Amanda Rose Zampelli | the blog

helping me get through my homesickness

I have the homesickness. Cue tiny tear. I've been away from home for four weeks now, and like I hinted a week ago: I never thought I'd make it this long. It's felt different over the course of these past 28 days, but has caused me cognitive distress in some form or another nonetheless.

Here is a list of 5 things that have been helping me get through it:

1. crafting

Coming up with ideas and then using all my cognitive energy to make those ideas happen has been such a help in getting me through my homesickness. Not to mention, when the craft is complete and becomes an uplifting aspect of my surroundings - it helps create calm even after it's done.

2. meditating

I talked about my recent journey into meditation in this post, but since writing it, I've done more research and more practice, and it has been helping. It has allowed me to 'check in' with myself - not in a way that has me 'check in' with my feelings about this or that or what my mom said or what my schedule looks like tomorrow or how homesick I am on a scale of 1 to 10 - NO. None of that.  Meditation has you 'check in' to yourself - your core self of calm and peace and security - and has shown me time and time again that I can access it by turning my consciousness inward to my breath.

3. reading

Actually, to be more specific, this one has been reading about meditating. Or even more specific than that: reading about cognitive distress, fear, and unhapiness (even homesickness?) and how meditation can help you through it. So basically, I've been researching my butt off. I've been raging against the dying of the light by studying what makes the light go dim in the first place. This has helped me with the dark feeling that is homesickness, and provided me with actual strategies to apply to my situation.
(This is the book. I talked a little bit about it at the end of this post. Full book report coming soon.)

4. visualizing my relatives that have passed

This one might sound weird, but it has helped me. I've been in several rental cars over the past four weeks, and when I'm driving in an unfamilar place, I don't like the radio on.  So there I was - alone in a silent car, driving on strange streets.  At one point, I pictured my Nana next to me, in the passenger seat. She was smiling, giggling with me about this crazy ride I'm on (literally and figuratively). Then I visualized my Nonna, my Uncle Jimmy, and my Grandpa in the back seat, all squished like. They were with me. I knew them, and I was not alone.

5. shoving anxiety in a box

Here's another thing I've been doing that might sound weird, but it's been helping.  I caught the video below several weeks ago and for some reason it registered with me, and I've been practicing this mental technique every since.

(I swear, people need to talk to me like ^that all the time.) By 'putting the anxiety in a box', I am able to deal with it in the moment and move on from it easier than I have in the past. Anxiety is an ogre, and I know for sure that my fear, worry, and homesickness would have already consumed me if I hadn't been practicing ways to tame it.

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I hope this little list has helped you if you are feel homesick. I'd love for you to share in the comments anything that's helped you. ♥ Thanks for stopping by.

we're in this together.

One dufflebag full of Carmen. One dufflebag full of Alejandro. ...and me, in the middle, trying to keep it together. Nine hours, two airports, and a new apartment later, all three of us managed to have a pretty good panic attack. I suppose I expected it from me, but seeing it from the two of them really threw me. Carmen wet herself. Alejandro hid shaking behind the washer/dryer. ...and their mama just about lost her mind. (Lucky Tomas.)

After we all slept a much needed sleep, we woke up feeling better.  The cats ate and litter-boxed; I made coffee and organized a bit.  Talking to mom and dad helped too, but I tell ya...I pray we get better adjusted.

Oh, my kitty boops, my travel buddies, my little life loves: we're in this together.  Let's stay strong, and try to remember we're going to be alright, no matter what. ♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Weekend, all!

NY to TX | …aanndd I'm off!

Me and the kitty boops are getting on a plane today (two planes, actually - layover - stupid). I knew this day would come, and started talking about it three weeks ago, but even still, there are a number of questions looping around in my brain:

What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?  What am I doing? What am I doing?

God, an answer to any or all of the questions above would be great.

The last time I felt this way, I was starting design school.

Life is hard, but here we go!

NY to TX | 1 more week to go

One. More. Week. I'm getting on a plane with two cats en route to Texas in one week from today.

At this point, my emotions about it have kind of deadpanned.  Although I'm excited to an extent, it's hard for me to express any excitement.  Plain and simple: I truly don't know if this is the 'right' decision, and I'm going to miss my home. I don't know if that's logic talking or anxiety -- and maybe it's a little bit of both -- but I know that I'm getting on that plane anyway. Concerned, worried, and afraid -- with a sprinkle of excitement and the need to be strong for the kids (aka: my cats) -- I am going to board that plane in a week. 

It's legit going to take all the courage I can muster. It's literally one of those situations where "I can't do this, but I'm doing it anyway." I don't know if it's the 'right' decision, but it's a decision. That has to count for something. I'm learning to see decisions as experiments, and that no matter what the outcome of my decisions (good or bad), I am smart, resourceful, and have skills I can use to get me through. I've been learning to trust this truth. 

On missing my home, I've been learning to trust this truth: my home will always be here. I mean, could a fire blaze through my street destroying my home and everything inside it while I'm in Texas? Yes. But is that likely to happen. No? So why would I worry about missing my home or family and never getting them back again? Because I have anxiety, that why. Haa haa! I'm learning, I'm learning. On missing my home, I've also learned this truth: I'll always miss it. I now understand that shouldn't stop me from leaving it...

It's going to be a tough week for me.  I'm going to try to soak up everything before embarking on my new Texas adventure, and be very 'in the moment'  with family and friends...and packing. Dang! I have to do that.

anxiety, therapy, zen habits, & meditation

Hello. I'm Amanda Rose Zampelli, and I have anxiety. Everybody does to some extent, but there are a lucky bunch of us that feel it often enough for it to be a thing. I have always been an anxious human being. I believe I had my first panic attack at 5 or 6 years old, and ever since, have developed this habitual fear of feeling fear. Couple this habitual negative thinking with a set of over-protective and paranoid parents (gotta love 'em), and a perfectionist approach to life (in an attempt to over-achieve and plan my way out of fear) and WAH-LAH! Me! -- at my most in need of help.

So I sought it. Earlier this year, for the first time in my anxiety-ridden 29+ years, I went to therapy -- like sat on a couch and chatted with a medical professional specializing in mental and emotional talk-therapy. See clip & clip for reference. ;) I recommend it to everyone and anyone, especially those who share my lovely Molotov cocktail of internal and environmental variables. These variables have shaped my perception of the world and my functioning on a daily basis. Therapy calls for a better understanding of these variables so that they do not maintain such a powerful hold on me. In short: therapy's helped.

What has also helped is having zen habits sent to my inbox every few days. It's a blog created and written by Leo Babuta that's about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, and find happiness. Sounds awesome, right? This post was my most recent favorite read from the blog.

Just the term 'zen habits' sounds inviting and like something I'd want more of in my life. Zen. Habits. Yes, please. To me: it's the fuel to fight my habitual negative thinking. Instead of an anxiety response, I've been deciding to do one or two small things everyday that allow for more peace, calm, and serenity. Some of those habits include waking up early, saying 'thank you' with my soul each morning, 30 to 60 minutes a day of intentional exercise, allowing the sunlight to touch my skin, talk and laughter with people I love, eating food that's good for me, prioritizing tasks, taking photographs, making something, going to sleep early, and most recently: meditating.

On the first day of this month, I read this post talking about Oprah & Deepak's Meditation Experience. In that post, Maegan talks about how she's tried to meditate in the past, but struggled with creating it habit-enough to reap the benefits so many who meditate daily talk about. I've been there, too. So I've resolved, like Maeg -- to join Oprah and Deepak on this 21-Day journey in which I tune in for FREE to their channel every day for the next 21 days and am guided through a 20-minute long meditation exercise. Last week I sat and breathed through this sample meditation in which the centering thought was "my security and peace are within" and in the middle of it all, bing! a light bulb went off. 

My security and peace are within.

I sat with those words repeating in my head, and felt them as they sank into my being. I've been aware of when I feel zen. I can recall those brief moments and feelings of calm and peace and serenity throughout my day, and newsflash: that is my natural state, my true self.  The anxiety is an illusion, a habitual illusion I've allowed myself to believe for far too long...my reaction response to almost everything that doesn't go according to plan or threatens my being, but YO! My security and peace are within.  I can tap into it whenever I need to. It is my natural state.

I still felt anxious this week, but this centering thought truly helped me. It's another weapon to fight my habitual negative thinking, another zen habit to work into my daily world. I repeated it to myself one night to sleep. I commented on a friend's facebook status with it. Yep, I'm becoming that person. That person that writes about it in a wordy Monday post. Haa! Sorry. 

...and now I have to go work Day 1 of the Meditation Experience into my world. I hope this post encourages you to do the same, or get help if you feel you need it, or made you feel a little less alone, or had you acknowledge that your security and peace are within. ♥

Keep an eye out for the follow-up post in three weeks. Namaste.

NY to TX | 2 weeks and counting

Two weeks from today, I am making the move from Queens, NY to Dallas, TX and with every passing day that draws me closer to getting on that plane, the more I'm envisioning myself on that morning clinging to my bed's comforter saying, "Ah, forget it! I changed my mind. I just want to stay here - in this bed - surrounded by my family that is my love and comfort and support, and stick to what I know for a little while longer."

I'm really scared.

I have to start packing boxes, and that scares me.  

Friends and family keep telling me "I need to see you before you go".  That scares me, and I immediately get defensive and yell back at them, "Don't act like I'm never coming back!"

I'm taking the cats with me, and I'm scared they'll hate it, or worse: hate me for it. 

I'm going to see if Tomas and I can work, to explore the question: can we be us again?  I'm scared the answer might be no.

I haven't the slightest clue what to expect, and it's shaking me to the core.

Last week I read a post from the zenhabits blog called "How to Master the Art of Living". It talked of letting go of expectations and appreciating each moment for what it is. It also contained a great blueberry metaphor:

"Imagine you had a gorgeous blueberry sitting on the otherwise empty plate in front of you. You pick it up gently, place it on your tongue, and begin to taste it.

You already know how a blueberry tastes, and so when this one is a bit riper than you’d like, you make a face, feel the disappointment, swallow it with displeasure.

Or perhaps it tastes exactly as you’d expected: no big deal. You swallow, and move on with your day.

In the first case, the blueberry was disappointing because it didn’t meet expectations. In the second, it was boring because it met expectations.

Now try this: have no expectations of how the blueberry will taste. You don’t know because you haven’t tried it yet. You’re curious, open to a variety of tastes."

I would love to master this way to live. I would love to be going on this Texas journey just...curious, open to a variety of experiences -- having no expectation of how Texas will be. I've been practicing being more in the current moment, and less in future moments that I could never predict or forsee or be ready to handle until they arrive.  I'm practicing.

I'm trying...

                   ...with lots of crying in between. :)

...but now's the time. ...and we shall see. ...and this is life. ...Dallas or bust. ...Dallas and bust?

NY to TX | 3 weeks and counting

There's something new happening in my world three weeks from today: I'm making the move from Queens, NY to Dallas, TX...and to say I'm freaked out about it is the understatement of the century.

Since Tomas visited New York back in May, and then returned back to Texas, we've been talking about me going down and living with him...what it would mean, how we could do it, and seeing if we could work. Somewhere in June, that's what I decided I wanted to do - see if we could work - in a new setting, without much influence of anything else but us two.

It kind of answers the question in the post I wrote on the 4th of July thinking about independence: How independent will I be by Summer's end? Turns out: pretty independent. 2000 miles away from everything I know and am used to, living with Tomas, diving head-first into adulthood and "the real world" (Ain't It Fun), and seeing if we can make it work.

More will be said on this in the days leading up to the move.  This will be a new series of posts on this space, equipped with the same header image you see above.

What I understand for me with where I'm at right now -- at 29-almost-30  -- is this: Independence needs to happen now, or risk it never happening at all.  Tomas and I have been in this limbo state of 'are we or are we not' for about two years, and we have to be together now and see if we could and should still be together, or risk it never happening at all.

As anxious as I am about it, the major deciding factor to make the move was this: I figured I could sit in my bedroom (in my mother's house!!!) for another year, follow the same exact routine I already know is not furthering me, and mull over whether or not I shoulda/coulda/woulda went to Texas, or I could just friggin GO. Go and discover if it is the right thing for me or not.

So I decided to just friggin go.

I'm going.

In three weeks.

...and I feel like that kid on the bus that peed my pants on the way to school.

Oh, and P.S. - the cats are coming with me.

summer reading // Don't Worry, It Gets Worse by Alida Nugent

Yesterday and today I am coming to you with probably two of the longest, most overdue book reports of ever since I read both of the books I'm suggesting as good summer reads about 365 days ago. :)

The second book I read last summer was Don't Worry, It Gets Worse by Alida Nugent. It was a book I found at the end of summer -- on Labor Day actually -- while waiting for my sister to emerge from a dressing room in Urban Outfitters. The first few pages tugged on my just-resigned-from-my-job-as-a-teacher-about-to-go-back-to-school-for-graphic-design 20-something self spinning in a world of expectation and confusion (not to mention a crappy economy). Alida writes:

“A few years ago, I graduated college, diploma in one hand, margarita in the other, completely oblivious to the shit storm that was coming my way. Here’s a preview: becoming a living, breathing, job-having, bill-paying, responsible adult? Really fucking difficult.”

....COMPLETELY OBVLIVIOUS TO THE SHIT STORM THAT WAS COMING MY WAY.

That is the tagline of my 20s.

Here is some more great writing from the book. Here is Alida's blog. ♥ Have a good one!

my little lifeboat after the shipwreck

This post might be a weird read to anyone who's never seen the show, or feels reality T.V. is phooey, or has some ingrained prejuduce towards little people or whatever it might be, but this is a post on how The Little Couple was like a little lifeboat for me after the shipwreck.  This is post about my love for the show and the Klein family and how I feel that they saved me.

Back in February, I was catching the coming attractions to this season's opening episode and it seemed filled with drama and worth watching.  Bill and Jen were going to India to pick up their daughter, Zoey, and Jen found out she had cancer.  I thought that was both so exciting and so sad, and I wanted to see how it panned out.  I watched that first episode from my hotel room while I was in Utah for work in March.  It was dramatic and everything a reality T.V. show is supposed ot be. "I'll catch the next episode, I guess," I thought, and that was it.   However, during this time, I also was hit with a huge bought of anxiety.  I called it a 'funk of epic proportions' and it WAS, and it leveled me, and it seemed to come out of nowhere.

When I think about it retrospect, there might have been a few contributing factors: a few months until I turn 30, not knowing what the outcome will be with Tomas, missing him and wanting to be with him, but still desiring my independence, still living at home, a new job, a big learning curve, deadlines, big adjustment working from home, not to mention one of the worst winters we've had, no sunlight on my skin, no physical activity...no wonder.

Enter:  The Little Couple, and their two adorable kids, and the love and lightness of their show. With each passing week and each episode watched, I began to have faith in something again.  It's like that song: "Suddenly I see...this is what I want to be..." Not in the crazy stalk-your-life kind of way, but in the all-consuming, beautiful inspiration kind of way.  

I DVRed every episode, and downloaded the Instant Videos of past seasons from Amazon.com.  I watched all that I could (seasons 2 and 3 are unavailable...boo) and just loved each and every episode of routine things any couple does, but how in the end, as long as they're together, it's good and warm and fun.  I think growing up only witnessesing disfunctional, difficult families, and being a part of one myself, it's hard for me to imagine a family 'working'. Does that make sense?  ...and now in my adult life, I'm trying to figure out how I could make a family of my own work. Spoiler: it's harder to figure out than you think.

Last night was the season finale of the show, and for the past 16 weeks of this season, Bill and Jen's love has inspired me to believe in it again, and hope for it for myself.  ...and when something hits you like a huge episode of anxiety and depression, it's simply a miracle that something like that can happen for you, if ever so slight.

On last night's season finale, as you see in the pictures of this post, Bill surprised Jen for her 40th Birthday by proposing to her for a second time, having her a tailor-made dress for a vow-renewal ceremony, and inviting all of their family and friends to witness it and part with them afterwards. It was so beautiful, and truly touching television. 

This post is to say 'thank you' to my Little Couple.  Thank you for sharing your inspirational story. Thank you for making me less scared.  Thank you for giving me hope.

I pray that I'm lucky enough to be afforded the blessings of a loving, kind, and considerate husband (like Bill) who knows my worth and who I'm crazy about in return.  ...that I'm afforded the blessings of (at least) two adorable, good, happy and healthy children.  Jen has the love and support of family and friends and much success in a job she loves.  I pray for these for me and you.

Gosh, can you tell I love this show? ♥ Uh! I just love them.

Here are 8 Reasons You Need to Start Watching The Little Couple NOW.

All images were taken from TLC.com.

scaling the incline

Here I am scaling the incline at Alley Pond Park.

What does this mean to me?
It means that the weather had finally warmed.
It means I'm getting my body happily moving again.
It means I'm allowing myself to get out my head.
It means I'm feeling better. Ah, to feel better. 
I have a long way to go,
    but I am wide, ascending strides from the sad state I was in a couple of months ago. 

Here's to it keeping up. Cheers! ♥ Happy Sunday.