Roller Coaster Scream
I feel like I’ve been blocking good energies. I’ve been guarding myself, walking around all mean and cold. I can feel it, the scowl on my face some days. The resting bitch face. The “too busy to notice ya” face. I’m letting sad feelings get the best of me, making me irritable and impatient. I need to release. I feel tense, uptight and stuck. Like Trumps mouth, or the skin around a hardened pimple. I need to release before I explode.
It’s the 4th of November 2020. It’s my dads bday. It’s the day after the elections. It’s the day 1 of not knowing who the president is. It’s day 74940202 of covid. It’s the day I decided to crawl out of my cave and my sunken mind and bump energies with the world around me. Intentional isolation is just as bad as non intentional. Being in my head, racing thoughts, no one to talk to all day is depressing. This is what I wanted. To be alone. To be far away. To have space.
Today I stepped out of my space. Out of my box. I softened my jaw and lifted my head up. I made eye contact with people today. Not everyone but a few people. I fueled up and ran some errands. I found myself in Hollywood hiking up the dusty, windy trails to Griffith’s Observatory. The beaming hot sun was blinding, the air was dry but the sky was a beautiful blue. The sky was like HD. Like when Apple came out with the iPhone X. How exciting that bright, clear screen was. Or like when I opened my eyes the first morning after Lasik. That beautiful, crisp, blue sky.
I weaved up the sandy dirt trails passing other trailblazers equipped with masks and hiking sticks. Masks? I had a mask in my pocket but I refuse to wear a mask while hiking. I watched people lift their masks off their chins to cover their mouths when they walked by me. Any other situation, that gesture would come off as rude. But during a pandemic, it’s expected.
Just getting outside helped me to put things back into perspective. It’s very easy to lose focus when you’re in a funk. You forget how good you have it. Or how great things have happened. Going outside reminded me that I’m not fucking special. And when I say that, I mean my problems aren’t anymore special than anyone else’s. Outside I was met with the reminder of just how insignificant yet significant we all are.
During my journey through the southern Californian dust, I came across a viewpoint where I sat and collected my thoughts (and my breath). Speaking out loud, I rattled off thoughts in my head. I wrote my thoughts down. Took a few photos. Deleted them. I took in the views of LA. I listened to sirens to the west of the city. Planes and helicopters fly over the city miles away. I watched the handful of hikers below me. There weren’t many. Not enough to warrant mask wearing in the mountains.
I’ve been feeling this heavy pressure in my chest lately. I think that’s anxiety taking its hold on me. A feeling I’ve never experienced for extended bouts of time. I felt like I had to get it out of me. I needed to scream. Just a good, powerful, roller coaster scream. So I did.
I stood up, took a few breaths and stopped myself. I didn’t want to startle people. I didn’t want someone to think I was hurt or worse, going to hurt myself. But fuck em. I needed it. My body needed it. So I did it. Dropped my head and threw my hands back and let out a high pitched, 4 second scream.
“Hello” I heard from below. That was it. No one too startled and it made me feel lighter.
It takes very little effort sometimes for us to get sucked into ourselves, our struggles and racing minds. Some mornings I wake up in a panic. I’m alone and immediately am in my head about what needs to be done. Nights go by where I lay awake deep in a rabbit hole somewhere. Our lives have too many expectations and components sometimes. I’ve really been trying to scale it back, just focus on the basics and live in the moment.
Easier said than done of course. There’s weeks where I am present, experiencing mental clarity and little distractions. Followed by weeks of panic, stress and emotional instability. Being present is a challenge for all of us sometimes. We’re either thinking about the past and what we cannot change. Or stressing about the future and what we do not know.
I practice being present through movement, eating and meditation. When I do these things I think about what is happening inside of me. I focus on how my body feels and why it needs this. Instead of stressing while working out, I focus on my body movement, the burn, the results to come. Tuning in with my body through movement or yoga keeps me grounded.
Don’t get me wrong. You can still be grounded and depressed. You can still do the things but experience periods of sadness. It’s part of the mental struggles. It’s how you handle it I guess. When the sadness comes I go back to basics (which for me are food, movement, safety) and ground myself.
I’ve been finding peace in cooking at home lately. Even grocery shopping brings me stability and makes me feel present. The entire process. Going to the store with a list, preparing the items, the beautiful colors of the fruits and vegetables, the seasonings. I don’t eat much meat or processed for so most everything I make comes from whole foods. Nothing like a plate full of colorful plants to stimulate my brain.
Anyways, I’m glad I went outside today. Glad I bumped energies with the universe before feeding my body some delicious food. Here’s to movement and being present. Here’s to letting my guard down. To a roller coaster scream, a crisp beautiful blue, coming out of the cave.
