Days of My Life

"Are you crazy?" Yes, I am a little bit crazy, but I think we all knew that already. Signing up for half marathons was an idea; signing up for 10 half marathons was a mentality: go big or go home. Yes, I could have done two or three... But there was a 10-pack "tour pass" and I thought three would be too few and far in between. So I went for 10--for the sake of commitment, for the sake of adventure, and for the sake of 10 being a nice number. This was also an excuse for me to see more cities across the United States. "How do you do it?" At an expo earlier in the year, I saw a t-shirt that read "mind over miles" and that image remains vividly in my head. It takes a great deal of mental preparation--perhaps more of that than physical preparation. (Admittedly, I tell myself that also because I didn't physically prepare for most races, having treated each one as preparation/ training for the next.) Particularly toward the end of the

I used to tell people, "I am diabetic" or "I am a diabetic" and I never liked saying that because it wasn't something that people reacted positively to, or it wasn't something that everybody understood.  Previously, I wrote about my first taste of empowerment , when I (finally) learned in middle school to give myself injections. Undoubtedly, this turning point also brought about a change in attitude. Until then, I used to constantly be frustrated or angry about having diabetes, about not being able to do X/Y/Z, about being micromanaged by my parents. After I learned to administer injections to myself and especially after I started using the insulin pump, I began to feel more control over and ownership of my condition. I no longer had to rely on my mother or the school nurse, and I could take insulin whenever, for whatever I wanted to eat (within reason) or glucose reading I needed to correct.  One day, I had an epiphany: that what I had been tell

"Don't ever feel bad for making a decision that upsets other people. You are not responsible for their happiness. You are responsible for your happiness." - Isaiah Henkel "Don't ever let someone make you feel like you're crazy for wanting what you deserve." - @thegoodquote "You know you're winning when you're happy for no reason. When you don't attach your happiness to anything or anyone, you become free." - @thegoodquote "Stop waiting for someone else to give your life meaning." - Jeff Hood "One day someone will mention their name and you will feel no bitterness no hatred no hurt in your heart and that's how you know you have found inner peace." - M. Ballard "Everything you want is on the other side of fear." - @electricflightcrew "If you help everyone around you but can't help yourself, you've missed the point." - Lewis Howes "I'm attracted to intel

It seems that I go through a "quarter-life crisis" every three years or so. Accordingly, several years ago, I was going through one of these said crises, and had been making some life changes--for the better, of course. For some reason, I had always been scared of dogs. I'd never been bitten by one--I was just so afraid of even coming close to any dog, big or small. One day during the aforementioned quarter-life crisis, I was standing in my cousins' house contemplating my recent changes and wondering what more to do. Suddenly, their chihuahua approached me and licked my foot, which initially grossed me out. Then I looked down at her, and in that moment I decided to simply not be afraid of dogs anymore. I inhaled deeply, bent down, and picked her up. I exclaimed, "Look! I'm holding Snowflake!" Nobody reacted because picking up Snowflake was such a normal thing to them, but to me, that was a moment of triumph, a moment of empowerment that I vividly reca

People frequently ask me what "Remy Sea" means. Following is the thought process I underwent as I contemplated a "pen name" for this blog forever ago. Just before freshman year of high school, I read This Lullaby  by Sarah Dessen, one of my favorite YA authors. The main character's name is Remy Starr, which I thought was poetic, because she was the star of the story (e.g. the protagonist). I greatly admired her determination, independence, and grit. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. She doesn't let herself get attached to any one person, and she certainly doesn't let any one person tell her what to do. She became my favorite fictional character because she was the (slightly rebellious) 18-year-old I wanted to become. I didn't (still don't) know how to swim. Hence, the vastness and unpredictability of the ocean used to (sometimes still does) frighten me deeply. But during sophomore year, I learned to reframe vastness as oppo

Isn't it wondrous how easily people appear in our lives, and how much more easily some of the same people disappear from our lives? I've been thinking about this a great deal lately. Let's say you've just started dating someone new. One month in, you introduce him/her to your friends. They might think, "Oh, where did s/he come from?" but they wouldn't actually ask; rather, they accept that someone new has entered your life, and subsequently someone new is entering their lives. Months or years later, you separate, and your former SO is no longer S, just O. It's as though s/he has been erased from the pages of history, never to be mentioned or seen again amongst you and your friends. Alternatively, you're on a dating app. You match with somebody (yay!), you go through the obligatory initial conversation, you meet up, and you dig one another. With as little as a few hours of (virtual and face-to-face) conversation, you've let somebody new into