Ian Jacoby

I have this scene that runs through my brain titled “Everyone's going to be mad at me”. In this story, everyone is mad at me. I said the wrong thing or I acted the wrong way or I didn't do enough work and now everyone's mad at me. 

This story is constant. 

All of my time is spent very carefully crafting things to say and things to write, ways to behave, to work, and to co-exist with other humans so that everyone doesn't get mad at me.

If I get through my day and everything I did was good and no one said they were mad at me, then it was still just an alright day, because you probably thought about it and decided you were mad at me and decided to spare my feelings. I'm supposed to glean from literally any of your body language or actual words that you were obviously, deeply upset with me. I'll lay in bed and decide that this might not be true but that it probably is.

I wake up in the morning and I say “Oh no, all these things I have to do today. So much human interaction to navigate, such risk for the inevitable. They're all going to be mad at me; also, I'm tired.”

I drink some coffee so that at least I won't be tired and while I'm drinking my coffee I'm a little concerned I slept too much or didn't get straight to work so I'll get busy on whatever things I have to do so that no one will be mad at me. My coffee eventually goes cold while there's still about half a cup remaining. It’s entirely possible this part of the day is happening around noon.

I thought that this feeling was what was supposed to drive people. I did not know that there were humans that were not always worried about others being mad at them. I realized this, while, for some unknowable reason, watching the 1997 film The Edge starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. Bad movie, startling realization.

I've always had what we'd all eventually start calling “Imposter Syndrome.” I didn't know that's what it was, I just thought everyone felt that way and we were all just kind of dealing with it the best we knew how. To a degree, I think that part is still true. Most people that I know (that aren't assholes) can probably relate to the feeling. I guess until I was able to put it into the right context, I never really understood how it manifested. How could I have understood? I thought this was a basic fact of the human condition. But now that I know it isn’t, now that I know that this is apparently not the norm, I’ve think I’ve realized some things. I think this constant fear manifests in me hating myself. I think it manifests in me never feeling good enough no matter what kind of rewards I get, be it a new job, a new lifestyle, a new girlfriend, a new car, love, affection, praise. No matter what I do, I feel completely worthless.

So I think it's safe to say most people would call “everyone's going to be mad at me” run of the mill anxiety. I don’t know if it’s just that. I’m certainly an anxious person. I know it probably gets reinforced when people do things that hurt my feelings. If they say a mean or hurtful thing, or even just tell me I could do a better job at something, it's like a siren goes off in my head. A big, screaming-loud siren yelling “You’re a fuck-up and they know it! They’re mad at you! Everyone’s mad at you! SEE?! YOU SEE?!”

It’s 11 pm on a Saturday, I’m laying in bed in my Air Bnb in Santa Fe and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more alone in my entire life. 

I drove straight here from Central Texas yesterday, got in, went and walked around downtown Santa Fe and then called it a night. This morning I woke up with every intention of hiking and taking photos and I just didn’t have in me. I drove to some trails just outside the city, parked my car and just sat there for twenty minutes thinking about how stupid all of this is. Why am I here? What am I doing? It was cold, there was light snow starting to blanket the ground and I said “fuck this, I don’t want to hike, I don’t want to take photos, I just want to be left alone in a weird city” so I turned my car around, drove back into town, found a movie theater and watched Vice. 

After the movie I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Cowboys game because apparently when you’re dead set on having an authentic New Mexican experience you go to a chain restaurant and watch your football team from Texas with a bunch of strangers. Again, there I was, in a loud, boisterous room with dozens of people and I felt totally and completely alone, so I guess I’m not fixed yet. I can’t be alone without feeling lonely. I know for the majority of healthy, functional adult humans those are two separate things– alone-ness and loneliness– but for me they’ve been inextricably linked together as of late. 

Even while watching the game, I couldn’t get out of my head. With so much time by myself over the last two days– eight hours in a car and then all today farting around this beautiful city– it feels like I just live there now. My permanent residence is inside my own brain, and my brain is a very sullen place at the moment. The only way I can think to describe this is “emotionally taxing.” I’m exhausting myself. I’m tired of being sad, and thinking about the past, and how hard the last few months have been. I’m tired of feeling alone despite being surrounded by happy, friendly people. I’m tired of feeling abandoned even though I have an incredible group of kind, thoughtful friends and family who continuously check in with me to make sure I’m still on the right side of the dirt. I’m just tired. 

I’m sure that not every day will be this hard. I’m sure I’ll find myself somewhere so breathtakingly beautiful  that my camera will practically leap into my hands, demanding its own use at the sight God’s shining creation. I’m sure that this isn’t a fixed state. But as of right now, right at this moment, this road trip is daunting. I’m completely alone, kept company only by “the terrible master” and he’s a real son of a bitch. 

Maybe that’s the purpose of this excursion. Maybe I’m supposed to learn how to be alone with my thoughts without hating myself. I’m certainly not there yet. Right now, my comforts are intermittent bouts of self-pity and self-loathing flecked with the occasional outburst of resentment toward life and its players. Which, by the way, if I’ve acted out on that resentment lately, I’m sorry. Profoundly so. I know some of you have caught the brunt of my general dismay with existing and I’m sorry. I’m working on that too. 

A little over two months ago I tried to kill myself. I could give you a bunch of reasons for why I didn't want to live anymore: I hated my job, the person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life didn't want to be in a relationship anymore, I didn't have any purpose, I didn't feel like anyone needed me around, etc. All of those sound pretty heavy and I could convince you that any one of those things was enough to drive me to do what most would consider unthinkable but none of those are the real reason why, on Halloween night, after a devastating conversation with my ex-girlfriend, I sat down in her kitchen and took a dull hunting knife across my arms, and when that didn't work tried to hang myself from a doorknob with a belt. I did those things because my brain is broken. It tells me cruel, horrible things about myself in such convincing and energetic tone that I have no choice but to believe them.

I sat down over and over again, slouching all the way to the ground so that the belt around me would constrict my blood and airflow and cut off circulation to my brain. Repeatedly, I felt myself start to faint and I would feel my eyes bulge and the blood vessels around them start to pop and I would imagine Hali walking in to see me, on the floor, eyes bulging, blue in the face. I would sit back up and cry for a bit and then try again and then I would imagine what she would find and again I would sit back up. I was bleeding all over the tile floor from my failed wrist-cutting, black eyed at this point from the hanging attempts and I could barely swallow from the trauma I caused to my own throat. Defeated and angry, I texted Hali “I need you to come home.” She walked in and saw me lying on the floor in fetal position, blankly staring at the cabinet.

“I'm sorry I couldn't do it.”

I didn't look up to see what she was doing but I heard her scream, and then cry. “Ian, this is NOT ok. Yes I have an emergency. A suicide attempt. My boyfriend. He's alive. 903 **** Road, Houston, Texas. I moved the knife. Ok, thank you.” I heard the EMT's shuffle in and then I don't remember a whole lot. They asked me some questions and loaded me into an ambulance and wheeled me off to the hospital where I laid in a bed and cried for a while. That day that I spent in the psych ward of the hospital was spent in a state of what would probably qualify as shock. My mom was there, a couple friends, my dad and step-mom. Hali left as soon as I was checked in. She wouldn't speak to me after that night.  

I didn't know what to do with my life so when my dad asked if I wanted to leave everything behind and move to Menard I said yes. He had a spare room I could stay in, I could help out on the ranch, clear my head. I figured “Why not? There’s nothing here for me anymore.”

That was over two months ago. Since then I've settled in. I was offered a good job here in Menard, which there aren't many of given how small the town is. I've traveled a considerable amount. Terlingua in Big Bend, Ruidoso in New Mexico, an unfortunate week back in Houston in which I found out the sad and horrible truth about “the breakup.” Regardless, travel and photography are the only things I’m actually interested in. 

I see a therapist now. She– along with the meds– has helped a great deal. I still have days where I don't want to be here anymore and the only satisfying solution to my problems seems to be that I should just finish what I started but those are coming less and less often. The last time I saw her, she asked me what I enjoy. I was honest, and I told her that the only thing that makes me happy is taking photos in beautiful places. So she asked me an honest question? “What's keeping you from doing that?”

I thought about that question a lot and I couldn't find a reasonable answer. So, this is Entry 1 of my travelogue. Starting at the end of this week I'm packing whatever supplies I can think to bring, taking all of the money I was able to put together in a month and heading to a place I haven't decided on yet. I'm going to keep going until I can't afford to drive anywhere but home. My initial estimate is about 3 weeks on the road. It may be shorter and it may be longer, but that's kind of the beauty of this whole thing. I don't know about any of the specifics. I have a general idea of where I want to go. New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona. But I don't really know where I'm going. I don't really know how long I'll stay anywhere. I don't know where I'm staying when I get there. I'm taking a sleeping bag and a tent. I'll have my car for when it's too cold for those to be an option. And every few days I'll spring for a cheap Air Bnb or something to shower off and clean up (or I'll just find a Pilot or a Flying J, perhaps America's greatest treasures.)

I plan on taking photos along the way. I don't know what they'll be. Texas Standard is kind enough to be sending me some clothing for my trip that they'd like photos of me wearing, so I'm sure I'll incorporate that but I'm not trying to plan the documentation of this thing too closely either. Mostly I'll be writing about what I do and see along the way. I'm going to post all of that here for anyone who wants to follow along.

I guess if I have any kind of goal it's to have an adventure that makes me feel alive and vulnerable and inspired again. I don't feel that today. I probably won't feel that tomorrow, but hopefully somewhere in this hair-brained scheme will be something of use. Something that pulls me out of the unfaltering darkness I've swam through for the past several months.

I'm going to try to approach this blog with unwavering honesty about how I'm feeling, what I'm doing, what I'm getting out of this whole thing. I don't know if I'll really be able to do that– if anyone ever really does that– and if I can, if it will be too messy or painful for others to read, but I'm going to do my best.

Thank you for reading. My next next entry will be from my first stop, wherever that might be.