Sometimes I like to pretend I have it all together, but I do not! I recognize that I should be very grateful for the life and opportunities I currently have, but sometimes I can get sucked into a rut of not knowing where I'm going, what I'm doing, or who I want to be. I feel like I experience these feelings at least once a year really hard--and it's always during the winter.
This is going to be a long post--but it's been awhile, so we have a lot of updating to do. Grab your coffee, tea, wine, popcorn, whatever, and enjoy my babbling for a bit.
I've been feeling sad.
First off, seasonal depression is a real thing. Articles I've been reading state that psychologists aren't really even sure why we experience this sort of sadness, but it often has to do with daylight and temperature. Not to delve too much into it (this is not a scholarly article on season depression--these are just my thoughts and feelings), but I know that daylight is a major factor in my happiness. I've mentioned this a couple of times in my vlogs lately, but I thought I would reiterate my feelings here as well.
During the winter months the daylight hours are shorter. And having a full-time (miserable, I might add) job means that I wake up early in the morning (aka it's dark), drive to work (it's still dark), work in the middle of a cubicle filled office with absolutely no windows near me or within sightline from my desk chair (aka I never see daylight unless I walk around a bit), drive home (oh, it's dark again because the sun has now set), and then go to sleep to repeat this entire lifetime of darkness all over again.
Now, I know I am being rather dramatic--but it makes a pretty good effect. Essentially, it's dark nearly all hours of my non-working day during the winter months. So, the hours when I should be happy and having fun, I am instead miserable because I cannot go outside, I cannot look out a window, I cannot interact with others out and about.
It is absolutely insane how much this effects my mood. And it becomes more apparent as we start to experience more daylight again. Just within the last week, I have noticed that when I come home from work it is no longer pitch black. SPRING IS COMING! This means that I can play out in the backyard with our husky, Skye. I can go out for a quick run. And I can cook dinner all before it gets dark! Why do these little things make me so happy? I'm not sure, but all I know is that I need daylight.
Weekends have been my lifesavers lately though. As soon as I wake up, I open all of the doors and let the light shine into the house through the outside glass door. I make sure to pull up all of the shades and push aside the curtains. I literally let the light flood in! My weekends are so happy!! But that all being said, I am learning to cope. We are also currently exiting winter and entering spring--and just like that the seasons will change and my feelings of depression during the last couple of months will subside a bit.
What else has me feeling in a funk?
Well, now that I'm starting to feel a little better and a lot more like myself, I have been focusing on what I want lately. Being unhappy kind of makes you evaluate what you've got going on in your life and what's making you not happy any longer. You might have caught the drift, but one of those things is my job. Don't get me wrong--I understand how fortunate I am to have such a well paying and stable full-time job, but it's not satisfying me in a way that I feel as though I should be committing 8-10 hours five out of the seven days a week to it.
I've always been open and honest 100% about my thoughts a feeling with everyone. I like to lay it all out on the table because life is just so much better when we're all telling it how it is. So, I've expressed these feelings at work a bit, and have stated multiple times that I am not happy with what I am currently doing, but these statements appear to have gone unheard. There are opportunities within this company that would potentially give me greater satisfaction during my day-to-day, but knowing that my voice is not being heard has made me want to seek out different opportunities.
The quote below is one I saw on Facebook just the other day that literally described my current situation at work. It really emphasizes how I am feeling at the moment and how my current job is not acting.
“Client’s do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.””
I really want to work from home! Essentially ANYTHING where I could work from home would be my dream job--and working for myself would be like a utopia. I have created some plans and applied for some positions in attempts to get me down this career path that will make me most happy, but things are moving slowly. Either way, no matter where I work, I will always continue to work hard and give my all all of the time because that is just the type of person that I am.
The 3 main parts of my life (at the moment).
So let's continue to analyze my life a bit. That's the only way I can get it together. The other day in my journal I was taking note of all of the things that I really cared about and really made me truly happy. And all of these things can be categorized as the following:
1. My wedding
...and essentially my entire relationship with Trevor. This is absolutely, one-hundo-p (as Trevor would say), the most important thing in my life. My relationship with Trevor which culminates into "my wedding" is the one thing that makes me the most happiest. We laugh all of the time, we talk about literally everything, and we share most of our days together.
2. Planning and journaling
I am currently OBSESSED with watching planner related videos on Youtube and diving into that community on Instagram as well. Why this makes me so happy? I don't know. But it is consuming my life, and I cannot ignore it.
3. YouTube--aka our vlog channel
One of the reasons I think I love planning and journaling so much is because it is a way to document my days. This is also why I have always had such a passion for our YouTube channel. I always think about how fun it is going to be to see all of Trevor and I's videos when we're 30, 40, 50 years old. Reflecting on the silly things we were doing now and seeing how much we're going to grow really inspires me to continue our vlog channel for basically forever.
Where does this blog fit in?
That's what I've been thinking about a lot lately too. What kind of content do I want to write? How I can I fit the blog into all of the other things in life I've got going on? How can I utilize this amazing platform I've created to make myself and others happy? I need content ideas! I've been racking my brain for the past week or so now about how this blog is going to transform to fit in with all of the ambitions and changes I am currently striving towards. I didn't know what to write about.
But then I remembered what this blog was started for originally--just a place for me. To spew out all things, share some cool tricks and tips along the way, and just communicate with friends and family about my life!
I have some post ideas (coming soon: more book reviews, regular planning related posts, what I ate in a day, etc.), so you might be noticing some things changing around her just a bit. This used to just be a hub for all things Danyell Bailey and it still will be, but different. I don't want to just reshare what I've already shared on YouTube, or post a quick something just to post something; instead, I want to curate some real content for the blog that is unique and special. That being said, if you have any ideas for me or have anything you'd love for me to talk about then PLEASE feel free to reach out.
Let's wrap it up!
So, yeah, that's a life update for you. I'm trying to get it all together, but mostly I'm just trying to make myself happy again. I have so many plans that I want to share with you all, but I also want to keep a few surprises up my sleeve. You're going to be able to still find me on Instagram, Twitter, my PlannerGram, and YouTube of course! So stay up to date with me there. I'm going to link all of my 2018 vlogs from so far down below, so please check them out if you need any more life updates from me.
