Glow by Lady E

  I’ve been thinking about the strange guilt that sometimes comes with wanting more. More money. More space. More success. More beautiful things. More ease. We’re often told to be grateful for what we have, and I believe in gratitude deeply. But somewhere along the way, gratitude can become confused with staying exactly where we are. As though wanting more means what I already have isn’t good enough. I don’t think those things have to contradict each other. I can love my life and still want to expand it. I can appreciate what my business earns today and still want it to earn more. I can be thankful for my home and still dream about having more space. I can be perfectly content with my art supplies and then see a new watercolor set and want that, too.  I can enjoy what I own and still put something beautiful in my shopping basket. Wanting more doesn’t require contempt for what came before it. In fact, I think there’s something lovely about building from gratitude rather than di...

Come sit with me for a while. I have my journal open, and tonight I’ve been thinking about something I suspect I do more often than I realize. I turn healing into another thing I need to accomplish. I want to know when I’ll be over something. When I’ll stop thinking about it. When something that hurt will finally stop hurting. When I’ll feel like myself again. And somewhere along the way, healing quietly becomes another deadline. Another invisible date on a calendar. Another thing I can somehow be late for. But maybe healing doesn’t work particularly well under project management. Maybe there are things I will understand quickly and things I’ll have to revisit again and again. Maybe I’ll feel completely fine one day and unexpectedly tender the next. That doesn’t mean I’ve gone backwards. It means I’m still moving through it. I remember one day, many years ago, when I had fibromyalgia. I lived in constant pain. I just couldn’t get a good day. And then one day, in the office...

  Sometimes trying a new skincare product starts with excitement. Or in my case, nerves. I have very sensitive skin and it’s not always fun to try a new product, especially on my face.  This one started because an old favorite stopped working for me. I’d been using The Face Shop White Seed facial wash for years. Then recently, my skin started reacting to it. (You can read me wax poetic about that facial wash in the archives. Just type ‘white seed’ in the search bar.) That is one of the particularly annoying things about sensitive skin. Something can live happily in your routine for years and then, apparently, your face calls a meeting and votes it out. So I needed a replacement. I’d already tried another Deoproce product, a body lotion or serum in the green caviar line, and had good results with it. When I saw their Green Caviar Facial Cleanser, I thought: why not? I’m glad I did. My skin has been very happy with it so far. No drama, no argument, just a cleanser doing what I w...

  I’ve become surprisingly picky about hand soap. I’ve also been cooking more lately, which means I’m washing ingredients, washing dishes, washing utensils and washing my hands approximately three thousand times a day. My hands noticed. Dry, uncomfortable hands became one of those small irritations I kept tolerating until I finally thought: why am I making something I do several times a day unpleasant? I already knew Dove soaps tend to work well for me, so when I saw this Coconut & Almond Milk Foaming Hand Wash, trying it made sense. So far, my hands approve. I’m getting the clean hands I need without that stripped, painfully dry feeling I’ve become thoroughly tired of. My hands are still dry. But they’re not so dry that they develop cuts.  It’s such an ordinary thing, hand soap. But that’s partly why I’m keeping this one close. Self-care isn’t always something we schedule. Sometimes it’s simply paying attention to the things we touch every day and asking whether they coul...

  I really liked this dress. Enough that I stood there looking at it for far longer than necessary, having that familiar little debate with myself. It was black. Simple. Very me. I could already imagine how I would wear it. There was only one problem. The fabric was thick. And perhaps in another climate, or another version of my life, that wouldn’t matter very much. But I live in the Philippines. We’re going through El Niño. Heat and I are already not particularly good friends, and my histamine sensitivity has made me even less willing to wear something that might leave me uncomfortable simply because it looks good. Still, I stood there. Because sometimes walking away from something we like is strangely difficult, even when we already know it isn’t right for us. We start negotiating. Maybe I’ll only wear it indoors. Maybe the fabric isn’t that thick. Maybe I’ll regret leaving it behind. Then I realized I was trying awfully hard to convince myself to buy something my body had alrea...