sometimes all you need is a couple of friends and a few bottles of wine

Somewhere, somehow, when you least expect it, you trip and fall down the rabbit hole. And there you are upside down, inside out, tumbling, wondering what the hell just happened, trying to grasp at anything, anything that will catch your fall.

These are the things you shouldn’t write. The things you shouldn’t voice lest you come across as an ingrate, an ornery child, a petty person, a weakling. This is your shame. This is the guilt that feeds on your shame. This is your vulnerability speaking. Through a microphone because it wants to be heard. This is that part of yourself that needs tending and it doesn’t know how to ask for it, so it throws a tantrum instead. This is you wanting to punish yourself for throwing that tantrum. These are the ugly bits. The cellulite and stretch marks and wrinkles of your mind. This is you looking a bit sad. The color of your sadness is purplish-grey like a bruise. The shape of your sadness is a nimbostratus cloud. The sound of your sadness is an untuned organ. This is you afraid to admit that you are sometimes sad. This is the way you judge sad: sad = bad. These are your fears. They’re really, really scary. They are like giant hairy spiders with 8 eyes. These are the things that hurt. This is where the band-aid was ripped off. This is the sceptic cut that you should have washed from the start but you let it fester, you shrugged it off as a flesh wound. It has gone deeper. This is the part of you that is not bubbly nor sunny. These are your hormones. They look like lightning and sound like thunder and smell like burning rubber. This is you feeling inadequate. You’ve been feeling that way a lot lately. This is the part of you that needs to be held gently. This is you sharing all these things with a couple of friends over a few bottles of wine. This is you trying to hold back your tears. These are your friends listening to you. This is how they look at you, with understanding and kindness. These are the words of comfort they offer: you are going to be alright. This is how you feel at the end of those hours, relieved and not so alone. This is you letting go so that you can leave room for the good things. This is you knowing that your life is full of good things. This is you finding your way back to gratitude.

The truth is, people, this transition is hard. Amazing, uplifting, joyful moments have been met with equally heart wrenching, home longing, cryin’ myself to sleep on my bit fat pilla moments. Sure, I’ve been meeting a thousand people and haven’t had much of a moment’s rest since I’ve arrived so maybe I’m a little exhausted, which is making me a little overwhelmed, which is making me a little crazy and non sensical, which is making me miss home in a big way. But then the wiser part of me eventually gets a word in edgewise and pulls my head out of my own ass and calms the beast and reminds me that this is what I wanted. And then even wiser friends, who know me so well that they see me across the distance remind me that I am human, that it’s ok to feel this way, that I really ought to stop being so hard on myself. And my new friends sit me down at some sweet ass restaurant and get me drunk and let me vent without judgement and infuse humor into the situation and perspective (that I couldn’t possibly see with my head so far up my ass). And by the end of a Saturday afternoon…. everything feels ok again.

The British boy told me the other day: “It’s normal that this is going to be hard“. The idealist in me carefully calculated the amount of days I’ve been here and decided on some preconceived ideal notion that it was far too soon to be having such discussions, that everything should be perfect and peachy because we’ve waited so long to be with each other that we should have motherfucking glitter in our eyeballs every time we are together. He said he trusts that we will be ok. And I know we will… the only way to the other side of this transition is through. So, take my hand and let’s do this thing!

“Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it– But sail we must, and not just drift, nor lie at anchor.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes