I've been back at my parents for a little bit now and it's such an inexplicable experience
and on slot of feelings, I'm going to do my best to try and open up here as much as I
can.
It feels like I'm lost.
There is a spiral of existential dread that has passed through my life and I feel like
I'm caught in the eye of the storm as though there is chaos surrounding me but right now
it's like I'm on pause, a silence that doesn't translate into an auditory capacity of any
kind.
It's a standstill, I just watch the days go by, they're flying by but they're also
not passing me by.
I feel stuck.
I don't really understand what it is that's happening.
There are some ways in which I feel like a failure, I feel ashamed.
I feel as though I've let people down or maybe it's just myself.
It's an ass backwards thing to say because it's actually the opposite of what's happened.
It's just not translating into the reality that I'm capable of yet understanding.
I set out on this journey, the preface being that I was going on a great adventure, living
in my trailer, doing exactly what it is that I wanted.
Maybe it was evident, perhaps I skimmed over this too lightly but the reality was I wanted
this quest to teach me something, to uncover something about myself, a desperate attempt
to fix myself.
Maybe I'm in limbo of admitting that it was but a form of doing what I do best, running
away.
My therapist did a number on inquiring about this many, many times.
Why are you so far away from the people that love you most?
Why are you leaving them behind to go and live this life that's so independent of any
form of community?
She specifically wanted to know why it is I wasn't going forth and building a solid
foundation for a beautiful relationship with a partner that I'm so sure is the person
I want to spend the rest of my life with.
I explained to her that despite how incredibly perfect for me I describe him to be, it doesn't
fix my problems, it never would.
I felt like I wasn't right with me, with myself, that I needed to figure that out so I could
be the best version of me, for us, for our future, so we could build a life together
without one needing to be dragged down while the other struggled to sort out their life.
The other person would be me, of course.
I explained to her that there was always so much noise around me, people influencing
me whether directly or indirectly, as to how I should be living my life, making comments
and what they perceived to be giving of helpful advice.
Society's commands were constantly playing on a loudspeaker that just wouldn't shut
up.
The demands of my life became all too much.
I stood there, stomping my feet, hands on my ears, wanting everyone to just shut up,
to be quiet, so that I could finally have a few moments to just hear myself think, to
truly feel grounded and hear what it is I had to say about anything.
What was it that I truly wanted?
I didn't know what that was.
I don't know that I even know now as I speak these words into the microphone.
That was the leg I chose to stand on, and truthfully, I still do, even today.
What ended up happening was a shift in direction, both environmentally and in my entire being.
I found a way to be the most vulnerable I have ever been.
I threw some really deep stuff, heavy stuff, maybe my darkest secrets, out into the open
to a few people that I love.
My therapist was one of them, my partner another, a couple close friends.
The journey that I need to go on now is going to be the hardest one yet.
I don't even know what to do, and it could be a podcast episode of its own, the roadblocks
that I've already faced, that I've run into with such force that it has knocked me off
my feet and taken the breath right out of me.
I've always believed that owning your truth, no matter how hard they are, allows you to
set yourself free.
If you speak up about your flaws, your weaknesses, your struggles, they can no longer hold power
over you.
They can no longer own you.
Unfortunately, I was not equipped to understand the effects that certain things coming to
light would cause me to feel, to live, to experience.
While speaking out, I have cut myself open and shown my most shameful self to those who
I trust and love the most.
Instead of shaming me, instead of making me feel alienated or alone, I was shown love,
copious amounts of it.
I remember sitting in the trailer, feeling free, as the tears rolled down my cheeks.
I didn't have to hide anymore.
I could finally breathe.
If people could love me even when they knew what I had told them, when they saw me at
my most broken, there must be something there.
Something that's worthy, deserving of love.
What I realized then, along with helpful nudges from my therapist, is that this is a darkness
in which I reside, where the light switch remains out of reach to me alone.
It is a darkness that requires me to allow those that I love to stand around me to shine
their light into my life so that we can find the door together, the door that we will open
that will allow the natural light in.
There is things in life that shouldn't need to be done alone, and then there's things
we absolutely cannot do alone.
This is the scariest thing to face, and it shows me so many flaws, so many areas I need
to work on.
I need to trust, to allow others to help, to learn it's okay to lean on them, to allow
them to, and even more frightening, to ask for help.
I need to set aside the act that is a strong independent person, and that one's hard to
let go.
The next scary piece?
Well, it's making peace in the first place.
I need to learn to love myself.
Wow.
The confidence, the bravery.
Somehow it appears to have been an illusion in the display of my self-compassion and love.
Yet my therapist reminds me that what I am doing, the journey I'm engaging in, and each
and every decision I make to better myself, is an act of love.
So then, why do I not love myself?
Why is it that I can't find acceptance within me?
I told her, I don't know who I am, I'm so lost.
She told me that's not true, it's just a matter of acceptance and making peace.
I'm not ready to talk about some of these things out loud, but it won't remain a secret
forever.
I just need to let it sit to sink in.
Sometimes we're presented with truths that seem so surreal, like they don't fit.
We just deny we try to justify.
I can't do that anymore.
I won't.
I owe it to myself.
It is out of love that I am doing all of this.
Sometimes it feels like I'm dying internally, spiritually.
I don't feel self-harm or suicidal ideation, nor do I wish to end life as an experience.
It just feels like a pause.
Avoid.
The unknown is just introducing itself, wanting to become the best of friends.
I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should trust it or if it will just hurt me.
That's heavy.
Cryptic.
And I apologize.
It is what I do best after all.
Some fancy form of running.
So with all of that being said, I am still not feeling the best with regards to my health.
I finished a course of antibiotics that was prescribed to me.
The night before I got back to Canada, when I was in Michigan, I felt the onset of an
asthma attack.
Where my chin got itchy, I started to hear wheezing and would perpetually cough trying
to clear it.
This actually exacerbates the swelling in the airways.
I took my inhaler, but it seemed triggered by nothing.
In the good moments, I feel okay, but there's still a dry cough.
Though I do notice more than I would like to admit, there is a burning sensation in
my chest when I breathe.
When I arrived, my dad and I took a walk out back to see the beautiful trails they created
to enjoy the property.
It was a cool, misty afternoon.
It had rained on and off all week.
While outside, I began feeling it again.
Another need to take the inhaler arose.
It's been 20 days.
I'm not coughing anything up, but when I have resumed my exercise regime, it is of note
that I am feeling generally unwell.
It feels like a low blood sugar, some dizziness, feeling hot.
It should not be the case.
I don't know what it is, but it's one more thing I wish I didn't have to deal with.
This is the part of me who wonders if I will need to see a doctor again before I head out
west, just to ensure there's nothing else going on.
I know that an appointment with my nurse practitioner is required.
It's time to request assessment for formal asthma diagnoses.
I am emotionally depleted.
There is so much challenge in returning home, and I say that in quotations, as I feel in
between homes at present.
When we get older, have moved away, have started to heal ourselves, there is an almost sobering
realization that hits you when you are presented with the patterns and behaviors that you now
recognize as blaring red flags.
We can hold all the love in the world for our parents and caregivers, while also finding
pain in recognizing that they are humans with flaws who did the best they could with what
they had.
Some of the ways in which they prepared us for the world actually posed as challenges.
We are presented with very painful reminders of many things, a bittersweet experience.
This was something that was also plaguing me.
So many things I wanted to say, as I preach vulnerability and openness, but had difficulty
doing it with the most important relationships in my life, my parents.
As I record this, I have in fact had some of these difficult conversations out of the
inability to continue living as I had been.
In denial, lying, fawning, and pretending just because it was too uncomfortable.
As I drove home, I knew I had to do exactly this, no matter my fear of the outcome or
how scary it is.
I had to speak my truth.
I have done that for so many things, and although it's freeing to have these conversations,
and yes, they absolutely do bring you closer together in your attempts to repair, it is
exhausting.
It feels like I ran a marathon for 5 days non-stop and then proceeded to hike a hill
for another 3.
Instead of body exhaustion, though, it's mental and spiritual.
Maybe the feeling of life being on pause isn't necessarily that it's on pause.
Maybe it's my entire being that's taking a pause as a mandatory requirement to just
be able to breathe and let it all settle in.
Right now, I feel in limbo with myself and the world around me.
I don't feel like the me I was 2 weeks ago, advocating for vulnerability, charging forward
in the direction of my dreams.
I feel like I'm looking at a shell of myself, floating through space, while my body is separate
from me.
Almost a dissociation, but I'm not dissociated.
I'm simply struggling to word this in a digestible way.
Hopefully, it is also understandable, and maybe if I'm lucky, relatable.
I am not connected to my body in a real way.
I do not recognize any part of me.
How can you recognize yourself when you don't even know yourself?
Is it the trauma of being home, surrounded by triggers, and speaking of them into existence?
Is it the secret that I've unraveled that is trying to make its way into my life, trying
to connect itself to me as my reality?
Is it all of it combined?
I know that I'm still living within myself.
I am still me, but I'm also not.
In looking forward, there is much to be done.
In the way of repair, healing, transparency, I have to hit the road in a week and a half's
time to return to my other home, that of my loving partner, his family, and where I plan
to settle for the next few months as I buckle down to tackle my passion projects.
Simultaneously, I will attempt to rest, repair, heal.
This sounds like a lot as I say it out loud, so I guess it will continue to just be one
step at a time, one day at a time, until further notice.
I am happy that I will be surrounded by love and safety.
I know I will need to learn to trust others, because at this point, there's not much trust
left in myself.
It's a really wild thing when you unravel, where you find that you are the root cause
of your own shattering.
Do I wish this hadn't happened?
Do I wish I hadn't embarked on this journey at full force?
It would have been easier in some senses, yes, but it would have been lying to myself,
to others.
And I don't do that anymore.
I am 100% committed to myself.
This is what I remind myself as I go forward, whenever it gets hard.
Stop doing this to yourself.
You love yourself, and you are doing this out of love.
A tear falls as I quietly whisper, okay, and I take my own hand, and I get up off the floor
again.