real Life Memes — Photo Credit: https://www.ranker.com/list/instagram-vs-real-life-memes/nathandavidson

It is a hard process, but it is one of the main reasons I am so excited to begin my journey into the beauty industry. The message of perfection that society forces on us through social media is so toxic, and I’ve only dealt with it for a handful of years. I could not IMAGINE girls that are growing up today with societal pressures in their face since birth. While that soap-box conversation may be a blog post for another time, I just want to say how excited I am to hopefully help young girls see that you don’t have to be cake-faced and Photo-shopped in order to be beautiful. You don’t have to look like the girls with millions of followers to be accepted. And as hard as that is to realize sometimes, it is such an important mindset.

What is the purpose of this blog?

BLOG (noun): a regularly updated website or web page, typically run by an individual or small group; that is written in an informal or conversational style.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a blog. Many people start blogs with the purpose of making money or selling a product. While extra finances would be great (I do have student loans to pay…), I have been yearning for a creative outlet. One where I don’t feel pressure to be perfect. Blogs are raw and real. It’s not like trying to make the best tweet with a video from the Super Bowl Halftime Show with hopes it’ll become viral, people will love you, and you’ll end up in a commercial in the next Super Bowl (not that I was thinking of doing that yesterday or anything).

No, I just have opinions on things that I would like to share. I have insights on different ideas and lifestyle choices based on my experiences. I am very open-minded, and sometimes that comes with constant inner dialogue. I see blogs as a way to share those dialogues and to have a space where I feel comfortable sharing that.

So, this dialogue will definitely be random. However, if you know me, you already know how random I can be, so you should be excited, as am I. As I learn more from day-to-day interactions, I will have interesting things to share and look forward to engagement from readers like you. And who knows, as I start beauty school here soon, I may get to share some of the fun things I’ll be able to do for you guys as well. But until we get to that point, feel free to enjoy me getting back into writing again, and hearing my take on life thus far.

Who is Jazz?

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

-Aristotle

Who am I? The age-old question. I am different things to different people, I believe.

To those who knew me as a child (before we cared what anybody thought)–I am a tomboy 100%. I am a natural smarty-pants. I am active. I am involved. I would challenge you at any sport, and probably beat you at all of them. I am quiet, but energetic and fun. I am sheltered. I am competitive.

To those who knew me in my adolescent years (especially high school)–I am a soccer star. I am shy. I am mute. I focus all my time on school. I am a member of everything: newspaper, tv announcements, tv editing, radio, national honors society, 4-paws club, varsity soccer all 4 years, dance marathon, yearbook. I am a nerd.

To those who knew me in college (aka my glow up years)–I am fun. I am sweet. I am considerate of those around me. I am a friend to everyone. I am strong. I am fast. I am athletic. I am adorable. I am put-together. I am passionate. I am innocent. I am driven. I am scholarly. I am a supportive Zister. I am a shoulder to lean on. I am loyal. I am loving. I am an outgoing introvert. I am school spirited. I am happy.

To those who know me post-college (my roller coaster years)–I am emotional. I am overwhelmed. I am introspective. I am curious. I stand up for myself. I do not stay where I feel unwanted. I am scared. I am a dreamer. I am hopeful. I am learning. I am more family-oriented. I am in love. I am active. I am a hard worker. I am funny. I give all I can to make those around me happy. I am embracing me for me. I want to be friends with everyone, but it feels hard to feel like I “fit” with anyone. I am quiet. I am spastic. I am trying my best to grow into the person I want to be, regardless of what others want for me. I am doing what I believe is best for me, and learning from each face-plant along the way.

So who am I? I am a lot of things. It is hard to summarize it all into a single statement. I guess this blog will let you see different sides of me. Sides that you may think you already know, but you definitely do not. No one does, not even me. And that’s okay. Life is about learning and growing, right?