HOW I SUNDAY: ISSUE 26

by Olivia Muth

Welcome back. I’m sitting here writing this a full year later from when I last wrote my “How I Sunday” piece. At the time I had just quit my job and started a new chapter at Sunday Forever. I was “deprogramming” myself, as Ashli would say, from the structure and ways of my old job.

I read back on my last “How I Sunday” and I can’t help but laugh a little. I can see the honesty in what I wrote but I can also see the perfectionist in me peaking through. While the story of how I felt during the period at my old job was very true, I think there was a small part of me that wanted to make it seem like my Sundays had me totally and completely pulled together. Like I was suddenly all better...LOL good joke, Olivia. Truth is, I was a little better...but nowhere near 100%. I don’t even think I’m at 100% now (do we ever really know what 100% is?) but I think I’m pretty freaking close...most days.

What I do know is that in the last 365 days I have become more authentically myself than I ever really thought was possible. I remember a few months back I was on the phone with an old friend and she stopped mid conversation and said, "I feel like I haven’t heard you be this silly since we were kids." I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I had never really thought I lost that part of myself... but apparently somewhere along the way I had started to take myself a little too seriously.

I think it was my determination from early on in college to be “successful”. I wanted to prove a point that even though I was a fashion major (so many eye rolls), I could still get any job I wanted, so I hustled as hard as I could. Don’t get me wrong, the hard work was so worth it. By graduation I had 6 internships (all at major fashion houses) under my belt, I was president of my sorority, and I was working a babysitting job 5 days a week.

Looking back I sometimes think I was a little too focused, maybe I could have had a little more fun instead of being so worried all the time about the future. Worried about building a “perfect” future. I think that’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year. You can plan all the future you want but your life's gonna go in whatever direction it’s meant to go. I mean, if we’re being real the future isn’t even guaranteed. We’re only guaranteed today. So, we just gotta do our best to make today the best one yet...and then before we know it we’ve built this great future on a foundation of really great “todays.”

I don’t know if what I’m doing is right. I just know I’m really happy. I find myself taking the long walk home a few nights a week where I wander up and down the streets looking at all the insanely gorgeous brownstones and think to myself, “am I really doing this? Is this really my life?” (Please note I do not live in these brownstones, I merely walk by them. I live above a Dunkin Donuts. Nothing wrong with that though because I really love donuts). I sometimes think it all has to be a bit of a dream. Don’t get me wrong, there are some bad days (my roommate will attest to ALL my emotional breakdowns) but the good always finds a way to outweigh the bad. It’s really all perspective.

So if there’s one thing I’ve managed to do in the last year is to stop taking myself SO seriously. I’m freaking weird. The team will back me up on this, with PLENTY of anecdotes. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m being weird until they tell me...I’m just being me.

They say good people are difficult to come by, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think you attract what you put into this world. As I’ve become more authentically myself, I’ve only attracted better people into my life and those that were already in it have just become stronger players. I’m so grateful for that.

Life is weird, and really long, but also so short. It’s as fun and lighthearted as you make it and if you surround yourself with good humans you really can’t go wrong. Or at least that’s what I think.

So now, let’s take a look at how I REALLY Sunday…

1. Wake up (I’m not even sure what time it is)
2. Maaaaaybe go to barre. If I didn’t go out Saturday night / managed to not be hungover. But like probably not…
3. Pick up a toasted pumpernickel bagel with veggie cream cheese and coffee. Probably should break this new habit but whatever.
4. Call every human I have ever been in contact with while I run errands. No joke. I am that person they make memes about because I will call my close friends & family and talk on the phone for an HOUR each. What could I possibly talk about for an hour? LOL don’t try me. Oh, and if they don’t pick up? That’s right, I leave a voicemail. SUE ME.
5. Attempt to clean my apartment. I say attempt because it is never truly executed to my standards. I am working on this, check in on me next year.
6. Catch up with my roommate. One Sunday we sat in our kitchen for THREE HOURS and just listened to music and sang at the top of our lungs. Barely any words were spoken, we were just singing (again, kinda weird).
7. Look over my work emails from the weekend while I watch something on Netflix
8. Probably do some sort of facemask in my kimono
9. End scene.

I’m exhausted, but strangely exhilarated, from all the changes this year has brought me... but I think that’s just how life goes? So I guess I better get used to it?

Until next year xx 

Olivia Muth is a daughter, sister, friend, co worker, citizen of the world based in Hoboken, NJ. Her claim to fame is playing Willy Wonka in a 2008 community theater production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (DM for pics). When she's not busy making nice things, she loves to catch up with her friends & family, watch Gilmore Girls re-runs, and sing & dance at the top of her lungs to any song that comes on the radio. She lives by The Golden Rule (thanks, dad!) and hopes that one day she'll live in a world where everyone does the same. Follow her journey @oliviamuth