right. so. didn’t blog on saturday. but that’s because it was a snow day and i can’t be expected to fulfill any obligations under those conditions. and it was a blizzard so obviously that carried over to sunday and monday, too.
last night i had my second class of this semester and it was an enormous snowball of shit that left me wanting to drop the class, quit the program, burn my laptop, and avoid electronics for the rest of my life. i don’t even want to explain why because it will just get me spiraling again. essentially, a lot of bad things converged at around 9pm to create a big depression black hole with my name on it.
i let myself float in the void for a bit, but then i did some of the Right Things. i told a few friends how i was feeling, did some yoga, wrote in my journal. i also decided that i would go to my happy place in the morning.
my happy place is a state park on the coast. it’s small and simple, just some rocky paths overlooking the ocean. it’s a privilege to live near the ocean, and it’s an even bigger privilege to have the time to go stare at it for a bit. and that’s what i did this morning.
the ocean looks heavier in the winter. the spray falls faster, more like marbles than like water drops. the surf looks like granite, and the ripples are like chiseled edges. after a while, i was convinced i was watching liquid stone churn.
i was sitting on a big, flat rock with my legs stretched out in front of me, ankles at the edge, feet dangling. i looked at my feet and they didn’t look like they were mine. the boots looked too small, and so did my ankles and calves. i could move my toes, so i wasn’t going numb, but there was something foreign about my legs that i couldn’t understand and can’t really explain.
so there i am, thinking the ocean is actually undulating rock and my legs are not my legs. i’m not thinking about my to-do list or how my professor may think i’m a cheating idiot or whether i should abandon my current career trajectory. just that the ocean looks stony and my legs look weird.
isn’t it strange how subjective reality can be? like, i know that the ocean is water and that those legs were my legs, but my brain wanted to draw some alternative conclusions today. and that’s exactly what happens when i catastrophize, just in a way less fun way. a lot of the time, my brain takes reality, tosses it into a meat grinder, and squeezes out disgusting little conclusions that make me sad 🙁
imagine if, instead, my brain gently placed the tea bag of reality into a steaming mug of life water and invited me to sip at my own leisure. this is why we go to therapy, folks!