I live in what I would consider to be the most beautiful place in the entire world. I am floored by it daily, I can’t believe a place like this exists. There is rarely a day that the sun isn’t shining. At night, I can see the moon and the stars so brightly that it feels like I am legitimately in outer space. Stars shoot so frequently through the sky above me that it’s inspired me to diligently study astrology to see how all of this beauty could translate into my life. I spend so much time learning about the mountains, the rocks and the animals. I love every last bit of it.
Writing my last blog, just a moment in time., sent me into a two day spiral. My body was an animatronic robot going through all of my normal activities while my brain was somewhere else. My head was wrapped in cotton while simultaneously going up in flames. Writing that blog poured lighter fluid all over me and posting it was the match that set it ablaze.
I was in the place that tells me this will never, ever get better. It sneers at me that I will never be free, I am cursed by it. There’s no sense in fighting against it, it is hellbent on dragging me into inevitable madness.
Outside, the sun shone so brightly that it was boring into my skull. The mountains loomed over me, I was looking at them but I couldn’t really see them. They were ominous and even the moon felt like it was judging me. I can’t see the beauty around me when my mind is in the past, it doesn’t compute. My surroundings aren’t familiar to me, I hadn’t seen them yet.
Inside, I obsessed over every detail. Every moment in time that I might have been responsible for how everything turned out. Trying to fill in the gaps of what I couldn’t remember. I oscillated through outward rage and inward shame. I berated myself for wasting my days off by being in this headspace, for not being able to get it together and felt disgusted in myself for pouring out my vulnerability on the internet.
I don’t really remember what I did Sunday. I know I did laundry and I cleaned. But I don’t remember anything else. This is par the course for episodes of this magnitude. I will be so deeply entrenched mentally and emotionally in the past that, later, my brain can’t even bring the actual details back up. I’m grateful there was only one day of this. Last year I lost a full month from December to January. There are only some details I remember from the time I was pregnant, most of it got thrown out completely.
Monday was more painful but it’s also crystal clear. This is a good sign.
I knew I had to take some sort of definitive action in order to leave the mental state I was in. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. I am always scared it will be one of the times it doesn’t. Those are the really dark times. But alas, we must persevere.
I have been journaling a lot recently. I have different journals for different purposes. My favorite one is used for writing down all of my nature observations in between the thoughts I have at the time. It’s grounding. I also have one for dreams and I have one for rage.
It’s tiring to write it all out by hand. I have multiple dreams a night so I switched to cataloguing them on my laptop to better reference repeated themes and make connections. They have been extra vivid recently. They are abstract but loaded with meaning. They touch on the deepest parts of my psyche that I struggle to look at. They dig into the roots of my life, they aren’t concerned with my most recent past.
It’s even more tiring to write out all of my rage by hand. My hands can’t move as quickly as my thoughts and there are many times I struggle to keep up. It’s frustrating. Yesterday, since there were so many thoughts competing for my attention and ultimately torturing me, I switched this to my laptop as well.
I spent hours, and I’m not even remotely exaggerating, hours typing out every single thought that came through my mind. It is 8,683 words. 8,683 words in the format of a letter I would never send. There was a point where it was only making me angrier. There was a point where I felt like it was only confusing me more. There were moments of desperation and there were things I felt embarrassed to even write. I questioned my faith in my spirituality. There is even a section that I go on a whole diatribe questioning if I had fully lost control of my own sanity. I was afraid that if I quit typing I actually would.
I had some semblance of clarity for a while. I took a shower and ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was more optimistic going through pictures and videos of my past few months and appreciating how beautiful it all really is. I posted them to put some positively out into the world. I laid down to go to sleep.
But I couldn’t. Those fucking thoughts had me in a chokehold once again, careening me backwards. I went back to it. I typed it all out in the form of a text message. I knew deep down that I wouldn’t actually send it but god damn did it feel good to play with fire for a second.
At three am, my entire mind deflated. It had run 8,683 miles and it was exhausted. I was ashamed of myself for still feeling all of these feelings, for needing to write them all out. I was afraid that I was actually just a crazy person, obsessed with my own pain. I wondered if I even had pain at all, maybe I am just really dramatic.
I focused on releasing everything I wrote that day, acceptance moves forward. Resistance impedes. I don’t want to carry it all with me anymore, I’m sick of being angry. I will embody indifference, I will find peace in my grief. It’s over, it’s all over.
I ended my night by writing a letter to myself, reminding myself that what is not released in some form can only fester, turning itself into bitterness. I reminded myself that there is a very big difference in writing letters you’ll never send and then actually sending them. I reiterated how proud I should be of my bravery to start over here in the desert. I remembered how proud of myself I really was. I remembered how far I have come since last year, since May 22nd, since Saturday night.
I didn’t sleep much and I still had dreams. But they didn’t have much depth, they were surface level. In the last one I ‘realized’ that today wasn’t my day off and I was too tired to go to work. Simple shit.
I wake up to my dog staring at me a few inches from my face. The second I crack my eyes open she is tucking her head under my chin and pawing at my face. If I sleep past six am she thinks I might possibly be dead and therefore unable to feed her. She is happy when she finds out that I am not. I am too.
I get up to let her outside and the sun is shining in that particularly jovial form it does sometimes. It is hitting the catclaw vine that grows over the top fencing of my yard in the purest way. It is just bright enough and it’s refreshing, whispering promises of a better day as it graces my cheeks.
I leave my front door open so the crisp morning desert breeze can come through the screen, clearing out all the remnants of the past two days. It is peaceful, it is optimistic. It’s a breath of fresh air and possibility. I am right here. The sun is happy I rejoined the land of the living. I am too.
I am lucky to live where everything survives by sheer determination and force, I get to live in an oasis where things grow delicately and green, wrapping around my home in a way that creates a sense of loving safety. I get to live where animals come and visit me, I have become the Southwest Cinderella.
I find true healing here in the mountains. It is quite the cliche, forgive me for that. But I feel one among the plants and animals that manage to thrive here, just like me. I am comforted by being held in the valleys of the ancient mountain ranges. They hold steadfast, reminding me that years of violent eruptions and moving parts could redefine my structure but it all ends in an awe striking result.
You know I love a good metaphor and, lucky for me, it’s chock full of them.
It only took two days to find myself firmly rooted back into the present. That’s not a long time at all. It wasn’t time wasted.
Everything I experienced led me to exactly the place I am right now, this present moment. It has made the worst years of my life seem like the world’s most beautiful gift.
Among the sun, the moon and the stars, I am scrubbed fresh, more prepared to keep going. They hold my hurts for me and they will give them back to me if I need to look at them again. If I don’t, they’ll release them for me for good. They guide me to the wisdom I need, they nudge me down the right path. The mountains anchor me through. They all called me here, after all. They know what they’re doing.
I will keep listening.
