I have a story to tell. My story is important, it matters. To me. The judgement and the criticism from others keeps me from doing this. I spent several years telling no one anything. Actually I told one single person everything. All the worsts parts of me. What I thought to be the worst parts of me. Turns out that others think they have worst parts of them too. Turns out when you say you have worst parts it makes others feel less like they have worst parts and that maybe they are just parts. I still tell this person all the things,the things that need to be safe.
I can’t even get a conscious thought to run through my head today. Instead I believe we are all going to suffer and die. It’s the absolute most horrible thing to think. To imagine suffering. Then to imagine not you being gone but someone you love being gone. Watching them suffer. Knowing that dying is what’s best. That living isn’t fun anymore when they make rules to protect us from things that we have no control over. Then you realize this and you realize these are things we have no control over. It’s a scary world now because it always has been and we all just know the scary things now. It’s not going to get less scary unless I focus on only what I can be afraid of and do anyway. Come back down to my scary. Leave the other scary out there to be unknown. It’s still there just farther away from me. I can only be locally afraid not globally. I’m just not grown up enough I guess. Or maybe I am grown up…?
I had a thought yesterday that we just have too many people in the world. Am I one of them? Am I going to be the one to not survive? Will my kids? My parents? Coworkers? It’s a scary scary world now. Because we all know about it. The less I know the less afraid I am. For some, the more they know the more informed they feel. Giving them a sense of control. For me I can’t know enough to ever feel that. I dig too deep, I look too hard, I try too hard. If I were a rabbit I would actually die in my rabbit hole, lost and confused, misinformed, naive, and afraid.
I do not do social platforms. I signed up specifically to make someone mad. I tried for about a year. They became too overwhelming and I worried too much about other people’s lives. It made everyone look like they had a better life than me. That to me felt unfair. I also tried too hard to make my life seem better than it was. I also stepped back and realized my life is very good and then realized that it really wasn’t for anyone to know about it either way. It’s my life. Says Bon Jovi. I constantly tell my daughter to worry about herself. So much that once on Mother’s Day thé teacher asked her to write something her mom always says. “Worry about yourself.” She writes proudly. I tend to worry about not myself too. If asked this question I would have written “take care of your sisters.” That’s just what I remember. My parents were loving, they also did what they could to keep us alive as well. I helped. I felt it was my job to.
I once tried to be an amazing runner to make someone like me. I once tried to learn to mountain bike like a badass for the same reason. I once backpacked miles to prove I was able to to someone else for no reason. I put myself in dangerous situations in my head specifically to hope someone liked me. What came out of this? Someone likes me. Me.
I found I love to run, for me. In my own way, places, and never again a marathon. It was hard but not as hard as I thought, I also got bored. Kind of annoyed with what there was to look at. You also can’t stop. It’s not part of the plan. You also can’t turn where you want. They need you to be somewhere specific to get to somewhere specific. I’m more of a non-specific place kind of runner person. You also can’t talk. Or I can’t. I passed people just chatting away. They train for this though. They ran socially for months ahead of me. I decided to run 2 months before the event and hadn’t ran for 20 years. I joined a running group only to feel like I didn’t know what the group was there for for me. I ran with them once and was told when I tried to chat a little it would be easier if I didn’t talk. Easier for me or him? I also don’t small talk good. If you read anything I write it’s a direct reflection of a conversation. I’m a badass long talker.
I ride, I’m terrible. I crash, get lost, break bikes, cuss like a sailor, fly through the woods with a carefree manner. I don’t look at trees or bugs or the sky. I focus on the little place just above my tire and occasionally glance up to see what’s about to try and kill me. Then I find band aides. Then I try again. It’s a break from my wondering mind and requires full attention in place I give no full attention to anything but the scenery. It’s not physically difficult for me to ride it’s like riding a bike. That saying of “its like riding a bike”works with riding a bike as well as many things that use procedural memory. Like music instruments and typing. I also did this with a group. I kept getting misplaced and forgotten. To me, they were actually quite tolerant of me. I arrived a few minutes late once and went the wrong way on the trail to meet them in the middle and crashed right into the group. Literally crashed. I carried my bike once through the woods frustrated. I hit a tree. I didn’t like the beer they offered me. I didn’t know what to say. How to dress, how to stand. How to be me. I am a terrible badass rider. I have since found now that I am comfy with how I am on a bike I have found my people. They love to teach the shit out of their bikes!! Passionate folks.
I’m also a badass avid backpacker. Not thousands of miles in months. I don’t have time for that yet. I love a good 50 mile long weekend. I love loop trails to avoid seeing the same thing and avoid arranging shuttles. I have some amazing stories to tell of my solo trips, the people you meet when you are just with yourself is very different than the people you meet when you are not. People gravitate to a solo traveler. It’s too curious why. I’ve had some of the most meaningful, deep conversations under the most brilliant night skies with total strangers I may never cross paths with again. We are like minded. We did trails together in our own ways and didn’t even know it. Shared night skies and footpaths without ever knowing. Splashed in lakes and gathered rocks of the same shore. We may cross paths again. We may not. We walked our separate ways the last day. I ran to say one last good bye before the seaplane left. Ran meaning wobbled, my ankles still swollen from my hike over the island, as I hug them one says. “You are one badass woman, don’t let anyone ever tell you different.”I will keep taking the paths I love. Stand the way I stand. Dress the way I dress and be the way I be. A badass.
Today I have plants to care for. And babies to keep safe. What if I don’t wash my hands at the right moment? I’ve washed my hands more times in a day than I have in a week. I sound like a filthy dirty disease spreading person when I think about all of the sandwiches I’ve eaten after working in the greenhouse with hands so dirty I see it on the bread. Now I look at my hands and they don’t look like mine. They look like someone who is afraid. Because right now everyone wants you to be both, afraid and also not. You can’t be both. I’m just afraid. But I’m going to keep washing these hands anyway.
Aspenleaf 