Selfies, Goofing Around, and Processing

This morning’s hike was across town from my mom’s place. It is called “City Creek Loop” and the first quarter of the hike I wasn’t very impressed. The skies were very smokey, any pictures of the open expanse of the city spread out below me were obscured by smoke, and I am sure every one is getting sick of seeing pictures of leaves, trails, bugs on flowers, and BOKEH! So today, when I stopped to do my selfies, I decided to be an idiot about it, give myself some giggles, and HOPEFULLY give my friends and family a smile in the process too. Happiness is a state of mind, so even though I didn’t “feel” goofy and silly, I tested the saying live and on camera. It worked for quite a while, I was shaking my head, smiling, and had a little skip to my step. Then my mind went grey, my heart sank, and I started to spiral a little bit.

There was a LOT of rough thoughts on this hike. I don’t enjoy this roller coaster of happy, sad, regretful, happy, depressed, happy, anxious bull shit I keep going through. I “KNOW” it is part of my journey, but it is exhausting sometimes. My thoughts are NOT reality, and the reasons do NOT have to be causes. My reality is in the moment. My reality today was the sounds of the stream bubbling next to me as I walked, my reality was that hiking brings me more joy than pain, and my REALITY is that I’m going to be happy alone, but not lonely. I have myself to like, I have myself in the moment, always myself, and always in the moment. I want this so painfully bad. I want to get used to being in the moment so when I allow a person into my life that is more than a “friend”, she will be safe in trusting that I will be present with her more often than not.

Since I’ve been in therapy, and recently found a book that hits home with out kicking me into tears, I tried to use some of their ideas while I was walking. I pulled myself away from my thoughts, tried to notice them with out judging myself for thinking them, and let them play out with out making them a false reality, future, or past. No tears, my chest slowly released its tension, and I inhaled deeply with a little shiver of relief, and exhaled slowly. The hurt was manageable again, and I noticed blue berries next to the trial. I laid down on the damp ground, and started thinking about the process of taking a picture, not about the thoughts that keep me up at night, make me sound irrational, or bring out the worst self criticism I’ve had in decades.

I took the selfies about half way through the walk. I always feel a little silly taking them, I’m never sure if I’ll post them or not, and today was no different. I exaggerated some of the poses, held my smile out of habit (I do have some with out my smiling, but I think they convey a little too much truth right now), and tried hard not to delete all the images that I felt weren’t flattering.

Almost forgot to upload the videos I took. I talked in the beginning, but they’re the sounds that make hiking so magical for me. A babbling brook, and the sounds of mother Earth passing by under my boots.

Thank you for coming with me on this being single thing. I do enjoy spending time alone, going on adventures, and seeing new places. I can’t wait until I can do it with my someone special.