My Return to My Truth

It's 1:15 AM, I'm eating a pickle. I can't sleep and it's because my truth is just pouring through the floodgates; like a river flowing through a dam for the first time because the sticks gave way and the rubble was nudged just enough that the current could make its way to the reservoir. So, how did it happen? Well, for the last week or so I have been going through some heavy shit. Lost, confused, looking around like someone bonked me on the head and I suddenly became conscious for the first time like... "what the hell am I doing and what the fuck is going on?" Just foreign in my own body. For most of my semester, I was running on a quarter tank at almost all times. No time for a full replenish between a mail club, five classes, projects, and hours of work put into my portfolio. Until last weekend. I went to a rave in another state, I knew it was going to be a lot on me. But then I went, had a peak moment (no not due to drugs thank you), and stayed out until 6 am. The next morning, I knew deep down it was time to go home and get my shit together. I literally just cut the weekend short, went home, and immediately unpacked and organized my stuff like it had been before the semester started. That's when I crashed. Hard. It was like everything I was holding up just gave (and I knew it would) and then the sifting began. It was a few days of emotional and mental hell, I won't lie. It felt like a bomb had gone off and my sense of self was fragmented, emotions all over the place, not able to hold a grip on my sense of gravity for longer than 15 minutes at a time. I was so tired, angry, frustrated, stretched thin and looking at the rest of the work I had to do with so much resentment; but the real reason why it was hell was because of the self-loathing, guilt, and shame I was throwing at myself for getting to this point. Why did I let things get this bad? How come every time I feel like I'm getting somewhere I go off course? Why do I have to self-sabotage so much? Am I my own enemy? So on and so forth. That's the hell spiral of doom and despair that I struggled with once I sat down and let myself decompress for the first time in months; and it was the exact moment that I just allowed myself to be honest about how I was feeling that something happened. I wrote three pages in my journal every morning, when that relieved some of the pressure, but I still felt heavy, I knew it wasn't enough. I said "I feel lost. I need my friends. I need my home. I need someone more than just myself" and I pushed away the feeling of being a burden and called my friends. Well, called and got dinner with one and then the next day sent two voice notes, talked to my grandma, journaled like hell some more, and talked to two professors. All about the different angles of what was accumulating that was making me feel lost and fragmented. I just let my yearn for support guide me on what to say and who to say it to. Not too much, not all at once or on one person, just honesty and vulnerability the way it needed to come out. They all had different pieces of wisdom, advice, guidance, and support. I felt so loved and cared for. All I needed to do was ask for help, because people aren't mind readers and your community wants to be there for you (if they're really your people). The next thing I did was sort through the advice and see what rang true for me and how. One friend who feels like a sister told me: "you move with the seasons Audrey, you're very connected, I've always said that. It seems to be that time of introspection and pruning. Maybe you need to release some things that aren't serving you anymore and follow that hermit energy that you've been drawn to," my other friend had said the same. So it's what I did. I asked myself in my journal: what can I take off of my plate that just isn't working? I immediately set boundaries with two people about my time and energy and how I couldn't give it anymore. I cancelled my mail club. I got the hell off of my phone so much. I felt so much lighter already. I then asked what I felt drawn to and what I was craving. Guess what happened? I craved to read my book that I hadn't had time for all semester, I started reading one chapter before bed. I picked up my little notebook, I started making just to make and not thinking about making “art” — like genuine scribbles and intuitive exploration of nothing. All of a sudden I'm writing down my honest truth and direction and allowing it to fill my entire body and light me up like a Christmas tree. I returned to watching Hitomi Mochizuki’s YT videos and her most recent one resonated with me in so many layers. It felt like she was talking to me, from me, about me all at once. Slowly but surely, it just started to shift. I almost flooded my weekend with plans, but I told them that I changed my mind and I'm going to show up to one thing, not all, so I can have time for myself. I am now writing this, back to what I love. It was when I stopped shaming myself for what I was experiencing and just let it all fully hit me, then stopped making excuses against change and just put immediate action to what I craved that I returned to my center so quickly. The sludge was able to move and reveal the steps. The steps took one day of honesty and vulnerability. The full process took less than a week. It moves so much faster when you stop resisting. Wallowing is one thing, processing is another. Avoiding is one thing, processing is another. Emotional self-harm is one thing, processing is another. I am learning to not confuse these because processing gets you to the other side and the others convince you that there is no other side. Yes there is.