growing while leaves fall

My day started at 6 AM because I had to take T to his English course that started at 9 and we had to catch a 7:45 train at a station 30 minutes away. Suffice it to say, I've had an eventful day already. Waking up early is something I enjoy as I'm going through it but I don't ever have enough motivation to decide to do it just for myself, especially when it means waking up before the sun when it's winter. I have the same mindset for running, I enjoy the feeling as I'm running but I can never find it in me to run consistently. Those are two of my goals I'm working towards this winter, maybe waking up early one day a week and then going for a run (I think I may be expecting a lot from myself lol but we'll see how it goes)

Bringing T to his lesson finally have me the opportunity to go to the Apple store and see if my broken phone can be fixed. Sometime before summer, I had a week where I dropped my phone roughly a million times (to my memory I have not dropped it since) and it resulted in the screen separating from the frame.....and apparently, according to the diagnostic tests at apple, the face id feature/camera/??? breaking. Soooooooooooo to fix the screen, face id, and replace the battery it would cost me €622 which is over halfway to just purchasing a new phone (but for some reason a new phone is France costs way more than in the US, €809 compared to $599??). Maybe I jinxed myself upon purchasing the phone because my thought process was that I would purchase a metal phone so it has less chance of breaking and would last me for a few years. It was around the time I was learning about planned obsolescence in my environmental politics class and one tier of my plan to stick it to capitalism but, clearly, my plan didn't work exactly how I imagined. I'm currently borrowing a phone from my host-mom so it seems investing in a new phone is in my future. With that said, my bday is in January if anyone wants to donate to the cause (wink wink) Alas, I guess today was just meant to be a day of accepting my fate. On my way home from the train station I had to accept the fact that I won't be able to make it to volleyball tonight (although I really fought with myself trying to make the logistics of my car being full enough to drive 80 km on two hours' charge possible through sheer force of will) continuing the streak of not returning to volleyball since my first time there. I'm crossing my fingers that Sunday or next Wednesday works in my favor though.

With the end of summer and the arrival of cold weather and changing scenery here in Mimizan, I find myself starting my yearly ritual of working on myself. Maybe it's a result of fall being the start of the school year and me always wanting to attempt to be a new version of myself, aka the kind of student that actually used a planner daily, but I usually devote the wind-down that comes with fall to try to grow. There seems to be a correlation between investing time in myself and disconnecting from everything else though which is problem I'll have to solve eventually. Although this time around, I devoted a lot of time into meditation and was able to identify some limiting beliefs and sit with my inner child (literally such an emotional but rewarding experience) so I'm hoping my changes will last and pay off. This week I'm trying to avoid my tendency to automatically escape through music and let myself sit in my discomfort occasionally instead. Here's to growth. And a restful night's sleep.

All my love,

Natasha