I'm happy to report that my brain feels alive.
A few years ago, this might not have been news, but today, it feels precious. My anxiety and general stress during the peak months of the pandemic mostly manifested by wiping my mind clean of any interests or enthusiasms. I believed, for several consecutive months, that I didn't really care about anything, or like anything. I remember multiple occasions where I admitted to myself that I don't really have any goals.
In April, I began regaining some capacity for noticing. I was nearly done with spring semester classes, none of which covered the topic that I'm technically getting my Master's in, but the readings for a particular landscape architecture course began to spark something, seemingly out of nowhere. I thought, aha! I must be doing better.
Of course, everything is an ebb and flow. But honestly, even since moving to New York in January, I've been doing much better. Even better-er once the spring rolled around, and I began thinking things again. The biggest checkpoint was feeling hopeful, a feeling that I believed had dissipated.
And now, during the height of summer, I'm enjoying a general sense of contentment that makes me feel the most authentically myself I have been in a lonnnng time. Like, maybe years. And a huge part of that lately has been realizing that going out exploring is actually on the table again. Imagine, going places. It feels like a fossilized thought, or a wooly mammoth slowly defrosting in the distance.
photo by me - Ecuador, summer 2017
Having the option to explore has coincided nicely with ~ideas about living~ all starting to organize themselves in my head. I won't get into all of it, because they become less organized as soon as they hit the page. But a lot of it centers around being awake and alive and making the most of time. I know it's cheeseballs to go on about how time is the one thing you can't get back. But the whole concept is hitting extra hard lately and it's made me really determined to show up and do shit and make memories just because I've been given the chance. No time like the present? The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago (but the next best time is now)? Take away my blogging license before this becomes insufferable.
By the time this is posted, I will be in a rental car driving to Maine with my dog. It's a huge bucket list trip for me, and I planned it all about a week ago. I suddenly registered that I have the time to do this, and in about a month I won't anymore with school and work starting back up, so. Off I go.
Walking around the REI hunting for gear, my eyes started to well up as I admired all the packing cubes and backpacker cooking supplies. It made me extra excited for the wilderness, but even more excited at the thought of getting better and braver with this kind of stuff. I started to fantasize about multi-day treks with Elmer, planning out meals and routes, and knowing exactly how to assemble and disassemble what I'm carrying.
It's pretty rare that I develop an interest and naturally want to get better and better at it. Usually, I'm happy with just knowing the basic guitar chords, or making food that tastes good to me. Gets the job done. But I'm beginning to imagine entire trajectories of skills and experiences, complete with learning curves and hard wins. Being able to do more because I practiced and learned and tried stuff. I like the story where I try stuff better than the one where I think I'm too afraid.
More than anything, I like the story where I do the things that are fun and exciting, without needing to explain or justify them to myself. The details only start to make sense in hindsight, anyway.
I'm getting tempted to undercut all these feelings by explaining that I had coffee earlier and that it's all probably just hype leftover from being in a big fun store. So, before that gets ahold of things-
- Helen
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