how soccer helped me overcome my eating disorder

this post discusses weight, calories, disordered eating, & other potentially triggering topics. please check with yourself & see if you’re in the right mental space to read about such things before continuing. i don’t want to accidentally make someone else feel worse while talking about my own recovery.

---

sometime in middle school, i decided that my body was not good enough. i’m not exactly sure how it started. i’ve always been slender & active; i’d never cared about my weight or how i looked in comparison to other people. but at some point it crept up on me, this concrete knowledge that my body wasn’t right, that it took up too much space.

for a long time, i didn’t act on any of my thoughts, the ones that told me you shouldn’t eat that & really? you’re eating again? & the classic you’re fat. but they were there, every time i ate something. it’s incredibly difficult to enjoy a meal when your mind is yelling at you to stop after every bite. so eventually i gave in & just stopped eating to try & get some mental peace. of course it didn’t work, because nothing is ever enough to satisfy an eating disorder. even if you’re eating just enough to stay alive, it’ll insist that you’re not doing enough.

my eating habits got messed up very quickly. most days, i wouldn’t let myself eat until about three in the afternoon. when i did finally allow myself some food, it was something meager like an apple or a cup of green tea or a handful or trail mix. i never tracked calories, but i think i was living on around 300-500 calories a day. it was just enough to keep myself going, but never enough to be satisfied. i was always hungry. i was hungry every single days for years.

i never managed to talk to a professional about it (or anyone, for that matter), so i don’t have a specific diagnosis. but i know that i showed traits of both anorexia & bulimia over the years. in the beginning, my eating disorder mostly consisted of restricting, which is a characteristic of anorexia. somehow i managed to do that for about two years: eating the tiniest bit of food every day, or occasionally going several days without eating anything at all. i think the longest i ever fasted was three days in a row.

the fasting obviously had consequences, in the form of me getting extremely sick. i woke up from one of those three day fasts & couldn’t get out of bed. i was feverish, my head felt like it was going to explode, & the intense nausea was the only thing i could focus on. it felt like dying, like if i closed my eyes & slipped away into that pain, i would be gone for good. it was horrible — probably the most painful thing i’ve ever experienced — & it didn’t just happen once. after that first time, i suffered through it almost every morning for months. my morning routine went something like this: wake up. immediate pain. throw up in the shower. almost black out while brushing my hair & getting dressed. eat just enough to regain a shred of focus & quell the nausea.

when my eating disorder was at its very worst, i weighed 83 lbs. according to BMI calculators, i should have weighed 98 lbs. at the very least. i was really, really sick, & here are some side effects, both mental & physical, of my eating disorder:

– i was cold all the time
– my stomach was concave; it hurt & you could see my ribs
– my period would disappear for months at a time
– sometimes i refused to leave my house if i’d eaten too much
– my hair was thin & dull
– i compared my body to everyone that i saw
– i thought about food constantly & couldn’t focus on anything else

when i started my freshman year of high school, i weighed around 90 lbs. i had gained a little bit of weight & i didn’t look as sick, but i was definitely still struggling. i skipped breakfast & lunch, so i typically didn’t eat anything until three in the afternoon, when we would get a snack before marching band practice. i wouldn’t eat again until about 6:30, when i got home. this is when i really started showing signs of bulimia. i would starve all day at school, binge at night when i got home, then feel awful about myself & purge. then the cycle would restart the next morning.

it felt like hell. i wanted to stop but i didn’t know how. i would sit at my kitchen table at night & eat a whole day’s worth of food in twenty minutes. i would tell myself to cut it out, just go to bed, you aren’t even hungry anymore. but i just kept eating. it was just as harmful to my body & mental health as my years of restricting had been. yes, i was eating again, but it still wasn’t a healthy amount. & of course the purging wasn’t helpful. my body didn’t know how to respond to the sudden overload of calories, so i still felt terrible all the time.

i know this has been a dark post so far, but here’s where the recovery part comes in!

i decided to try out for the soccer team that spring. i’ve played soccer my entire life & i love it with my whole heart. it’s something i excel at without much effort, & the feeling i get when i’m on a field is irreplaceable.

so i went to tryouts & i made the JV team. i’m a talented player & an athletic person, but as the season progressed, i found myself struggling to keep up with my teammates during practice. i was tired after completing warmups, i saw stars after sprinting, etc. it just wasn’t going well & i was incredibly frustrated with myself because i knew that i could play better, so why wasn’t it happening?

one day, we were running laps around the field, & i almost passed out after about a lap & a half. i had to stop & tell my coach that i couldn’t do it. i didn’t have the energy to run because i hadn’t eaten anything that day. it was so, so hard for me to admit that, because not being able to keep up in practice is definitely something i could’ve gotten kicked off the team for.

my coach laid it out for me like this: either i started eating lunch, at the very least, or i couldn’t participate in practice. those were very simple terms & it forced me to make a decision. i could keep giving in to my eating disorder & lose the sport that i love. or i could force myself way, way out of my comfort zone & keep my spot of the team.

the next day, i willingly ate lunch for the first time in years. i even packed a snack to eat right before practice. & i absolutely hated it, because i felt heavy & slow & was sure that all the food in my stomach was just going to make me an even worse player.

but i packed a lunch the next day, & the next, & every single day until the end of the school year. at first it was just salads, a few carrots or grapes, a bag of fruit gummies. just enough that when my coach asked what i’d eaten that day, i could list enough that she would let me practice. as the season went on, i started bringing sandwiches & candy & pie & yogurt & other foods i hadn’t let myself eat in such a long time.

things were improving in soccer, too. i became the star of the JV team. i had enough energy that i could run the entire game & work my hardest at every practice. my coach told me several times that i was basically playing everyone’s positions. towards the end of the season, i even got pulled up to varsity for a few games.

i am so, so grateful to my coach. i don’t think she knows how much that one conversation changed my life. her ultimatum was the kick i needed to pull myself back together & overcome the eating disorder that had controlled my life for so long. she made me realize that i couldn’t reach my full potential as a soccer player if i didn’t take care of myself first & eat. my love for my sport, as well as a healthy dose of willpower & stubbornness, was what it took for me to finally save myself.

by the end of my freshman year, i had hit 100 lbs. i was ecstatic. it was the most i had ever weighed in my life, but instead of feeling ashamed, i was proud. i was so damn proud. i had worked incredibly hard to gain those 10 lbs, most of which was muscle that had helped me perform so well on the field. i felt present & grounded, i had so much energy, & i felt more confident in my body than ever before.

i can’t say that i’ve 100% recovered from my eating disorder. the thoughts are still there, floating around in the back of my mind, but i’ve learned to ignore them for the most part. i still have bad days. sometimes i’m not happy with how my body looks. i can still recall exactly how many calories are in something without reading the label. things like that are still ingrained in my head, because unlearning those habits can be so hard. i don’t know if i’ll ever completely recover & never have to deal with those abusive, disordered thoughts again, but the point is that i am trying & that i am not where i was.

yes, i’m covered in mud; i’d just run a 5k

that’s a heart monitor on my chest but i am ok :)

i really am doing so much better now. (i think you can tell by looking at the two pictures above: the one on the left is from 2017 & the right is from earlier this year.) i feel like i’ve gotten my life back. my days are no longer ruled by the irrational fear of something as essential as food. even though i’ve gained over 20 lbs. since my lowest weight, i feel confident. gaining weight is hard, especially when it leads to stretch marks & outgrowing clothes, but i’m learning to love my body regardless. i no longer have any desire to lose weight. i worked so hard to get to this point. i really did almost die trying.

pros of recovering from my eating disorder:

– i’ve developed an interest in cooking
– my hair is super thick & gorgeous
– i can eat all my favorite foods again
– i’m no longer slowly starving to death
– going out to eat with friends (& actually eating)
– gaining weight meant i got to buy a bunch of cute new clothes
– i have the strength & energy to go on adventures, like rock climbing & challenging hikes
– i’ve tried so many new foods, especially desserts

this was hard to write because i’ve never really talked to anyone about my eating disorder. i struggled, starved, & forced myself into recovery, all in silence. now i want to celebrate as loudly as i possibly can. i am tough as hell; i overcame something i thought i would suffer from forever!

thank you for reading this part of my story. my hope it that it inspired some of you to try & overcome the difficult things in your life, or at least to believe that you are not alone & that recovery is possible, even for you.

xo apollo

life, i guess (6)

hey everyone!

it’s been a hot minute since i last chatted with you all about how life is going (a hot minute = seven months, in this case). i’m out of school right now because of the coronavirus, so i decided to take advantage of all this free time & share some updates.

---

– my birthday was awhile ago, & since all my friends are busy 24/7 it took awhile for us to set something up. but we ended up getting smoothies, running into my boss from summer camp, & going to a paint your own pottery studio. i picked up my piece last week & it actually turned out way better than i thought it would. it’s a coffee mug with anoutdoorsy camping scene on it to help me get through the next few months while i wait for summer camp to start up again. :)

here is my mini birthday haul: rainbow kånken from my amazing mom, bouquet from my grandma, & some cute trinkets from one of my best friends, like a candle, a jewelry dish, & a highlighter with a makeup brush.

– i got my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday. i was supposed to get them removed in january, but i was wearing a heart monitor at the time & the surgeon didn’t want to operate on me until the monitor was off. (apparently anesthesia doesn’t mix well with heart conditions. & it turns out that there’s nothing wrong with my heart, so don’t worry.) anyway, they had me on so many drugs (an anti-anxiety pill, laughing gas, anesthesia, etc.) that i don’t remember anything until the drive home, when i found some ice cream in my post-op goodie bag. i would take the dessert out of the bag, exclaim that i couldn’t believe they’d given me ice cream, put it away, forget about it, & do the whole routine again a few seconds later. i feel really bad for my mom for having to deal with that. also, the pain meds i was prescribed gave me hives, so this whole recovery thing is definitely going to be a fun time.

– my scouting troop was planning a camping trip to a maple syrup farm last month, & since my mom is in charge of the troop & i’m somewhat of an expert camper, we felt like it was our duty to go along. even though the forecast called for 18° weather the first night & i don’t particularly like camping, especially in the winter. it ended up being a fun time, though. we got to help with the entire maple syrup-making process, from stacking wood for the fires to tapping trees to eating fresh syrup with every meal. & there were a bunch of little boys staying on the farm that all got attached to me. i basically had my own troop of six preschool/elementary-aged boys following me around the farm & forest, which i loved so much because i really want to volunteer with a cub scout pack sometime in the future. i taught them about smoke signals & fire safety & how to make really incredible s’mores with reese’s and cookies instead of graham crackers. they were such adorable kids & i miss them a whole lot.

–  all of this time off school has been forcing me to be crafty again, so i made this clay tea bag holder that’s shaped like a toadstool. i haven’t used it yet but i’m lowkey proud of it. that is all.

– i know everyone is probably tired of hearing about the coronavirus, but since i feel like this is going to end up in history textbooks, i want to talk about it at least a little bit. there are currently a few confirmed cases in my county, which is kind of scary. but my family isn’t really following the whole self-quarantine thing so it doesn’t exactly feel real. however, my school is closed for at least three weeks (two by state mandate, one for spring break) & there aren’t any plans for online schooling yet. i have mixed feelings about that, because on one hand i literally have three whole weeks without any school, & i’m trying to get my mom to take me on some all-day hiking/biking trips. i feel like we’ll be fairly safe from corona at the top of my state’s tallest mountain, right? but the downside is that the soccer season got suspended, which sucks because i worked super hard to make varsity & no one knows yet if the games we’re missing are going to be rescheduled or not.

---

so that’s basically how life has been going lately. although most of this stuff actually happened earlier in the year; everything got cancelled so i haven’t done anything noteworthy recently.

before i go, i wanna know how all of you have been dealing with the coronavirus. do you have any cases near your home yet? has your school gotten cancelled? if you’re quarantined, how have you been keeping yourself busy? a global pandemic is obviously a pretty scary thing to be living through, so i wanted to check in & make sure that everyone is hanging in there.

xo apollo

get to know me | tragic backstory + questionable fun facts

hello everyone!

i’ve gotten a lot of new followers lately, so i thought it would be a good time to reintroduce myself. i feel like whenever i talk about myself on here, it’s through the form of, i don’t know, tragic poetry or sad song lyrics that make everyone concerned about my mental health. i never really say stuff like “tofu isn’t actually that bad” or “i don’t remember how to do long division,” which i’m sure is the type of get-to-know-me content that y’all actually want, right? so maybe this post will be helpful for not just my new readers, but the ones who have been putting up with my posts since 2014, too.

---

to kick things off, my name is not actually apollo, which is probably not a shocker for anyone. it’s loren, which for the most part is a great name. but people always either pronounce it like the name lauren, or expect me to be a boy because traditionally it’s a male name. so i use a pen name on my blog, & i chose apollo because the things he symbolizes (archery, music, the sun, poetry, healing, etc.) really appeal to me. so that’s the story behind my name, but i honestly don’t care if any of you call me loren instead of apollo or vice versa.

ok, moving on. my name is loren, & i’m in high school. i live in the american south, & yes, i do have an accent. not a full-blown country singer kind of accent, but you can definitely tell i’m from the south because i say some words with a twang. there are fields on three sides of my house & sometimes there will be tractors on the highway when i’m driving around. yeehaw & all that.

i was homeschooled before i started going to high school. i know some people think that’s sad, to have a parent as your teacher & to not have any classmates besides your siblings, but it was actually pretty great. my mom was an amazing teacher & she took my older brother & i on educational trips a lot. we would go to the national park that we live by, museums, historical sites, etc. & since everyone else was in school, we would typically have the whole place to ourselves. so, to sum things up, my education was superb.

now i go to a public high school. i’m not having a great time, but i suppose that’s not surprising to anyone. i’m a huge introvert, so spending all day around loud people is exhausting for me. & i haven’t had to try very hard in my classes yet, not even the advanced ones, so it’s pretty boring. but what i am enjoying about high school are the science classes & extracurricular activities.

one of our snares made this about me lmao

all about that bass, am i right??

marching band be like
.
i do marching band in the fall & soccer in the spring. i play bass in our band’s drumline, & while i (someone who is 5’2″) look ridiculous marching around with a great big drum strapped to my chest, i absolutely love it. my band is pretty small, with about forty members on a good day, but we’re actually sort of amazing & win a lot of awards at competitions. as for soccer, i play for the varsity team as a striker/midfielder. this season feels a little weird so far because we have a new coach & i’m not really friends with anyone on varsity, but it just started so i’ve still got some hope.

between homework & those extracurricular activities, i don’t have a whole lot of free time, but when i do, i’m usually doing one of three things: reading, writing, or scouting. i’m sure most of you know that i like to write, because that’s one of the main things i post on here. currently, i write a lot of poems & memoirs, which you can read by clicking right here. when it comes to reading, i typically go for poetry, fantasy, paranormal, & contemporary books.

here’s me looking snazzy in my uniform

so the third hobby on that list is scouting, & i have a lot to say about that one. i first got into scouting when i was in elementary school. my brother was in cub scouts & my parents were in charge of the den, so i went to all of the campouts & meetings & events. i loved it, but once my brother aged out of the den, i couldn’t participate in anything scouting related because girls weren’t allowed in the BSA at that time. so a few years later, my mom started an american heritage girls troop, which is just a girls scouting organization modeled after the BSA. my best friends were in the troop with me for awhile, but they quit after awhile. i miss seeing them at meetings, but i still love scouting: earning badges & going camping & volunteering & helping younger scouts with their requirements.

this is cloren, or clay loren

this is the BEST pie i’ve ever had

handicraft in our natural state

i ran out of pretty summer photos so here’s some chaotic camp pics
.
in fact, i love it so much that i work at a BSA camp in the summer. i’ve been going to this camp as a scout since 2016, & now i get to work there, so it’s super special to me. i teach handicraft classes all summer with my friends, go on adventures, cause trouble, eat questionable amounts of ice cream, etc. & sure, some days it reaches 100°, my staff cabin is basically a shed, & i have to wear a uniform all summer, but it’s great! seriously, if you want to have a good summer, work at a sleepaway camp. you will be doing very little sleeping, but you’ll have the time of your life.

here’s a watercolor i did last year

i do have some other hobbies, like art & music & photography, but i don’t have much to say about them other than that i like them. so we’ll just move on to fun facts with loren/apollo/???

this is my kitty, she’s so precious

– i have two cats, my favorite of which is named navi
– i’ve been vegetarian for over a year
– i’m lactose intolerant but that sure doesn’t stop me from eating dairy 24/7!
– i love drinking tea (hot or sweet). the caffeine in it makes me really sleepy though
– my dream job is to be a paramedic, maybe for a medevac service
– i have some weird areas of hypopigmentation on my arms & legs that i think is caused by eczema?? i’m not 100% sure, just hoping it isn’t vitiligo
– according to my notes app, my favorite movies are sixth sense, dead poets society, catch me if you can, & the breakfast club.
– i have a slight obsession with lip balm but it’s totally not that big of a problem haha

so i guess that’s it? i know that was way too much useless information, but hey, if i ever become famous, you guys will ace those buzzfeed quizzes about me! but if by any chance you have more questions, leave them in the comments & i’ll stick them into a q&a post sometime.

xo apollo

a week of outfits

i’ve always been interested in the clothes that other people wear because i believe that they can tell a story of where someone has been, if you’re paying attention. so i took pictures of every outfit i wore last week & documented them along with some details about each day in this post.

there’s not just one style that i like to dress as, although i’m kind of jealous of people who pick one style & stick with it. i’ve got a cherry-patterned sundress hanging in my closet right next to a leather jacket, so obviously i’m a bit all over the place. but i like my clothes most of the time, & i guess that’s what matters. although if i had the money & willpower to have just one style, it would probably be a blend of grunge & 80’s/90’s fashion.

a lot of the photos in this post aren’t great quality because i took them in my room where the lighting is awful, so sorry about that!

---

monday – oversized flannel (stolen from a friend), skeleton crop top, ripped jeans with black tights, red converse.

i forgot to write in my journal on monday, so i don’t really remember much that happened? i know i worked on an essay comparing different brands of bass drums, but that’s about all i can recall.

i was in my school’s drumline this year, & although i struggled some with memorizing the music (i got another concussion, so i don’t think it was really my fault), it was an amazing experience & i miss it a lot. so my brain’s been focused on percussion the past few months, hence the essay on basses.

sorry for going on a tangent right at the start of my post, but i just love my drumline so much. :’)

tuesday – bomber jacket, pac-man crop top, gray jeans, gray & orange socks.

i guess i was going for retro vibe with this? the colors & pac-man graphics feel kinda vintage to me. & i did have shoes at one point, but my feet hurt really bad from marching in a christmas parade with my band the previous week. so they came off as soon as i got home & i refused to put them back on for the picture.

wednesday – black shirt, orange & blue boho pants, black & copper nikes, silver venus symbol necklace that my arm is covering.

this outfit makes me feel like the main character of an indie coming of age movie, who meets her love interest at a small cafe while writing poetry & people watching. but she refuses to be tied down & after spending a whirlwind of a week with said love interest, she runs away to europe, leaving only her favorite piece of jewelry & a letter that smells of her shampoo.

thursday – this outfit has my favorite color palette (blue, red, and gray/black are easily the most common colors in my closet), and i lowkey feel like an e-girl when i wear it. is that a good thing? who knows. anyway, the my chemical romance tee was given to me by a friend (it’s way too big for me, but it’s ok because it’s special), & i layered it over a maroon shirt that i got at this winter retreat. the rest of the look consists of the same jeans i wore monday, combat boots, & a belt i “borrowed” from my mom about a year ago.

i had to go to the doctor thursday evening to get a sports physical (soccer pre-season is starting), & while i was there, i found out that i have a deviated septum from breaking my nose, & also really mild thoracic scoliosis. i had never heard either of those things before, & it kinda blew my mind? i don’t understand how i’ve had those conditions my whole life & didn’t find out until high school. wild.

friday – school got cancelled because of some freezing rain (our first day off school of the year!!), so i just picked something comfortable: adidas leggings & a shirt i got while volunteering at a youth retreat last year.

the back has this cute lil bear on it, but it’s ridiculously hard to photograph the back of your own shirt (this was my best attempt), so you’ll just have to trust me on this.

it was too gross to go outside, so i spent the day putting together a fairly last minute christmas list & reading a book for my biotechnology class. it’s called the immortal life of henrietta lacks, & it’s about how the never-dying cancer cells of a black woman have been used to advance science. her cells were used in the space program, the human genome project, and were used to develop the polio vaccine. she’s enabled huge medical and scientific discoveries, & it blows my mind that i had never heard of her immortal cell line until this year. it’s actually a super interesting book & i’d definitely recommend it to anyone who’s interested in science, medicine, or overlooked but essential women of history.

saturday – my AHG troop was participating in a ceremony for wreaths across america, so i had to wear my uniform. we did a flag ceremony & helped lay wreaths on the graves of veterans. & i ran into my math teacher from middle school because his son was playing taps for the event, which was great because he’s one of my favorite teachers ever. he always calls me by my last name & that just makes me so happy for some reason.

sunday – another day of not doing much, so i went with adidas leggings & a hoodie from winter camp. pretty much all i did was sleep & walk around the house with a bandana tied over my mouth & nose because my brother has the flu & i really don’t want to get it, too.

---

so that’s what i wore in a week! i don’t put much effort into my clothes on the weekends because i don’t usually go anywhere (during winter, at least), but hopefully the other outfits give you an idea of what my style is, even though it does bounce around a bit.

let me know in the comments which outfit was your favorite!

xo apollo

life, i guess (5)

legg

hello everybody! it’s been a long time since i last posted and i am here to explain why.

my summer has been a whirlwind. i got a job as a handicraft instructor at a boy scout camp (aka my favorite place on earth) and was there for seven and a half weeks: half a week for training, six on staff, and one as a camper with my AHG troop. then band camp started the week i got back from work. so i’ve been super busy and haven’t gotten a chance to post anything because of how insane my schedule has been. now that camp is over and i actually have a stable wifi connection again, i’m hoping to get back to posting regularly.

now it’s time for some general life updates, i.e. what have i been doing recently besides camp?

---

– as i just mentioned, i had a summer job working at a boy scout camp! i miss it so so much. there are so many things i miss that i didn’t think i would, like the food and heat and uniforms. and then there are the obvious things, like my friends and the handicraft area and the surprisingly entertaining campers.

i taught an assortment of badges at handicraft, including space exploration, fingerprinting, pottery, basketry, indian lore, and art. i didn’t know much about the merit badges or the BSA going in, so i pretty much winged all my classes. we did stuff like nature journaling hikes and wrestling and launching rockets.

i’m absolutely working at camp again next year, and i’m planning on helping at winter camp and spring break camp, too. mostly for the free staff shirts they hand out to volunteers, but also because i love that place and i love my camp friends.

i’ll try to make a separate post about camp because this has been the best summer of my life so far and i want to remember it by writing everything down.

– i got a phone earlier this summer! and then managed to completely shatter the screen three weeks later in the Great Apple Pie Incident of 2019. i got it fixed but now nobody trusts me with my phone, or with fruity desserts.

my bff & i being artsy

– in my scouting group (american heritage girls), there are level awards that you can earn for every rank. i’m working on the last level award right now, the dolley madison, and one of the things i need to do is put fifteen hours into planning and hosting an event/service project.

my project is painting a music-themed mural outside my school’s band room. i started working on it this week and i think it’s coming along pretty well. it’s going to have a list of previous band directors, the notes to our fight song, and little musicians in keith haring’s art style. i was hoping to have it finished by the time school starts, but that’s next week, so it probably won’t happen.

– this is my second year doing marching band, but it’s been such a different experience. i played in pit last season; this time i’m marching bass in the drumline. so i’m learning how to crabstep and do visuals and memorize drill, which is all very new and confusing. also, i had to miss one week of band camp because of scout camp, and that’s the week they worked on drill to the opener. i had to speed learn most of that movement earlier this week and it was exhausting. and then after i had gotten all of it down, we found out that our low battery captain has to switch schools, so our drill and music has to be rewritten for the third time.

our show this year is paranormal-themed, which i am ridiculously excited about. i’m also thrilled that i got into drumline this season, and i can’t wait to see friends from other bands at competitions. so while this season is already super stressful, i think it will be worth it.

– i used to make friendship bracelets all the time, and this summer i taught myself how to do it again. i can make really complicated patterns, like the watermelon one that took days to finish. i’m working on a really neat starry night bracelet now.

i call them bracelets, but i always, always wear them as anklets. i wish i could wear them on my wrist because that would show them off better, but i can’t stop messing with them if they’re there.

would anyone be interested in some bracelet tutorials?

– i go back to school on tuesday and i am really not ready. in case anyone doesn’t know, i was homeschooled for most of my life and this is going to be my second year of public school ever. last year was really hard because everything was new, so i’m hoping this time things will be a little bit easier.

other than the basic classes (english, math, history, gym), i’m taking horticulture, bio II honors (anatomy + physiology), spanish III, and biotechnology. i’m looking forward to the science and agriculture classes a lot. horticulture because plants are neato; bio II because i’m hoping to go into EMS when i’m older.

---

so that’s what my life has looked like recently! i’ve got a bunch of almost completed posts hanging out on my draft list, so some normal content (or as normal as my stuff can get) should be coming your way soon.

my summer has been absolutely amazing, but i’ve also missed this blogging community, and i’m happy to be back.

xo apollo

blossoms + life, i guess (4)

hey, loves!

it’s been awhile since i just talked with you all about how my life is going. in general, i feel things quickly and vividly, so my update posts are usually messy and full of rants. but i’m actually kind of mellow right now, so i thought i would take advantage of this mostly calm state of mind and share what’s going on in my life right now. :)

– currently, my life is all about soccer. i have practice everyday after school until 5:30 and at least two games a week. i’m working on another post all about soccer, but i have some news that i’m just elated about and have to share right now!

so five of varsity’s players are currently injured and unable to play. they needed more subs for their last game, so the coach decided to pull up some JV players, and he picked me and one of our captains!! i am so thrilled that he considers me one of the best players. during the varsity game i played in, i somehow managed to get a break away and a shot on goal. it’s just huge news and makes me really excited for future soccer seasons.

also, i’m playing another varsity game tomorrow (unless it’s rained out). wish me luck! hoping i don’t get hurt.

– i talked about this in my last life post, too, but people just keep flirting with me. a guy in my bio class has been flirting with me for months and told me that on a scale of 1-10, he likes me at an 8 or a 9; a guy i met last year comes to my home games and sits with me in the stands while varsity plays; and this other boy who my mother described as a “cute string bean” comes to games sometimes, too, and always cheers for me. it’s very flattering but so annoying. i can’t wear a dress to school without getting a bunch of texts about how cute i look. i usually just say “thanks, it has pockets” and don’t address the flirtatious part of the conversation. but that doesn’t stop them from complaining later about how they can’t read me and how i’m sending mixed signals or whatever.

– so school right now is going pretty well for me. i have straight A’s in all my classes, but i missed a bunch of classes/work last week because i got sick, so that might change. plus, i have a bunch of SOLs coming up, which i’m nervous about because i’ve only taken one in my life and they’re still a pretty foreign concept.

i recently had to sign up for next year’s classes, and the ones i’m most excited about are bio II honors (anatomy + physiology), bio technology, and horticulture. i really like science, if you can’t tell. i had tried to sign up for a fire & rescue course at a nearby technical school, too, but apparently i’m not old enough, so i’ll have to wait until the 2020-2021 school year to take that. :/

– i am really on top of my goal of earning 10 ahg badges this year (read more about it in my new year’s resolutions post)! my troop’s spring award ceremony is in mid may, and i am for sure getting eight badges: living in the usa, cake decorating, physical fitness, special delivery (stamp collecting), kitchen scientist, living & working in space, home care & repair and young meteorologist. there are also about seven other badges that aren’t 100% completed, but should be by the time the ceremony rolls around.

redbud tree + chipped nails + soccer sweatshirt

– i’ve been thinking a lot about my stars & stripes project lately, which is ahg’s version of an eagle scout project. i feel like i’m running out of time to pull it together and get my award. the problem is that i have absolutely no idea what i want to do for my project. it has to benefit the community in some way and take at least 100 hours to complete. i was googling project ideas, and the only one i found that sounded ok was installing a sensory room in an elementary room for children with autism. so that’s an idea, but it still doesn’t seem like exactly the right fit for me. i’m a little bit stressed about it, so any huge project suggestions would be appreciated.

xo apollo