a tad bit of a journey

My body feels foreign to me. 

In all ways but physical I am a blade of grass on a flooded lawn, tethered to somewhere but not sure where, or for how long, or why I can’t just wash away with the worms, the ladybugs, and all of their friends. They look like they’re having fun. 

My body feels foreign to me. 

My eyes swim with a diagnosis no one can verify nor vilify, a whining enemy transparent to the eyes of anyone clever enough to search for it; the cream color of my walls glows red from concentration, worry, and natural causes. 

My body feels foreign to me. 

In so many ways, I am a child asking for a mother to kiss her booboo and take imaginary pain away, because my ailments are not tangible and my pain is not bodily, does not run in my veins but lingers deeper, in the very core of what makes me human. What is wrong with me is a built-in feature, written in my code, as if I am the play-thing of a sadistic technologist with a yearning for companionship. 

My body feels foreign to me. 

How do I reclaim something that I myself cannot name? I am acquainted with my reflection, maybe, but have always shied away from robbing deeper, into the speckled red, mystery pains, sleepless nights, aching chest, tingling consciousness of myself.

For me, I feel that polarized pull whenever I hear country music. 

Growing up in Walla Walla, there wasn’t much to do except play into the small-town tropes of eating at the same restaurant, driving around in your best friends truck, and watching the sunset. I had two best friends, and together we made our way through some really shitty boyfriends, some awful singalongs, and some really powerful memories. During that time, I was not the person I am today; school was my number one priority, I never took risks, no matter how small, and I always felt like I didn’t quite belong wherever I was. 

I did not like the person I was, and that reflected in the way I let people treat me, and the people I began seeking out to try to make me feel better. In my head, there wasn’t a basket case or lost cause I could not save with the power of positive thinking and self-sacrifice. I drug myself through the mud to make these people smile, and when they refused to smile all the time, I took it like a bullet to the chest. 

On the inside, I was drowning. On the outside, I was on my way to a 4.0 GPA and the university of my dreams. 

The reason the whole concept of nostalgia is difficult for me, is because the good parts of my Walla Walla life were not completely overshadowed by the bad, not by a long shot. I loved my close friends, no matter how they made me feel sometimes, and I loved where I lived: middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and vineyards and orchards, where the sunshine touched everything and the mixture of rain and alfalfa created one of the most euphoric smells I’ve ever encountered. I rode my horse for hours and never passed the same tree twice, I read books in the sunshine, and I ate the best enchiladas whenever I wanted. 

The silly thing is, that those years of my life — the good, the bad, and the stuff not worth remembering — was coloured by the sound of country music. Billy Currington, Rodney Atkins, Tim McGraw, Jake Owen, George Strait, Brad Paisley, the kinds of artists that sang in a way that made tears well up in your eyes, love fill your heart, and made you want to hug your friends and never let go. And people laugh about country music, because if you’ve never driven down that dirt road, seen that sunrise, or met that one girl, it really does sound silly. To me, though, country music comprises some of my fondest memories. 

 So, because I can’t put my entire youth into the same box, I find myself looking back and letting the good colour in all the bad, and it all takes on the same tone of breezy, not-a-care-in-the-world, watching the sun set with my best friends. 

There’s this Tim McGraw song that goes:

“I thought about songs that make us feel better I thought about faith that ties it all together I thought about now, then thought about forever I thought about fire and how we walked through it The times I got it right, the times I blew it I thought about real, I thought about good, I thought about true And I thought about you”

When I hear that song, I can’t help but smile; it brings back every single wonderful memory I have, and it fills me with this overwhelming warmth that I can’t seem to describe, but it makes me happy-cry every single time. 

When I came to Cardiff, I immediately struggled to throw myself into the “uni experience”, because it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I did not like spending hours getting ready, then getting wasted so I wouldn't mind trudging through the rain to get to the club, only to turn around two hours later and come  home, usually hours before anyone else wanted to. Specifically, I was ignoring the feeling in my chest that made me come home — sometimes it even stopped me from going out. I was telling myself I was just too tired, too stetted, too ill to go out, and although that was often partially true, it wasn’t the whole story. 

The truth was, whenever I thought about going out, I felt like I wanted to cry; when I did make it out, I couldn’t bring myself to drink much more than one or two before I found myself in the toilets, tears streaming, texting my friends that I was going to head out: “I’m just knackered, you guys stay and have fun:)”. 

What bothered me the most was that I still cried when I stayed home, too. The people I lived with were always hanging out in the kitchen, watching movies, making plans, and I could hear then through my door as I sat in my bed, with this unexplainable weight on my chest, sobbing quietly to myself. I would say, “it’s just hormones — I've been eating like crap and I’m stressed about deadlines. Maybe I’m home sick, or maybe I just need a cup of tea.” And sometimes I would feel better with a cup of tea, and I’d head out to join the others and their Christas song singalongs. I was still ignoring the weight on my chest, and I was still ignoring the urge to cry that overwhelmed me even when I was curled up with my friends watching rom-coms with a glass of wine. 

It wasn’t until this past September that I realized I had been having panic attacks, fairly consistently, for over a year. Because I didn’t just burst into tears; sometimes, if I dropped something in the kitchen, or I’d had long day, or something I was cooking wasn’t going right, I’d have to scream into a pillow or rip an old shirt in half, just to keep my chest from exploding. That’s actually what it felt like, like I’d go from perfectly fine to feeling as if my hands and chest and face were on fire in the span of 30 seconds. I can hardly feel it happening, and I haven't figured out how to calm myself down yet — deep breathing just gets me annoyed at myself, and trying to distract myself just gets me irritated at more things. 

Like the other day, when Jamie and I had got in from doing some Christmas shopping, and as I walked through the door I felt my breath shortening, my throat tightening, and I had to stop myself from collapsing onto the floor in a puddle of angry sobbing. To try to distract myself, I decided to try out a recipe for easy dough balls; I figured the methodical approach of measuring, mixing, and kneading would get my mind onto other things, and away from god knows what it was focusing on then. I could really speak, my throat was so constricted with emotion, so Jamie let me try to calm down. I was doing okay, but when I tried to knead the dough, it just kept sticking to my fingers. I tried washing them off, using more flour, and it just kept sticking. I felt like the dough on my hands was so, so heavy, and I couldn't get it off, and I was just slamming my hands into the dough on the counter getting flour everywhere, and I didn't know what to do. When Jamie saw how upset I was getting, he helped me wash the dough from my fingers, he set me on the couch, and he fixed the mess I’d made of the dough. I couldn’t even speak to say thank you. I felt frozen, but I didn’t know what kind of upset I was — I felt hot and cold all at once, like my limbs were itching and burning from the inside but I could’ve very well been shivering. I don’t remember if I was crying. 

Recently, I’ve been more open with Jamie as to how I feel in social situations, and he has been so kind in recognizing when I’m not okay and helping me through it. The other night, we were out for a friend’s birthday, and he had gone to smoke with his mates, and I was inside with our friend Ruth, and all of her friends. I knew from the second I got there that I wasn’t going to last very long, which was frustrating, because earlier I had been pumped to go out and have a great time with her. I was forcing myself to dance, but I felt like all the blood in my veins had been replaced with cement. When I finally found Jamie, I told him I needed to go, and as soon as we got outside I collapsed onto the pavement and cried. I hadn’t even finished one drink. 

I’ve been putting off a lot of things lately — a lot of doctors appointments that need to happen. This wasn’t bothering me when it only interrupted social events I didn’t really want to be at to begin with, but lately its been making me avoid things I usually love: writing, walking in the park, cooking, dinner with friends. It has been so hard just getting myself out of the house, and not because I’m in bed all day, but just because I physically feel like I can’t deal with other people some days (lots of days). 

I’ve never been the most confident girl, and I have no problem admitting that. I’ve struggled with every part of myself that every other girl on the planet struggles with: body weight, acne, hair, makeup, are my thighs too big, is my ass too small, why does my chin look like that when I smile, why are my arms hairier than hers, why can’t I pull off skirts, do these socks make my ankles look fat… everything.

I’ve been pushed into the mud by others, dragged myself through it a time or two, and just generally felt iffy about myself for a vast majority of my time on this planet. That’s just part of the female experience, right? I thought I was fairly average in the self-confidence arena; I knew who I was and I was (mostly) proud of it, I just wasn’t quite sure how the world was receiving me. Normal, yeah?

Well, my level of self-assurance was not prepared for moving into a flat for uni and making best friends with girls my own age for the first time in my life; nothing will make you question everything you thought you felt about yourself like listening to other girls pick apart every single aspect of their character — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Now, I love my friends. I truly, absolutely, 100 percent love them and I wish they could see themselves how I see them. That’s one of the reasons why living with them is so damn frustrating, because what I see are several drop-dead gorgeous girls who out-do me on any day of the week. Yet, the way they talk about themselves would have you thinking that I live with four river-trolls who have just come out from hibernating in their cardboard boxes.

Growing up in rural America, most of my friends either had four legs and hooves or were at least ten years older than I was; at 13, my best friend was a 45-year-old nurse who I rode horses with almost every day. I was essentially an only child and I never really had friends my own age, so when I moved into my flat in Cardiff, the communal living situation gave me quite a shock.

When I arrived at uni, I could not give a tiny rat’s ass if I walked out my door with an hour’s worth of makeup on or if I had just rolled out of bed, thrown on some socks and sandals, and left. Now, I feel like I second-guess everything I wear, everything I do, and everything I say about myself — I’ve found myself questioning my own self-worth more times in the past two months than I have in my entire life, because having a positive body-image feels like you’re betraying some sort of unspoken “girl code.”

Living with girls is a brand-new experience, one I was truly not ready for. Not only have I gotten less confident in how I dress on the daily, but I’ve also realized that, in order to maintain these friendships with these people I’ve grown to love, I have to change my entire perspective on friendships.

In the past, I’d made a habit of keeping friendships at an arm’s length, and I never really focused much of my energy on what I thought were other people’s “trivial” problems; shoes that don’t match their outfit or a few spots that popped up overnight were always meaningless concerns to me. They didn’t bare any weight on my life, and only served to distract me from the things I thought were important (usually things like studying and horses).

This has honestly been one of the hardest things I’ve had to come to terms with while at uni. Being around girls my own age and wanting to be involved in their lives and wanting to relate to them on the level they relate to each other is an odd feeling to experience for the first time at 18 years old. Regardless, these girls have become such a massive part of my life that knowing I’m not able to appreciate our relationship to the same extent they are makes me disappointed in myself.

In some ways, knowing they are there and that I’m not able to communicate with them in the same way they do with each other makes me feel lonelier than when they’re not around at all. What’s even worse is knowing that it’s my own personal issues keeping me from having that connection.

It’s for that precise reason that I’ve been trying so hard lately to be involved in their lives, to relate to their problems, and to make their experiences important to me. It almost feels like I’m relearning how to make friends, as if I’m a child again. These girls are becoming such a huge part of my life, and all I want is to simply not push them away — I want to want to learn more about them and their lives.

I think one of the biggest mistakes people like myself make when they’re trying to get to know a group of people is to think of themselves as an auxiliary to the group, as if they’re not truly an integral part of it. It’s really a strange feeling to think of yourself as just someone who tags along to these people you value so highly, but in a way, this mentality is just another form of self-doubt because you don’t view yourself as important enough to the friendship to qualify taking up part of their time.

What I’ve come to realize in the past two months is that every new situation worth the effort of taking part in should challenge you to question yourself. If it doesn’t, is it really worth the time you’re putting into it? Even if it happens to be a self-confidence-black-hole type feeling, it means you’re growing as a person.

There’s much more to come on this tomorrow, when I’m not sleep deprived, but right now I need to remember how it feels to hold someone’s hand and not be tethered — or, to enjoy that sensation of elasticity, and to welcome to feel of their life line intersecting with yours, to embrace the scary-comfort-label that comes with holding someone’s hand. We framed it as a question, a jest, as something to chuckle at while we walked under the trees, and the sun fell through the leaves and landed gracefully on those freckles that dot your cheekbones. When I accidentally brushed your side and our fingers whispered to each other, it was somehow more electric than any kiss we ever shared. It was longing, it wasn’t holding on for dear life, and it wasn’t a chain to words I hadn’t yet spoken. Holding your hand under that canopy of oxygen, feeling the chill drift away as we climbed higher and higher above the rooftops, it was peaceful. 

Sometimes, things like that can feel like a dare. “Do I really want to commit that much of myself to him? What is he thinking? Does he feel more than I do?”

You were always laughing, joking, always “just kidding” before you dropped some realism into whatever moment we were in, and I never quite knew where I stood with you — in on the joke, or a part of it, just shy of being the victim. 

“¿Soy un parte de su broma, y por que te sonries cuando yo te pregunto?” 

Holding your hand gave me insight into your thoughts, because you were vulnerable then, too, not just me. Neither of us are very keen on labeling anything for anything else than what it is: trying something out. So, when you asked to test out this whole hand holding thing, I knew I’d gotten through to a part of you that wasn’t always on display. I’d cracked a little piece of your protective casing, and I’d weaseled my fingernail under the edge and started picking away at it — not consciously, of course, but in ways I didn’t even know you noticed. Smiles, stories, glances. God, when I catch you staring, you make me feel like I’m stark naked standing right there in the open. 

So, today I woke up early, put on my glasses, and went for a run. I’ve never been much of a morning exerciser, save for morning pony rides, but I can’t ignore how amazing it feels to create fresh air and stretch your legs first thing when you wake up. There’s something about seeing the sky and the trees, and hearing the chirping and yowling of birds as you wake up… there’s just, nothing better. Besides riding horses, of course. When I came back, I made some coffee — I made some for mum, too, but she had to walk the dogs before she left to meet a friend for coffee. Something even better than getting out for a walk super early, is getting back super early and getting to enjoy your first cup of coffee in solitude, maybe looking over the news or flicking on a morning podcast, figuring out what’s been going on since you last connected to the world. 

After I’d enjoyed my leisurely dose of caffeine, I checked my list once more before loading all of my things into my car; even though I’d told myself I was packing light, I still seemed to have an entire car full of crap to bring with me. The back seat of my car was overflowing: I had my duffle of clothes; my laptop bag; some extra shoes, coats, and sweatshirts; two bursting bags of random stuff for Nana. My front seat was full as well, with snacks, shoes, and my various purses. Before driving away, I plugged my phone in to my USB, loaded my destination into Maps, and chose my “Jon Bellion” Pandora station as appropriate road trip-music. I replayed “Dead Man Walking” three times before letting it roll into some classic AJR. 

It didn’t take me very long to get to Sumas, and I wish the rest of the drive had been as easy as getting to the Canadian border. The border guard didn’t give me any trouble, and it took me all of five minutes to make my way across and get rolling on my way to Highway 3. Now, it’s no secret that the Jeep doesn’t handle too smoothly at high speeds, but she’s usually fairly easy-going on the flat bits, and cruises just fine with minimal alternation between fourth and fifth gear. However, that easy driving only lasted a moment compared to the rest of the trip. Keeping the old girl up to speed was a feat even in perfect conditions, because any undulation of the roadway was liable to make her shimmy down a couple miles per hour, and as the terrain got more mountainous, my little Jeep was struggling. At one point, trying to blast up a gradual incline at 40kph in fourth, we lost speed so quickly I thought something must be wrong, and I almost pulled over to the side of the road; I shifted down to third to see if that would help, and it just barely kept us afloat. For the rest of the drive, I was more on my toes, shifting before a hill or just as we began to lose RPM. We made fairly good time overall, but there were definitely stretches where we crawled along at 60kph when the signs were asking for 90.

But the real kicker of today came after I’d made it to Nana’s, when I sat down with my computer to check my emails. First thing in my inbox? Beatrice. My favourite person to get an email from! I’d barely had it opened and the first couple sentences read when I felt a huge smile break onto my face. What I gathered from my first breeze through, was that she wanted me to represent GSS somewhere, soon. On my second run-through, I saw that somewhere was Latvia, and when I finally slowed down and read through it word-for-word, I found that Beatrice was asking if I’d be a part of her GSS Editor team and attend an UNESCO student forum in Riga, Latvia. 

I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied by just emailing back, so of course I dialed up B’s number. Waiting for her to pick up, my mind was spinning: I’d never been to Latvia, do they speak English there, what would I be doing, what is the conference about, who the heck is running this thing, and how the heck did I get so lucky as to be on B’s go-to list?! When B answered, we were both beside ourselves to be hearing the other’s voice again. It was like a true reunion! She was her usual frazzled self, although a bit more justified this time: she’d lost her uncle and her dog in the past two months, and her and Andy had been taking both loses very hard — especially their beloved pup. 

When we’d caught up, I said “so, I’m looking at a map of Latvia, and it looks pretty cool.” B was ecstatic. I could tell this conference was a big “in the works” kind of thing, but I knew I wanted to be a part of the conversation. The whole thing looks like it’s about regular people being aided by tech on a daily basis, and how big tech companies are bringing these ideas into cities to try and solve some commonplace struggles. Especially as a student, looking at this topic from a youth’s perspective and having been to some of these cities where they claim to be using tech to help people, I immediately thought to challenge the idea of the conversation: if we’re talking about tech literacy, and how people are becoming aware of the opportunities available to them? I also wonder how these major “advancements” and additives to an already rich and deeply connected community and culture could truly change the whole social geography of a city. 

How can these new advancements in tech not only benefit and help a community, but how could they possibly hinder it, or provide more opportunities for individual growth and therefore be detrimental to the traditions of the people as a whole. 

Does tech push a uniquely “western” ideal of living onto groups of people with their own distinct customs and views on progress and human identity?

I feel like this should be the start of something, now, in this specific moment, because I’m feeling like it is truly the end of some very wonderful things. 

For starters, my best friend is moving on. I never really knew what it would feel like when she did, because I guess I never really realized how much I depended on her; we talked, we fantasized, I ranted, she listened, and it worked. It was a friendship that worked so unbelievably well, I hadn’t even recognized how fucking natural it was. On the contrary, I definitely took for granted how much I needed her, and how much I’d miss her. I mean, I’m thrilled that she is finding her groove in college-life and engaging in all the wild shenanigans she missed out on in high school — I just wish I could’ve been there to watch her enjoy it. 

Another thing driving me crazy is how much I miss another one. Or rather, how much of her I feel I’m missing out on… it’s like, she’s gained this brand new sense of self, and she’s finally letting herself be the girl I always knew was in there, and I don’t get to see it! I am so proud of how she’s growing up, and the fact that she’s letting herself live and enjoy small moments even when she knows they won’t last. She used to overthink everything, always looking too far ahead, always dwelling too long on the potential consequences of what she was about to say, and now — I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t give a fuck. She knows she looks amazing, she knows she’s hella fun, and she’s owning it. 

Yet, however proud I am of my beautiful best friends, I’m almost feeling jealous of how quickly they’re moving, and I think that’s because I feel stuck. I’ve never stayed still this long in my entire life; I’m not used to being stationary, sleeping in, having to think up ways to spend my day rather than having my day spend itself before I’d even gotten a chance to breathe. It’s hard for me, seeing them laughing and smiling, and knowing it’s their turn to feel that way but also wanting desperately to feel it with them. 

Which brings me to him. In my best words, he makes being stationary feel okay. His existence isn’t earth-shattering like that one from Boston, nor is it completely without a future like… all the others. He makes me smile, which is good — that’s like, a baseline for what someone should do for you. He also makes me think, and makes me laugh, and makes me push my own boundaries. 

Like, sitting on his roof — or back up to climbing up on to his roof, that’s an even better visual: I’m not a physical-risk-taker. I don’t scale the rocks if there’s a likelihood I’ll fall, and I don’t jump into the water because there’s a chance it could hurt. But I didn’t think twice about following him up that ladder, and I didn’t think twice when he lit a cigarette and asked me about my life. I just, did it. 

So, yeah, he pushes me. Which is a change of pace, because he doesn’t push me in small-town ways. He’s not, “c’mon, just sneak out, your parents will never know” —  he’s, “let’s go off-roading and smoke a cigarette on top of that mountain.” Which, I’ll admit, is refreshing. But he doesn’t make me reconsider leaving, not in the slightest, and for that I’m grateful. 

I cannot imagine how devastating it would’ve been to have fallen in love here. 

Truthfully, I’m stoked to be moving; I don’t think I could get out of here fast enough, because while it is refreshing and comforting to be resting up in such a beautiful place, any longer would drive me insane. 

I crave stress: the emotion and dedication of studying, learning, producing things. I miss the deadlines and the red pens, and although I know uni is going to be a very rude awakening and I am definitely going to flounder, I still cannot wait to begin. It’s too easy, being here, drinking coffee on the beach while the dogs chase those damn migratory rat-birds. I want to be overwhelmed, pushing myself to do things I’m uncomfortable doing, making new friends and trying out new identities and different ways of carrying myself. I want to say something wrong to a professor and have them make some comment about “those damn Americans,” and I want to learn from that. 

That’s my problem with being here, is that I’m not learning. Which is why this has to be the something new that starts. I have to put words to paper again, or I’ll explode, I could feel It happening. I was imploding, every beautiful sunset and brilliant smile from him, all I wanted to do was write about it, and I felt like I couldn’t. It was driving me mad, but now it doesn’t have to. 

He texted me tonight, explaining why he hasn’t been responding well — but I knew he didn’t like texting, that’s why I never expected much, so I’m okay with that. I just, sort of can’t wait to be in a place where I’m expected to meet people, where I don’t have to make excuses to get coffee with someone, and where I can explore what I really want without anything holding me back.   

Now that I know where I’m going, for sure, I feel giddy. I thought I already knew, and knew what it felt like to be excited about it, but it seems now that I was holding my breath. It’s like, when that email came through saying I’d met my conditions, that was the moment all of my hard work paid off, not back when I got the scores. I knew the scores were good, because I knew I’d worked hard. Getting that confirmation, though — that validation that I was qualified to be where I’d always seen myself going — that was when it hit me. All of those hours studying and worrying, every single cup of coffee consumed in a vain attempt to seem as if I was prepared for whatever I was engaging in that day. Sometimes, I wish I knew how much of it was completely unnecessary — how much of it was just fluff, just bullshit verbiage on a resume that didn’t actually impact the hiring decision. But then I think, no. None of it was bullshit, because all of it taught me something and none of it taught me nothing. Everything I did had a purpose, an end game — even if that end game was just, disciplining myself to do boring, trivial things for the sake of doing them. 

Like, Pony Club. I could have just as easily ridden horses on my own, gone to competitions, learned my life lessons and not dealt with all the stress and trauma of ratings. After all, ponies were my hobby, not my career move. Nevertheless, I did the ratings, and I earned my certifications, and I don’t regret a second of it because every time I tied that goddamn stock-tie and shined those boots, every time I said the wrong thing to the wrong instructor and found myself on the end of a “you can’t simplify it like that” lecture that ends with me cantering 15 meter circles with my pinkies tied to my saddle, no stirrups, shouting Katy Perry’s “Firework” to the tune of the national anthem to prove you can, in fact, multitask — every time I picked myself up out of the dirt and swung my leg back over, I was solidifying a huge piece of my make-up. When I wiped my tears and simply tried again, and again, and again, and again, and again I was creating a person who refused to give in no matter the pressure.