Wellness with Makalah

By makalah marie

I have so much to type but it’s 10:38 on a Sunday night and I’ve done too many chores to count. Often my brain reaches a point where it is needing to shut down due to all of the roles it fulfills during each day and week. Tonight I find myself inspired to put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard I should say). I do love the old fashion journaling, however transferring it over has, too, become cumbersome in its own way. Hand written entries will be for my books one day, right?! No one’s forgetting my 40-50s pipe dream to publish. Switching gears, My mind has been centered this year. Unlike 2023 and 2024, the year 2025 has been filled with peace. I have felt whole this year.

My year’s mantra: Secure and filled with abundance.

It has really felt nice to feel like me again. I find it strange that I went from, what now feels like a long time feeling imbalanced, to softness and stillness. Sure, there were moments where I could catch my breath, but 2024 reallllllly feels like a sprint of hardships in all areas of my life. Every week was rough, and I don’t think someone could pay me enough to go back to that time period. I like to call it the “dark year”. I didn’t think a year could be worse than losing my grandpa and life completely shifting (2023), but boy, 2024 knocked that year outta the park. I could go in depth as to why it was this and why it was that, but I am going to conclude the same way regardless – I left Austin. I was “finding myself”. Burying grief. With a very incompatible partner. In my sister’s basement. Building a business but feeling impatient. I had never felt less like me in my life. I felt as if I was not making any progress toward my goals (though I was?!). All along there was progress, but sheeeesh your thoughts have a wild way of lying to you! Last August was a pivotal time in my life and that is what I find my mind wanting to expand upon.

So I’ve set the life conditions of last year, you get it… but to frame things accurately, I was insecure in myself and that was the first time I had felt that feeling since 2020. Despite frontal lobe fully developing, I was, as the kids would say, crashing out. It created a resurgence of doubt that I felt I had long gotten rid of – and that caused internal fear (queue beginning therapy again).

I had not doubted myself because I always believed in where I wanted to go, but for the first time, I didn’t have a clue. I wanted to be close to home while also seeing my friends far and wide while also not giving up all of the adventures that I crave. I had a hard time grappling with remaining who I am in the sleepy city I grew up near. It felt like settling, and you know what, sometimes I have days where that feeling still creeps back in, and I have learned to acknowledge that then keep it moving.

Often times I keep it moving when I remember – I have all of the things I wanted. I have created and cultivated a home that Dansby and I love. We live in a historic, joyous and friendly neighborhood that is filled with trees. I can drive to my sisters, or my grandmas, or my cousins on any day of the week. I can walk downtown, attend family showers, or spend a Tuesday night with my niece or nephew. I made new friends. Friends that know me as an adult and choose to spend time around me because they like me and I like them (making adult friends is hard and I have always always always needed a group of like minded individuals around me to thrive). I joined volleyball leagues, yoga studios, and talked to people at all of my local spots. I created community, I give back in more ways than one, and my community regularly shows up for me, too.

I’ve come to realize that life always has been and always will be what you make of it. If you don’t give a place a chance, you strip yourself of the opportunities that could be right under your nose. This is the first time that I have seen Fort Wayne for everything it is – peaceful, warm, and wholesome. A year ago me would be floored that I am typing this (lol gotchaaaaa baby gurl, look how far we have come!). In other areas, I can travel every single month knowing my dog is taken care of (though he goes any time I can take him, of course.) Dansby and I will never know a life without adventure despite my deep love for the soft life I have cultivated. I can make plans knowing I have a warm and comforting home to come back to – how darn special is that. I have traveled somewhere nearly every month, and here I was, thinking I would wither away?!

What I am wanting to convey is a “less really is more” mentality. I am the happiest I have been in years because I have everything I could want and then some. I choose to be present because these are the days I will look back on with gleaming eyes. The days when everyone was alive – my grandma, my dog, my sister’s family full of youth, my late 20s/30s friendships blossoming through season’s of life – I have everything that I have always dreamt of. Nothing less. Nothing more.

I am living my sitcom special – I am the first of my kind.

I am the woman I am for all the women who have come before me.

My sister and I changed the paths of our family. Hers, now so overflowing with love. Me, lucky to be a part of it. To plan the family vacations. To know rest.

• I expand further regarding my life and all of the firsts I have encountered.
  • How lucky am I to be the first to go to college.
  • How lucky am I to be the first to earn a master’s degree and spend years in clinicals challenging me.
  • How lucky am I to move away and experience all that life has to offer.
  • How lucky am I to have visited 14 countries by 27, with 4 more coming before I am 28.
  • How lucky am I to not immediately go into the life of marriage and children and pave my own way.
  • How lucky am I to be the first woman in my family to ever live alone.
  • How lucky am I to book a flight to anywhere I want to go without having to ask a single soul.
  • How lucky am I to own my own business. How lucky am I to fully provide for myself.
  • How lucky am I to know this independence and be the epitome of self sufficient.

I am doing something that no woman in my lineage has known…. I am living for me. I want to change the word lucky, because I know how much hard work it took me (and others) to get me to where I am, but at the end of the day, I do believe that in some instances, it was sheer luck to have gotten each opportunity to make the choices I have. The beauty of firsts is that you never realize how lucky you are until one day you somewhat stumble upon the realization. Every moment that has encouraged me to make every decision I have has lead me to this version of the woman I am. I am so grateful for her and filled with an abundance of pride and joy. I took the time to journal tonight to thank myself for showing up for myself. To recognize the community and village that it took to get me here. For persevering and making it through those shitty years so 8 year old makalah could experience the peaceful version of herself in 2025. Not every year will bring peace, but it sure has been nice to sit in it, relax in it, and spend the year being present.

The beauty of being the first…. There are only choices, pivots, work ethic, and luck. I am the first of my kind. I am so lucky that I was raised to be the go-getter, fierce, bold, genuine, independent woman that I am. I am lucky that the missteps I made have lead me here. I have learned something from any and all of my shortcomings, and I have gained more from embracing challenging times. With love, and admiration for all those who may come after me, do not forget to live your dreams. Whatever theymay be – you are the only one capable of fulfilling them,

Sincerely, the first and only,

makalah marie