Watching A Dream I Couldn't Wake Up From: CBT Thoughts

Trying to stay in control of my life and my fear is like trying to carry around a bit of water in my hands, and watching it slip through my fingers. I can’t contain it all, and I panic. The need to control my pocket of the universe, but realizing that I can’t, is unsettling. It precipitates a dysphoria that makes me question reality, and I retreat further into the strange fog I feel whenever something is out of place, when something goes wrong. Sometimes it’s way too much to handle. I struggle to control my thoughts, and I hate the feeling that I’m slipping.

I don’t think I’ve ever once, at first glance, seen reality as plain as it is supposed to be. I used to wear these sepia-toned sunglasses everywhere when I was sixteen, because I liked the way the world looked through them- like an old photograph, like it was always autumn. I think about that, and I think about how everything I perceive around me is so, so bizarrely different from what it really is.

I don’t understand people, and I struggle to understand how the world works. I imagine situations and outcomes so intensely that when it’s finally revealed to me that I was wrong the whole time, or that I overreacted, that this never really happened, that I made up the entire thing in my mind, I’m floored. I didn’t understand how powerful a mind is until I was in the emergency room for what I was sure was a heart attack, but was really a psychosomatic reaction to anxiety. I felt like I was dying, so I believed I was.

Maybe it’s easy for most people to view others as a whole: complex beings capable of different emotions, motivations, courses of action, cohesive and complete.That’s how people are, and that’s how I should look at them. But that is hard for me, and there are few people in my life who transcend this judgment. My image of others is influenced only by their reaction to me. I’m so focused on avoiding loss and conflict that I’m compartmentalizing people into categories that are completely one-dimensional so that I can process these feelings and assess the situation. People aren’t complex individuals, they’re a reflection of how they’ve hurt me.

The worst is that I can see it happening, and I know that it’s happening, so I tell myself it’s all in my head. I think logically about the situation, but no matter what, I can never get past what I feel. When I’m afraid to be in a place, when I panic about something, I know there’s no real reason to. What I’m feeling is just my brain telling me I’m in danger when I’m really not. Everything feels like I’m going to die, but it’s just some electrical impulses, telling me this happened once, so it must happen again. I can’t drive on this road, I can’t go back to this building, I won’t go down that street. I won’t listen to that song.

I don’t want to view the world through the lens of my traumas. I need to control everything, and when I can’t, I feel like I’m dying. When I come out of the fog and realize that the reality I’m experiencing is so far removed from what is actually happening, I feel completely lost and defective, and rarely relieved. My distorted thoughts and rampant anxieties have had such a hold on my life, and the edges of my reality have been frayed and faded more and more every year. I would struggle to tell you what real life is anymore. Some days are easier than others, and some days, the world is clearer.

Changing your thinking patterns, or altering your framework on how to live your life so that you can view situations logically and see things for how they really are seems so much easier said than done. Often times the thing you perceive to be a problem or a threat really isn’t one at all, and it may just be the way you’re looking at it. It takes thorough self-awareness and the disturbing notion that maybe you’ve been wrong this whole time. Nobody wants to think that.

Part of the process is freeing yourself from the idea that you’re helpless, that you’re a victim. Someone used to tell me, “You think you’re this helpless little being, that you don’t have any control in what happens to you. You can’t think like that. It’s not helping you.” This person said a lot of really awful things to me too, and maybe that’s why we don’t talk anymore. But they knew me well enough, and sometimes they were right. “You can leave the house. You can talk to that person. People don’t hate you, just because you haven’t met them yet.” You’re the only person who can control how others make you feel. The world isn’t inherently dangerous, and you need to learn that.  The problem is, you’re waiting for someone to do it for you. What you need to learn is that you’re the only person who’s in control of your life, and whether you believe it or not, that’s true.

They said: you have to drive on that road, you have to run down that street, you have to reach out to someone, even if you’re afraid of what they might say, because if you don’t, you’ll never grow.

Falling Off The Edge With You, It Was Too Good to Be True

I've been thinking a lot more in the past couple of weeks than I have in a long while. c. I learned a few things and all it really took was refusing to let my anxiety/cluster-B shit/chronic illness ruin my life.

I take a good amount of pride in my sense of self-awareness and understanding of my own emotions and actions, but I still struggle with my relationships with other people. I don't understand why they seem to like me, and if they do, I'll need to constantly be reassured of it, because I don't have any goddamn sense of object permanence. 

Now that I know people really do enjoy having me around, I've been trying to figure out why that is. I've concluded that it's something my mom calls "Social Worker Face," which somehow prompts everyone within a 50 foot radius to compulsively tell me all of their problems, concerns, and innermost secrets. I've had countless friends tell me they feel that they can open up to me, and that I'm a great person to talk to, that I'm a good listener. I think that's pretty true, but honestly, I think a lot of people have trouble expressing their issues to their friends or family because most people are really just waiting for their turn to speak. Alternately, they might tend to derail the conversation to relay a similar experience of their own, and then the person trying to talk about their problems is left with no real path towards resolution.

I'll only give advice if I'm a hundred percent confident it's the right course of action for that person to take, and even then, I'll make sure it's not something I couldn't see myself doing. What I've learned, and what I think a lot of people forget when acting as your friends' de facto therapist, is that nobody really wants your advice anyway. A lot of the time, people just want to talk, and they want you to listen. That's enough, for most people. 

Maybe that's not the best reason for people to like you, but I think it's good enough for me. I'd rather people like me for my willingness to help them figure out their problems than, say, my money or willingness to sell them Adderall. That said, I'm not going to go ahead and imply that I would ever want to become a therapist of any sort.

Something about helping other people make sense of their issues makes it easier for me to deal with my own shit. That's not to say I don't still have some anxiety. Fortunately, it's become a lot more manageable in the past few weeks. I had an important medical procedure that's hopefully going to finally put an end to my heart troubles, resolved my student loan nightmare, reconnected with a lot of friends and family, done some traveling, and conquered what is arguably my biggest fear.

Oh, yeah, about that last one: Maria Sych rode in a fucking airplane. By herself.

I have, arguably, the most severe panic disorder anyone has ever had in the history of panic disorders, and airplanes terrify the hell out of me. That's my number one. Until recently, there is no way you'd be able to get me on one, especially not by myself. But last Friday, with the help of a little Ativan, a phone call to my mom (and apparently a number of my female relatives, via speakerphone), and fervent prayers to Holy Mother Kim Kardashian and Blessed Baby North West, I dragged my ass onto a 717 and flew to the East Coast. 

And it honestly wasn't terrible. I mean, I did have to distract myself by verbally berating the Vineyard Vines-clad frat boy from Wisconsin sitting next to me (I can't really help my compulsion to be mean to white males, especially when I first meet them, and especially when they're wearing Vineyard Vines, but it's worse when I'm nervous). I also had pop an additional Ativan halfway through the flight, and consequently the rest of the night is a blur, but it all went swimmingly. I did it! 

And I'm so, so glad I did. I haven't seen Lucas since the Island, and I had an absolutely amazing time hanging out with him around New Jersey (even though I talked shit about the strip malls and freeways the entire time), and NYC for a minute. I spent way too much money, tripped and fell into a river, and cried way too much, but it was easily the happiest I've been in awhile.

Which lead me to another important realization, one that I've been afraid of for a long while. I don't really like change, and I have a hard time being away from home, which contrasts with the fact that I move house every six months, but I think it's about time I permanently got the fuck away from Mount Pleasant. I'm a lot less anxious when I'm away from this town, and the more I travel to other places, the more I understand I'm past this point in my life. 

I need almost everything to be different. Living life the way I have hasn't really gotten me anywhere nice, so I'm reevaluating my usual protocols. I'm fine with whatever happens. 

I don't know, maybe it was conquering one of my biggest phobias and understanding that I'm capable of living through everything that's come so close to ruining my life, but I ain't scare of no things. Sometimes, when I'm on the verge of panic, I resign myself to the worst case scenario: that I might die. Is that so terrifying? I'm not really that significant. You aren't, none of us are. It's nothing to be depressed about, if that's what you think I might be getting at. I think it's freeing. Do whatever you want, because we're all speeding towards the same void.

I completely understand that this post is hardly cohesive, and it sounds a little grandiose, but I think my main sentiment is that I got up off the couch after weeks of being horribly depressed, when I did, I learned one or two pretty important things.

Here's a shitty panorama of New York. I'm ready for a camera that's not an iPhone, ya dig?

Breathe It In, Just Follow Me Right To The End: A Rant About Neurodivergence

I cringed when I typed the word "neurodivergence" in the title, because it sounds like a quintessential tumblr epithet, but I digress. Anyway, I'm gonna write about this even though it's not one of those things you're really supposed to talk about. In the vein of my earlier blog posts, I'm not going to try to sound eloquent or pretentious, either. This is some stream of consciousness bullshit.

I thought this would be over by now. I've had a lot of people tell me I'd grow out of everything that's wrong with me, and that everything I won't grow out of can be easily fixed. 

I'm fine with being Sad Forever. I can cope with that. I don't care. I'm past that. It's the fear and instability that I won't tolerate anymore, because it's ruining my life.

I guess maybe I've had it a little too easy, because I never expected to struggle as much as I have. Like any privileged millenial, I found it absurd (and still do, sometimes) that I should have to carry on with my problems, and that no matter how much money or therapy I throw at them, they're still here. Growing up and making it in the Real World meant that I had to learn how to put some effort into solving this shit for myself. I can't have someone do it for me, and I can't always take a pill.

There's nothing that I've put as much work into as my mental health, but it's also the most difficult, taxing journey I've ever been on. No matter how much progress I think I've made, I can't leave the house without anti-anxiety medication (if I can bring myself to leave at all), certain people give me catastrophic panic attacks, I have extreme problems with my interpersonal relationships, I tend to get myself into situations that aren't easy to get out of because I have little self control, I constantly question reality, I have horrifying nightmares of things I've been through and things I've seen, I frequently consider the merits of walking into traffic, and I don't trust anyone, because you can never know for sure what they will do to you. I am always early, I am never late, I avoid certain places and I double-check everything. I don't make eye contact, I constantly overthink everything, and I am terrified that everyone's going to leave me. But I'm not really afraid of anything but myself, and that's the worst. 

No matter how hard I've tried, the things I've mentioned still happen and I'm doing my best to live with them. According to everyone I've spoken to, I'm in control of this, and this can be managed if I Just Try These Techniques. That works pretty well until you have a psychotic episode or you're faced with your absolute worst phobia.

I don't really know what you could say about it, or what I could say about it, that hasn't been said before. I just don't want anyone to ever think that mental illness is any sort of desirable, enigmatic, colorful aspect of someone's personality or that it's anything easy to deal with. 

Though I think that perception is slowly fading. A lot more people nowadays are aware of different mental illnesses, and people are realizing that if it's something they're suffering from, they're not alone. Feeling isolated is unbearable. Although, something I think is far worse is how invalidating people can be when you open up to them about what you're struggling with, something that can be incredibly hard to do.

So I urge you to be kind to people who do make that jump, and to try and understand them. Chances are they are working tirelessly to attain some semblance of sanity, a better quality of life, to maybe just make it through the day. I would give, quite literally, everything I have to not feel this way, and when I'm feeling it I want to be able to talk about it. I want people to be able to understand, not give me the laundry-list of cliched reassurances. Of course it's all in my head, and no, I can't snap out of it. Sure, it could be worse, but does something have to be the absolute worst-case scenario for me to feel shitty about it?

My goal isn't to be happy. That'd just be a positive externality. I'm interested in feeling entirely safe, functional, and stable. I've looked for this in a million different places, jobs, medications, experiences, and perhaps most dangerously, in other people. I know that achieving some sort of real, lasting stability is something that comes from me and me alone. It's probably going to take forever to get there. I haven't seen my last panic attack, and I know that I'm gonna probably ruin something major in my life again at some point. I just have to accept that that's going to happen.

I'm working on breathing, as deep as I can, and remembering everything that truly is, instead of what it might be.

Marvelous Persona: An Open Letter to One of God's Own Prototypes

We met many years ago, when I was seventeen.

I wandered into the coffee house early that day; I even remember what I wore, a too-small black t-shirt and jeans that were way too frayed. I had stapled some of the holes shut. You asked if I wanted to spend the day together. We spent the morning at your parents’ mansion on a back country road. I remember that your living room was the size of my entire house. I brought you to mine, later, and we laid on my bed, tossing wads of paper into a trashcan, talking about nothing, hating summer.

We got drunk later, on my parents’ watered-down SoCo, and you spent the night.

I told my friends about it the next day, wearing the same outfit, laughing at how ridiculous you were. We saw each other now and again, frequenting the same coffee shop, walking the two blocks to the train tracks and drinking cheap vodka on the trestle. You had a terrible taste in music, and I pretended not to care. I fell a little in love with the idea of you, for a minute. No matter what anyone else said.

A year later, we met again at that dilapidated white house on Pine Street, with the wheelchair on the porch and the bunk beds in the living room. You were much different; baggy sweaters, corduroy pants, homemade tattoos. Everyone came to this place to make art, to drink, to pretend we were something more than faded and singed products of a town like ours. You took me places in your shitty red car; we visited farmhouses far out of town, I sat in the passenger seat and you sold low-quality weed.

We built a fort in the forest behind your house, and you’d tell me about Jim Morrison. On nights I wanted to escape my life, I came to your mansion, and we’d hide out in your basement room. We watch that Oliver Stone film over and over, and we snuck cigarettes in the cavernous garage. There was a dog that lived there, a Dachshund, and she never left, it seemed. Her fur was tinged with grey from the ash. I slept in your warm, soft, basement room, falling asleep to the sounds of sitars and smell of marijuana smoke.

We drove out to a new subdivision on the Rez, far into the fields. Parked at the cul-de-sac, and stared at the night sky, filaments of smoke trailing up and out my windows. You mostly talked, and I mostly listened. In those days, you had so much to say about everything.

You were an alien to this town, this planet, the entire universe. Transcendent.

I did a lot of strange things with you. Ended up in a lot of sketchy basement apartments, country houses, dark alleys, but they were full of bright people. You were always moving forward, always laughing, always looking to find the best way to search for answers about the universe. You moved into an apartment above the bar once, and it was a lovely place, but you were evicted eventually. I loved visiting, and having you cook me rice with cheese, play me the Black Angels, tell me about Maranatha Buddhism, crystals, the blues, mermaids.

You were my truest friend, for a long while.

Last winter I bought you a drink at Rubbles on your birthday, and we wandered off downtown, through the park, into the woods. We ended up at the overlook, above a waste field, bright with a full moon above us. We sat for hours and pounded malt liquor.  I never knew where I was going to end up with you.

You’d never left the town, but I think that maybe that’s alright. You live so simply, so purely, you are the most honest person I know, and other times, the trickiest. People tell me to stay away from you, that you are bad news, but I know you from long ago. I know you never do wrong out of disrespect for others: you are just trying to survive, and the world has dealt you a shit hand.  You’ve known more pain than anyone I’ve ever met, but you still look at the world through a kaleidoscope lens, colors shimmering, hope on the horizon.

You ran away to California last summer. You hitchhiked, relying on the good of strangers to carry you across the farmland, forests, mountains, through the country, to the sea. Your journey was fraught with perils: meth-heads, thieves, hunger, and cold. But you made it to the top of Mt. Shasta, and you learned from the people at its feet that we are one with the earth, forever. You told me all of this over Soft Parades at our favorite bar, a couple months ago, when you returned. Your hair had grown long, and you were thin and full of life. You shook your hair out of your eyes and waved your arms around, relaying your tales of places I’ve never seen. I felt seventeen again, falling in love with you for a moment.

We spent another night together, exploring around town like we used to, but I couldn’t take you home, so you had nowhere to stay. Finally, I brought you to the mansion, where you’d met so much pain the last few years. I hated dropping you into the fray, but I had nowhere else to take you. I couldn’t let you freeze. I wanted to cry. But you held me tight, thanking me, saying goodbye. I wish I had taken you with me, some days.

I don’t know where you are now. But I miss you. I love you more than you will ever realize. You are one of the most strange, beautiful people I’ve ever known, and I hope you’re somewhere, shining.

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You used to think this would be temporary. You felt a gaping, raw hole, hewn by something unthinkable, so much so that you’re not even really sure what that was. Maybe you’ve seen a piece of it in your dreams, in your nightmares, right before you wake up, in your peripheral vision. It cut a part of your heart away, and you can feel it years later, when the scarred, vital organ skips a beat and jumps up into your throat. No one could find the reason for this for the longest time, but you didn’t tell them you’ve always been searching, ever since you were small.

You don’t know what it’s like to feel fulfilled. Everything bores you, and to be honest, it always has. You’re always looking for a better scene, a story that’s more interesting, other voices, other rooms. Anywhere else seems better, until you get there. People don’t hold your interest for very long, unless you’re under the illusion that they’re bringing back something you’ve lost.

When you discovered vodka, you thought it might make you put down sharp objects to help you feel something, and for a while, it worked. Every night was a race to the third or fourth drink, and one night, to fifteen. You thought that maybe you could sterilize the raw, pink lacerations that covered the inside of your mind with something you could pour down your throat, but eventually, it just made it worse. 

When substances didn’t work, you turned to Love instead. You did your best to make it happen, smiling with teeth that were still white, running a hand through your hair, laughing that things that were never really funny, setting the stage upon which they’d fall for you, and they did, almost every time. They tried to give you everything, but they didn’t know about this.

Your pieces were spliced from an outline, haphazardly glued back together to form who you are now, a strange amalgam of worn, stained fragments that would have looked normal had their colors not faded, and placed in the correct positions. The picture looks complete, but something is missing, and you’ll never be sure what.

So you weren’t looking for anything one person could offer. This isn’t interested in kind words, passionate embraces; it wants bits and pieces of other people, and these are the things you see in your dreams. You want these gifts forever, burned into your skin. You don’t want the memory; you want it all, everything, to touch when you want to. You’ll rip people open, digging through their insides to find the small piece of yourself you’ve been missing, and you’ll move on to someone else. You’ll consume everything and everyone beautiful until you think you’ll be able to put yourself back together.

Mood states never last. No matter how sharp the feeling, no matter how long you search for something tangible, this will always define you. “Chronic Emptiness” was the first thing you checked yes, and you know immediately what This was. You’re an abandoned house, and you’re not sure if anyone ever lived there.

The only time you can escape this is when you close your eyes every night, or more likely, very early morning. When you’re asleep, you can forget everything. 

Sometimes, though, traces of This linger in your dreams: you dream of the same kinds of houses. You get lost in rows of dilapidated, abandoned homes, and you’ve lost your way. They’re falling apart and you can smell the black mold. The soil outside burns if you touch it. All the pastel Victorians are now varying colors of rotting flesh, and the paint hangs from them in ribbons, the windows kicked out, the insides dark.

When you wake up, it won't seem as bad. Things never do, in the morning. There’s something cathartic about waking up from a long state of unconsciousness.

You feel that This will never go away, but at least now, you know what it is. You might still run through life trying not to feel a thing, speeding towards oblivion, trying to avoid the pain that you think will come to you through everyone else, but you don't want to be alone. You want to share this with someone, anyone, pulling this feeling from your veins, laying it flat, white hot metal, burning holes in the floor.

Someday, you will, and that someone won't hurt you for it. You'll understand that people aren't black and white, All Bad, or All Good, even when it seems like you've never known a shade of gray in your life. What you don't know about This is that you can fight it. It doesn't have to be the amorphous pain that keeps you from loving anything, anyone, even yourself. You'll do your best to remember your Good Self, when it feels like This is the only thing that defines you. You're reminded of the person you could be when you make someone smile, when you do something kind. When you find something to fix outside of yourself, you might begin to feel whole. If you learn its nature, maybe you can finally stitch the edges of the hole shut, and find your way to somewhere beautiful.

Hail the Trail III: Singing the Post-Season Blues

With the end of the summer comes a different feeling from the magnificent, magical atmosphere that saturated the Island in late May and early June, something quiet, understated, but still undeniably surreal. You thank the Seasonal Work gods when the hordes of Midwestern tourists dissipate from the streets, leaving you to wallow in the strange silent mist that’s cast over the village. You watch the leaves fall from the trees and rest on the shit-covered roads. You miss the money you make off Rich White People, but you don’t miss the jittering chaos that this overcrowded Victorian island wasn’t built to handle, but somehow allows itself to endure every single summer. You’ll start to prepare for the merge into the Real World, and you begin to relax. But you know you’ll never be truly prepared, because you’re a part of this place now, and you don’t even realize it.

When you Get The Cut from work, you stay in bed till three p.m., emerging from your apartment only to shuffle up the street to the “corner store,” where you purchase overpriced single cans of beer, and Ramen that has most likely made a home on that wooden shelf since the 1990s. The cashier asks you if you’re still busy down the hill, and you shrug, saying it’s slowing down, but it’s been slow for awhile now. She already knows, you already know, but it makes for some conversation. She really wants to judge you for the six boxes of Pizza Rolls you’re buying that you’re going to shovel down your throat when you get home.

You grow used to the quiet, but out of nowhere, representatives of the GOP descend upon the Great Turtle for a weekend political convention. Signs displaying support for State Representatives appear in peoples’ yards, and you become uncomfortably conscious of the fact that the island is crawling with these people. That night, a bar brawl breaks out on the streets. Tourists are startled to witness political elephants punching each other in the face, but the taxi drivers calmly light up their cigarettes, and await the arrival of police on bicycles to calm the chaos. They’ve seen it all before. Partying continues on, as usual. Everyone talks about it the next day. Only on Mackinac, we say.

You might consult the Island Tinder to search for someone to Neflix and Chill with, and you might meet someone nice. Much to your surprise, you find yourself with a casual stalker, and suddenly Main Street is even smaller than it was before. You duck under the windows to pass the fudge shop where they work, and you pull your jacket hood over your face whenever you pass the carriages in front of your hotel. You can’t blame them for their desperation, though. Everyone’s gone mad here, and no one is safe. You decide being single is a perfectly good option.

The bars are less crowded this time of year. If you’re sick, the bartenders will make you tea with honey and lemon, forgetting to add it to your tab, and they’ll ask you whatever happened to so-and-so, or tell you about they completely ate shit on their bike coming down Turkey Hill the night before. You’ll drunkenly stagger over to the pull tab lottery ticket machine, lit up with the neon glow of false promises from the State of Michigan. You’ll buy more than you really need to, and sit at a nearby table with your friends who’ve already accumulated a pile of spent tickets higher than Sugar Loaf rock on the table. Someone might win a few dollars here and there; occasionally, they’ll win a hundred. You find solace and cheap entertainment in this practice, hoping and praying that you’ll win the lucky $25k, so you can leave the island early. You talk about what you’ll do next, Where You’re Going This Winter. People ask you if you’ll be back next season, and as much as you wish you could move on, the truth is that you’ll probably be back.

The power might go out sometimes, but some bars might still be open. They’ll place a floodlight at the end of downtown, and the streets will look like something out of a post-apocalyptic film. When the lights are out, the stars are perfect, and you’ll make your way up to Fort Holmes to see the galaxies spread out across an indigo sky. Across the straits, the Real World is lit up, humming, glowing, while you’re stuck somewhere in time.

As it starts to grow colder, you may see some snow. The horses, the ones that seem like they’ve been here since the beginning of time, are led down the hill to the docks, and sent away to farms in mainland Michigan. The ferries don’t run as much. Soon, they won’t run at all. You’ve never stayed here for the winter, but there’s something about it that sounds appealing. When you hear tales of the Ice Bridge, you wonder if you’d ever be brave enough to cross it.

On your last night of work, you’ll make your way down to the VI with your coworkers. You’ll all do a shot, maybe Something With Rum, and you’ll toast to a good season, and maybe a better one next year.

It’s strange, to have to leave somewhere like this. It’s like something out of a dream, never truly within reach, never quite tangible. When you tell your friends about it, they’ll smile and listen to your stories about Glow in the Dark Capture the Flag, Rock Paper Scissors Tournaments, Power Outage Weddings, and Mustache Mondays, but they’ll never truly get it. You found a family on the Great Turtle, people who understand you, who might have been there for the same reasons you were. The Island is home, and the people there are unlike those anywhere else in the world. You leave a piece of yourself behind when you leave, but you feel like there’s a secret that’s been imparted to you from long ago, to take with you, wherever you land next.

An Update, or Rather, A Slow Recovery

I kept telling myself I'd hold off on posting something new until everything was resolved, until I could look back and tell you I'd grown; that I'm a better person for all of this. I don't know if I'm really a better person, in fact, I still might be a shitty one, but I'm honestly okay with that. I think I've certainly learned a few things, which is really all I'm ever trying to do. I promise that even though this doesn't sound like a positive post, I think it really is. I'm not aiming to be too eloquent here, I'd rather just spill it all, stream of consciousness, clean everything out. Reflect on whatever.

It's probably going to be awhile before I fix everything going wrong. I could resolve a lot of my issues by cutting people out of my life, by returning home and shutting myself in a room that's no longer mine, by going back to the hospital, by drinking till I pass out for days. All are predictably something I'd do, and the easy way out, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not a weak person, and that's one of the things I've learned. I've been through more in the past few years of my life than anyone really needs to go through, and I struggle with things on a daily basis that someone who hasn't had experience with them would hardly be able to handle. I'm not gonna talk about all of those things here, that's a whole other post that I probably won't write. Point being, I've survived a lot of shit that could have killed me or made things a hell of a lot more miserable than they are now. I'm still alive after all of this.

I'm going to accept whatever comes. I was talking with a friend the other night, and she told me something that I've heard many times before: "This is not the last time this will happen. You're going to struggle with this your whole life. You're just going to get better at coping with it. You can't get frustrated with yourself when these things happen, because they're out of your control."

She's right, and it's one of the realest things I've ever heard.

So I've learned that I have to just let them happen. When my heart starts acting up out of nowhere, I can't breathe, and I can barely stand and have to leave work or go to the hospital, I'll try to remember that it's not the worst thing in the world. That it hasn't killed me before and it's likely not going to kill me now, but even if my heart tires itself out and stops altogether, then maybe that's just what's supposed to happen. If I have to have another surgery, then I guess that's how it'll have to be. I'm livid that my health has deteriorated to the point that it's affecting my every day life, but I can't be. Being pissed off about it, stressing out about it, cursing it isn't going to make it go away.

When I remember something awful, when uncomfortable reminders of a bad time seep into my conscious mind and I think about all the terrible things that have happened, I tell myself that none of this is real, it might as well not exist. It can't ruin me anymore, people aren't around, and they're as good as dead to me. I'm not the person I was yesterday, or a few years ago. Someone I'm close with told me recently, "It doesn't matter what happened before. Everything before made you the person you are right now. You should be thankful for that, because who you are is amazing, and beautiful." So I try to believe him, and I try to remember those words when my thoughts get to be too much to handle.

I was told something that really hurt me today. I saw it coming, and I figured I'd be well enough prepared for it, but I wasn't. It wasn't meant to cause me any pain, but it did, and I had to let myself just feel it for a moment. If this had happened a year ago, I may have cut this person out of my life entirely. I would have slowly shut down until I would feel nothing at all, to protect myself. I understand now that if I play the same card, every time someone hurts me, I'm not going to have anyone left. I have to cope with the fact that people will do whatever they want to do, and if they're still someone good who deserves a place in my life, I'll find a way to make it work. So I let myself be sad for awhile, and I waited for it to pass. It's not worth ruining a day over, a summer, a life, a friendship.

I've learned that people are just people, and I'm not going to let them control how I live my life. Today made me question my worth for longer than was really necessary. Then I remembered that I've already come this far, and I'm not going to backslide into someone who's insecure and angry. I know my worth, and I know I'm not just an option to anyone, that I'm in control of my feelings, and I'm enough. But I guess the struggle is remembering that it doesn't matter anyway, because I'm not defined by anyone but myself, and I'm not sure that's something I ever truly understood before.

So things aren't perfect. They're not going to be for awhile, but I understand now that it's not always something I'm in charge of. I think I'm afraid of a lot of things. Everything seems to scare me, and the fear dominates my waking life on a sliding scale. The truth is that there is nothing I am really afraid of. The only thing that scares me in the world is being out of control. I just know now that I have to embrace it, and the world will open itself to me. I deserve good things, amazing things, and I'm going to get them- because I think the most important thing I learned is that I'm the kind of person who gets exactly what she wants, when she wants. If I don't, it's just because I didn't want it badly enough. More than anything in the world I just want to be happy, and I'm going to kick, claw and scream until I get there.

Hail The Trail: Another Season on the Great Turtle

It honestly does not even seem like you ever left Mackinac. You feel it as soon as you step off the boat and merged into stream of milling tourists, in search of fudge, cheap drinks, and overpriced merchandise. A summer of hard work and, inevitably, excessive drinking, is a welcome reprieve from a cold and difficult six months of Winter that you spent broke, tired, and entirely dissatisfied with your living situation. You're ready to be back in a place you called home, among people who tend to understand you better than anyone else, and a culture where you can blend in completely, comfortably.

The island is small, and people know you here. The bartenders call you by name. A friend has been here for many years, and they already have her drink cracked open and ready the moment you all walk into the joint. A trip to the grocery store often turns into a discussion about another friend's toddler and his ridiculous antics, while she sells you your twelfth PBR 40 oz of the week. You'll probably be waiting awhile in line, so you initiate an impromptu dance party with the Jamaican bartender standing behind you. The barista at your coffee shop sings your name as you walk into the room, and knowingly slips you the Wifi password, as this is where you will probably be spending the next five hours on your single, precious day off. On another inebriated Monday night at your regular drinking place, you'll stumble into the back of the house and run into your best friend counting her tips, and settle down for a hearty bitch session about the perils of the service industry. You share cigarettes with the night taxi driver, make friends with the street sweeper on Grand Hill, and stand on the corner eating a salad while singing along to Fleetwood Mac, making eye contact with horrified tourists as they toddle by, full of fudge and greasy with the shine of post-bike ride sunscreen.

You'll see things you might find strange anyplace else in the world, but here, it's commonplace. A buggy full of orange-clad Buddhist monks, enduring a long and pun-filled Carriage Tour. A horde of bagpipers in the park, surrounded by Midwesterners in cutoff shirts drinking tall boys. A cop pulling over a couple on a tandem bike and pressing tickets for biking under the influence into their sweaty palms. A woman in a billowing black cape, holding a lantern aloft as she leads a small crowd of glowstick-wearing youths down Market Street. A boat, weighed down by a full UPS truck, pulling into the harbor. The little person in the UPS uniform who comes to deliver the packages. A post office that never delivers mail. Women in Victorian dress, smoking cigarettes and tapping away on their iPhones. The horses on Mackinac have always been here, they are the same ones that have been here since the beginning of time, you're pretty sure. They like to work, you're told, and they have minds of their own.

Work is fast, intense, fraught with drama and a jittering anxiety that never really leaves. "May I offer you a cocktail or a glass of wine?" is something that you've caught yourself saying in your dreams, and folding napkins never ends. You've become an expert at performing wine service for intoxicated yachters, and you don't even flinch when picking up a searing hot plate anymore. "Absolutely, my pleasure" becomes a euphemism for "I'm thinking about smacking your face right off" but you calmly make your way back to the kitchen during the lunch rush to grab the extra crostinis, not allowing your Guest Service expression to fall into one of uncontrollable rage until you've made your way back through the swinging door. Despite the constant tension headaches that come from dealing with the public on a daily basis, you're addicted to the rush you get from hotfooting it back and forth from a kitchen, popping bottles of expensive champagne, seeing your tips pile up, spending day after day at one of the coolest jobs you've ever had, in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

After work, if you're not shuffling into the VI for some $1.50 Oberons, you venture up a gradual hill past a palatial white monstrosity of a hotel, listening to Mazzy Star and dreaming of a warm cup of tea and some time curled up in a blanket with a new Netflix series, but eventually, you end up on the stoop instead, receiving embrace after drunken embrace from your friends and coworkers, and strap in for a night of Canada House and pool. Someone might suggest a trip to Fort Holmes, but you know you'll probably all stay down in the courtyard, mainlining boxed wine and whining about hockey or boys, or both. Later, a wise Puerto Rican girl will hold your hand and tell you her life story, which you'll listen to, because you really do want to know. She'll tell you to breathe, and you'll tell her you'll be okay, at least for tonight. You might get into a fight with a guy named Tyler about his parents' single-engine Cessna, or you might cultivate a new friendship with a beautiful drunken blonde who loves EDM and dreams of Electric Forest. You might find your way through the dark to a quiet horse pasture on the West Bluff, and pet the huge beasts on the snout, looking into their tired eyes, listening to the air in their giant lungs move in and out as though it were wind blowing through caves. You might kiss someone new every evening, or you might find someone nice to spend night after night with. You might fall in love a little, or your might not. You can blame it on the alcohol, and in the morning, you'll wake up to the sound of a freighter's fog horn that sounds exactly like your old alarm clock. You'll coast down the hill again, feeling a crisp Michigan breeze through your hair while your broken kickstand clicks against your aging bike spokes, and you understand then that this is where you belong. You're not sure if it's truly real, but you know there's nowhere else you'd rather be.