Welcome to Prologs. My name is Mary, and when I get overwhelmed and start feeling behind, I find it helpful to zoom out and remind myself that I am still in the beginning of my story. I'm sharing all of my life's chapters, mental health, relationships, wellness, beauty, the chaos of being in my 20s, and all of life's unexpected turns. Prologs is the best way to start

your week, so join me every Monday morning for a new entry into my digital journal. Hey guys, welcome back to

Prologs. I'm recording from Gloucester right now, which is my hometown, Gloucester, Virginia. There is a

Gloucester in Massachusetts, and sometimes people think of her Massachusetts. No, Virginia girl, born and bred. So I'm recording from Gloucester. I've been home at my parents for a week now. It's been

really, really great. I sleep so well here, and my OCD gets so much better. And I think with the sleep,

it's easy to identify why. It's so dark here. And there's no one around my parents don't have neighbors they live in

the middle of nowhere so there's no ambient lighting or light pollution from a city whatsoever you can't

hear the road you don't hear noise from neighbors because there are no neighbors you certainly don't

hear noise from the street below or bars or restaurants nearby and it's so dark. Even with the blackout curtains that we have

on our bedroom in Arlington, it just never gets as dark as it does in my hometown. And my parents don't

even have shades on most of the windows. Like almost all of the windows in the house do not have

shades or curtains at all because there's just simply no one around.

And it freaks people out when they come visit the house sometimes because most people are just

used to having curtains. Like they're just used to having shades and blinds. And so people like when it

gets dark outside, people say that they feel very exposed because you can't see out into the woods

or into the yard or anything.

And it's hard to explain like there is no one out there. Like maybe the coyotes will be looking

in, but there is just no one there. So I'm used to it, but it always like it unsettles Matt a little

bit whenever he comes back. So there are actually shades on the guest bedroom now because enough guests

stayed over and were like, whoa, there's no curtains. And my parents thought, oh, it didn't even

occur to us that people would want shades and blinds. So now they've put them in in the guest room.

But I just sleep so well here. I sleep so deeply. And when I got here, I told my mom that I've been

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