Then & Now.

There’s nothing like running into a guy from your past that you once had a bad date with.

Granted, he probably doesn’t remember, me, or the date for that matter, but I seldom forget such things.

Trying to retell the bad date story to my family one night, I discovered that the best and only way to tell the story properly, was to hear it from the horse’s mouth, from my very own words from that very same night.

So with that, I made a visit down to the shrine of all things holy and precious to me: my old journals.

Tucked away in a safe room, these journals stand side by side upon a bookshelf (taking op three or four shelves), all colorfully bound and carefully dated. There are approximately 50+ journals (give and take a few for various other topics, like my travel, food, and work journal), and each one contains all the emotions and feelings, observations and experiences of my life since I first started writing some 15 years ago.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what year me and this guy last hung out and it was by lucky chance that the second journal I plucked from the shelf happened to be the correct one.

2013: the year of my 18th birthday.

As I brought up this fragile document that contained my expressive feelings of my 18th year, I sat with the family over breakfast and began the fun process of combing through my entries, reading aloud the many humorous bits I thought prudent at the time to write down, like who was grumpy that day and why I was (once again) crying in my room.

I laughed aloud at the dramatic outbursts about how I was feeling low, hurt, angry, and sad all the time, but the more I read, the more I couldn’t tell the difference between entries written in 2013 and now.

And I found that nothing much has changed.

Nothing much has changed.

I let that sink in a little. Rereading old entries that expressed the same reactions, emotions, and struggles that I still deal with to this day, I realized that despite my perceived growth I thought I had made since I wrote about this bad date, I was still the same person on the inside.

Somewhat taken aback that I was essentially rewriting the same topics, I opened up conversation with my mom to process that maybe all this writing wasn’t, in fact, doing much to make real change happen within me.

What I found was that there’s history within my family of behavior just like mine, and that I come from a long line of women (and men) that suffer through struggles with mental health. And where my great grandparents were unfortunate enough to be treated with outdated practices like shock therapy, I have the opportunity to get some real help; which for me, is a professional person to talk to, someone who will respond to how I’m feeling, where my journal can’t.

There’s no doubt that writing does offer relief and therapy, don’t get me wrong, but it’s temporary. If I’m still falling prey to my emotions and fighting through the same problems that are simply disguised differently but all contain the same underlying similarity, that means I need to take the next step.

I’ll still write, don’t you worry. Writing is in my soul, runs through my fingertips and onto my keyboard and by opening up about difficult topics, I hope to maybe inspire others who are struggling to do the same and who also want to make sense of their feelings.

(plus I simply adore storytelling)

I never knew that a trip down memory lane could open my eyes and inspire change, and I won’t ever knock writing as a source of healing because look how my words from 2013 made an impression on me today. Visually seeing my problems then and how they compare to my life now has made me want to seek out someone who can get to the root of my problems, and not just put a band aid over a bullet hole…

Home Bound.

I was so bored that I lay in the bath until the water ran cold.

Must have been an hour since I got in.

And I’ve done nothing but stare at the reflection in the water, a still surface except for the occasional ripple due to my breathing.

One breath in.

One breath out.

The candle wick shortens as it burns the time away. Kind of like how I feel.

My cat comes in to check on me to make sure I’m still there.

I am.

I think about nothing and I think about everything.

It’s like, although I don’t have this novel virus, it’s like I caught something else, as I’m sure thousands of other people in the world have too.

Displaced from jobs, lives uprooted and dismantled at the core, I feel this deep rooted unsettling feeling that’s made my days ache by uncomfortably slow.

Boredom, confusion, uncertainty, stress: those are but measly words to describe how I actually feel.

My whole life has been become affected by this cacophony of madness that’s permeated all of society, which is rare considering I live so far removed from the world, all the way up in Alaska.

Without a steady job, without a social life, lacking the inspiration to be creative like I see so many of my friends being, feeling like a dump truck whenever I try and exercise, I’m struggling to recognize what it is I’m living for day after day.

I know I’m not alone, but damn does it feel lonely nonetheless.

Sleep, once a sacred sanctuary for me to recharge and reboot, is fleeting, at best. It’s a futile attempt at getting a reprieve from all the daily headlines repeatedly reporting deaths and new cases. I end up waking up multiple times in the night sweating, heart pounding due to stress I can’t quite place its origins at, and where dreams once roamed, I now wake to nightmares so terrifying that I lie there petrified and paralyzed.

I don’t know if this feels worse because I was vulnerable before all of this madness happened? I had just made a breakthrough step in trying to find help, contacting a therapist, only to be denied due to the new social distancing mandate.

It’s fine, I’ll just live with my feelings then. I’m fine! It’s fine.

But I can’t even describe what it is I’m feeling. Like I said before, it’s worthlessness, but also laziness and depression, but it feels mutated and more powerful.

Anyhow, it was during one of my continued binges on Netflix that something Jane said (from Jane the Virgin) resonated with me.

Her husband Michael had just died due to complications of being shot whilst investigating an international drug lord (straight out of a telenovela!), and part of how she began the process of healing, was to write her romance novel about it.

My husband hasn’t died (husband, where art thou?), but I do understand writing and it’s relationship with healing and sifting through emotions and feelings, and so that’s why I’m here today, as this is the one thing that consistently brings me solace and understanding during rough times (and these are certainly rough times, am I right?).

While these are uncertain times which have brought me (and countless others) stress and anxiety, I have to look on the bright side and embrace all the things I normally wouldn’t do in my day to day routine.

I shouldn’t be looking at what I don’t have right now, I should be looking at all I’m blessed to still have.

I’m blessed to be able to spend all this time with my family. I’ve had dinner with them every night, complete with cocktails at the start and coffees to cinch the night right.

I’m blessed to be able to work still, which I’m enormously grateful for, and while I know it’s minimal, and teetering on a day to day basis, I’m still able to get out of the house and make other people’s days better, one cup of coffee at a time.

*safely, always

I’m blessed at this opportunity to reach out to friends I don’t talk to often, making contact with those I’m always “too busy” to catch up with, as well as start conversation with new friends (hey you!).

It takes some adjustment, certainly, to acclimatize to this temporary way of life, but it’s for the greater good , and I mind as well find joy in the little things.

So yeah, I’m home bound for the moment, but I’m home. And I’m alive, safe, healthy, and surrounded by those whom I love and cherish the most. And that love is stronger than all of this uncertainty and disruption. And it was strong enough that it got me out of that cold bath tub and these hands back onto a keyboard where they belong..