Writing my way from darkness back into light
Good news, great news and news yet to be written…..
1. Good News: I am moved. I did the walk through yesterday and turned in the keys. Twenty some odd years has been packed and stored or donated. Savers probably hates me right now.
2. News Yet To Be Written: I have about 30 boxes in the garage here to go through to get settled. I am just so tired of dealing with all of my stuff I just want to scream. I won’t, but I want to.
3. THE GREAT NEWS: I didn’t break!!!
It is just too easy to let go of all the structure and allow myself to slip back into disruptive and destructive habits when I’m beyond overwhelmed. I’m trying to move closer towards being ready to move and the harder I push the more appears that needs to be pushed, or pulled, or tossed or boxed. My last day of work is Thursday, my last day at this hovel is Saturday and then clean on Monday. It’s careening in on me and the people in me are screaming for attention because they are anxious, they are worried, they are excited and they are absolutely freaking terrified I will break again. I know this is a possibility, but I also feel in my heart of hearts (the one that isn’t racing or palpitating) if I break I will gather the pieces again, I will work the glue back into the shards and put myself back together again. Humpty Dumpty, eat your heart out!!
Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m ill informed when it comes to current events. My sister is my trusted source of news and we don’t talk every day. So, when I clicked on my weather app on my computer today and saw that Naomi Judd died and her husband was just now speaking out about it I clicked to read more. I knew she had Hep C, I knew she retired to recover. I wasn’t aware of her battle with depression and suicidal ideology. I’m not a country fan devotee, although the Judds were some of the songs my sisters listened to, so I’m aware. I watched part of the docudrama on network TV back when they had movies made for network TV so I’m not as clueless as I am about why Russia is invading Ukraine. My heart goes out to the whole family and close friends for losing a loved one so suddenly and tragically.
Why am I writing about this? Something in the article spoke to me and old ghosts from my darker days reappeared. Ashley spoke of the voice in your head telling you how you are alone, no one loves you, (and if they do tell you they love you, they’re lying), and you are not worthy of anything so why bother, why try, why live? I still hear that voice more often than I care to admit, but the voice has less and less sway over me most days. Between the medication, the therapy and the self-love I have been trying to institute it has been at bay. I call him the Evil Little Pixie*. My heart breaks when I think of how many people are at his mercy, how he is constantly eroding the foundation people stand on just to see them fall. He is the deliberate laughter in the back of the head when I stick my foot in my mouth, when I make a human sized mistake and happily replays the video every chance he gets. I know the Evil Little Pixie is different for everyone, and his motives and techniques are specialized and honed for every individual, and it’s voice might echo your parents sentiment, your friend or spouse but the Evil Little Pixie’s only existence is to make you feel as small and insignificant as he should be in our lives.
Again, why am I writing about this? Back in the earlier days of the new century the ‘un’ and ‘less’ feelings (unloved, unworthy, useless, worthless) crowd in on me and corned me at a time when I was at the bottom of the void, though I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t feel depressed, I honestly didn’t feel much of anything at all other than rage, but it was a pivotal point in my life. A few years latter in a Family History class we were tasked to write about a time that changed our life, and though I had witnessed the death of my father, walked a marathon, served a mission, threw myself into charity work and had completed one novel this one event kept pushing the other ideas behind it so it was all I could see. It’s called I Broke. It is the story of how I finally realized I, well, broke and how I tried to fix it by ending the pain, the anger and the self loathing and the realization that came when I failed. I’m not sharing this because I want to, I’m sharing this because we all need to share our stories to pull others from the bleeding edge of this ultimate step. After class was over two women came up to me and told me they almost did too. Not the same situations, not the same emotional baggage but the same Evil Pixie trying to destroy each of us in turn. And, honestly, not just us but those who love us as well because we might not believe it, but our drop into the darkest pool will ripple through those you love like a tsunami. At first I was irked they told me they had almost done too, because that negated my belief of being alone. We might suffer in silence, but we are not alone.
If you find yourself looking into the eyes of a friend or loved one and see your pain reflected back, tell them your story, make them know they are not alone and help them get the help they need. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. You can also text a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
*I realize EVIL LITTLE PIXIE makes the voice seem more of a joke than something as serious a depression and suicidal ideology but giving something scary a stupid or funny name makes it more manageable to me. I am not making light of the disease, I’m just making it more bearable for myself. I’m sorry if I offend, that is not my intent.
My bee-line to end my chemical dependence put some of the needed emotional journeys on hold. I didn’t realize this until I picked up my journal and what started as a travel-log kind of entry turned into a soliloquy about the nature of and the need for forgiving. I hadn’t forgiven my mother and the anger which welled up in me whenever I spoke about her to anyone would attest I wasn’t about to forgive her. A sweet young woman spoke in church Sunday and she explained how she came to forgive her philandering and abusive father because she knew her happiness and salvation rested in the balance. She said she would never let her father back into her life again to hurt her but she had forgiven him. The spirit that glowed through the digital link was inspiring, obviously because it amounted to 7 pages of my 9 page journal entry, and it makes me want to share the transformative effect it has had on me.
Most of the entry was angry, a lot of what I put myself through for “living amends” seems ludicrous to me now. I felt I needed to serve my mother as a way to earn her forgiveness mostly for the un-Christlike thoughts I had of her. I’ve learned as a caregiver those thoughts aren’t completely unhealthy, but the guilt of not being perfect in the care of her, of not living up to the impossible expectations she set for me twisted and warped my perception of life at that time and my mother rode that donkey all the way to market. There is some anger in those words, and that is not forgiveness. I don’t know if narcissism is learned, or if its a chemical imbalance or if its a chosen avocation when one realizes it’s easier to get what one wants by undermining the people around them……I honestly don’t know but assigning an illness isn’t forgiveness. There is blame on my part for the role I played in this psycho-drama by allowing her to do this to me when I knew it was wrong, when I thought I understood the depths of the abuse and was “handling it”. (Handling it through inhuman doses of anti-drugs, copious amounts of chocolate and escapism through movies and all the sleep as I could steal in a day.) I should have called her on her behavior, I should have left her to her other children, I should have…..But blaming myself and redirecting the forgiveness towards myself isn’t forgiving [my mother] either. Those are the three major examples in the entry, to list them all would probably put you to sleep.
Christ says He will forgive whom He will forgive, but we are required to forgive all. While writing I prayed. I needed to know what it means to forgive. Don’t get me wrong, I know the definition, I know the process of repentance, and I’ve asked for and given forgiveness in the past. This level of forgiveness was a level I didn’t think I could attain let alone actually grant. I wanted to know if there was a magic bullet, or a wrapped gift, flowers, something I could do to make it happen. I wanted to forgive but I didn’t want to forgive either. I didn’t want forgiveness to erase what she did to me, yet I want to be healed and move beyond the pain and anger. In essence, I guess I didn’t want her to win. We are promised that mercy cannot rob justice and we will all stand before the holy bar of judgement where no one will win alone. Our forgiveness will be the only character witness to be called on our behalf.
At the end of the journal entry I asked three question:
So, why am I sharing this now? The anger is still there as you’ve picked up in my words, but the level of vitriol behind it has waned to something I can push against and move beyond it instead of letting it tripping me. I might still fall and skin my knees from time to time but forgiveness is a balm for all wounds.
Pruning the anger and dischord from the family tree is the next step. I am working at getting passed the feeling of abandonment from the siblings and their offspring. Those feelings are tangled in with my twisted ideals and entitled expectations from that time. Forgiving the dead is one thing but forgiving the living adds an element I don’t know I am emotionally ready for…yet.
Who do you need to forgive? A parent? A spouse? A sibling? Yourself? After this weekend I can testify to forgive and allow yourself to be forgiven. I promise the light is brighter on the path out of the void when you do.
Pink Floyd’s lyrics are strangely apropos:
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
It’s funny how the brain works. I could convincingly lie to myself and self-soothe my anxiety with the simple words “I just need to get passed ______________” and then fill in the blank with the most urgent need, goal or problem. And, honestly, I think I’ve done a good job lying to myself my whole life this way. It’s even the way I write when I am composing a story. I will work like a mad-woman to get from major scene A to major scene B, and when I start on major scene B, construction of major scene C is underway and promises to be better than what I was anxious over major scene B. And that works for me…..for writing. Life has none of the elasticity of imagination and when the rubber-band starts to fray there is no surprise when it SNAPS!
The good news is I didn’t snap, but I guess to carry over the simile I frayed a bit. I don’t know when I stretched to my outer limits. It might have been trying to understand why my reaction to the humiliation parceled out by my job wounded me so completely. It might have been trying to explain to the first roommate about how the PG&E bill works in the apartment. It might have been the 30 days waiting for the second roommate to move out. It might have been the lack of scaffolding (exercise, meditation, self-care rituals) to hold my shape when I started to implode. It might have been the conversation with my liberally libated sister about how I was going to put everything into storage, transfer to a patient service center in the central valley within the next 30 days and move. It could have been the constant internal dialog about setting up the rules for new roommates and the stress of going though that process all over again. I just kept telling myself I just need to hold on and this too shall pass. In the meantime, my heart was always skipping along at an abnormal pace, I was always tired, I was isolating, I was hiding in my two favorite video games (Lili’s Garden and Merge Dragons) instead of being productive, the house began to accumulate the detritus of a throw-away lifestyle, I couldn’t focus to pray, I stopped taking my other medication and my need to eat sugar increased 100 fold. I have been bragging of late how my need for candy and cookies has waned since I’ve reached this utopian level of sanity. I never allowed myself to believe I would never binge again, and I was enjoying the control until I was really enjoying the package of Extra Stuff Oreo Thins. For now, I’m back to not having the binge-ables in the house.
The racing heart rate and palpitations were worrying me so I focused on that one point in the darkness because if you can’t see the whole bad the whole bad doesn’t exist….right? I was positive it wasn’t cardiac related because I didn’t have the time to deal with that so I prayed that He would take away or ameliorate or just fix the problem. The response was as solid as stone and as true as sunshine; “Up your medication.” I knew what medication and there was complete calm in the acceptance of this admonition. I went back to 100mg. Wellbutrin at first. It knocked the fuzz off the edges and sharpened my acuity enough to better function in my dysfunctional state. The racing heart problems improved but didn’t go away. I realized those where symptoms of anxiety, so after four or five days of just the extra Wellbutrin I went up on the Buspar. Now I only have the problems with the physical aspects of anxiety when I think or write about them….like now.
This time though, there aren’t any self recriminations, no loathing or feeling like a failure because I couldn’t maintain the lower meds. I’m not a failure. Period. I am owning my medication, I am owning my needs and my sanity. Though this is not what I want, as I’ve stated before, I want to be off the meds and functioning with enough tools and controls in place to make my life what I need and want it to be to be who I want to be. I’m just not there yet. The greatest discovery I made during this recovery time (and I’m still in recovery from the stress) is that even though I lost a lot of my controls on eating, money, emotions and thoughts, I never stopped eating three meals a day. It sounds trivial, I know, but considering for the past three years is the only time I mindfully ate three meals, even if my evening meal was toast, in my life. I have established a ritual or habbit or self-care regime that has taken root and has truly grounded me. There were days when I just wanted to go to bed and skip dinner or just blow off lunch but I didn’t, I knew I couldn’t. This gives me hope and a plan for the medication. I do plan on going down on them again, but not until I have the exercise down as a rote process, same with meditation. I believed that because I knew I had to do these things to keep the chemicals on my brain I would do them. The first thing that fell away from that nascent structure when the storms gathered was the exercise. Not that getting up to 3.5 minutes on the HIIT machine was really exercise, but the budding routine died a quick death. When I get a grip back on the wheel to steer through these tumults I will reintegrate it back into my life, but at this moment….this exact moment….just thinking about adding one more thing to my to-do list pushes me back to the brink.
I’m not back in the void, that much I know for sure. I don’t even think of what could have happened if there wasn’t a Divine Telehealth consult. I was wishing someone would hit me with their car, or I could see myself slicing through my wrists, type of crap starting to blindside me, but I didn’t go back in. Honestly, the idea of being safe in bed doesn’t even appeal to me. I don’t want to hide from the world, I just can’t handle all of the world without my chemical blankie to make me feel comfortably numb to function.
There are a lot of changes behind me and a few big ones on the horizon. I have made the decision to get out of this apartment where I feel like I’m locked in to the trauma of the past and the uncertainty of the future. I can’t afford the rent by myself and I don’t have the wherewithal to find a suitable roommate. I’m going to move in with my sister and brother-in-law in the central valley and get a job at one of the hospitals my nephew works at. I’m putting my 30 day notice in for the apartment on May 1 and I’ll be moved out before June 1. I’m putting my two week notice in at work either May 7 or May 14. I’m thinking I want the last week off in May to really focus on things around the house and get it done so I’m not over-doing it. Once I get settled into a the house, once I get settled into a new job, once I get settled into a routine, I will start putting my life back on the rails towards my goals. It’s annoying how life tends to grab you by the ankles just as you’re getting your feet under you. I stumble and I fall but I am very proud of the fact: I GET BACK UP.
Both roommates have moved out as of this last Sunday. Their outstanding utility bills are still unpaid and I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort to pursue them or just be done with them. I trust Karma will eventually bite them in the wallets, heaven knows this is a slice of Karma for me. I’m good with personal debt paying, meaning if I borrow a dollar from you I will make every effort to pay you back and to make sure you know that I’ve paid you back……credit cards, not so much. But then using credit cards in the past was a way for me to stretch to the end of the month and when you use plastic to stretch eventually you or it breaks….and I shattered. So, pursue or not to pursue is the karmic question.
I haven’t lived alone in YEARS. I’ve lived in this place for over 20 years either with family or the denizens of CraigsList. I always valued having the house all to my self, and I become disgruntled when the other residents would come home. Especially before the apocalypse, it wasn’t often enough I would get my sister to take my mother off my hands for even an hour so I could just sit and feel myself quietly vibrate and pulse with the anxiety and anger I stewed in for all those years. I treasured the time post-apocalypse when the roomies were at work or on dates or doing whatever it is they did outside the house so I wouldn’t have to pretend at being happy, or hiding my irritation at them/the world/my life. Now, I have the house all to myself and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I like it but I’m constantly on edge thinking someone is going to come home and my zen will shatter. I don’t want to get too comfortable in it because I will have to give it up, but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to get comfortable either to build the strength for the adventure ahead.
A big part of the problem is I’m still hyper-vigilant in checking to see if the last one’s car is in the neighborhood because her aura (for lack of a better term) gave off a certain whiff of menace (which is why I took Sammy to my sisters) and my aura and hers were not compatible in any way shape or form. I didn’t fear for my life, per se, because anything she did to me I knew I had recourse through law and the courts, but I had to protect Sammy and I’m waaay to attached to that bird to take the chance of letting anything or anyone happen to her. I didn’t like feeling unsafe in my own home. She didn’t move out until late Sunday night and I had to be up early so I went to bed. I asked her to leave the keys on the table, which she did. To make sure I saw them she left EVERY light on in the house she had access to and she LEFT THE FRONT DOOR UNLOCKED. But she’s gone….she’s gone…..she’s GONE!!! When is the anxiety going to be gone too?
Ghosts aren’t corporeal enough to make the kind of noises which are ratcheting up my anxiety and dread. I’ve come to believe accumulated psychic trauma weighs on the studs and floorboards like a pregnant elephant causing the wood to groan, mimicking habitation in the house when I am alone. I’m sure it does it when I’m gone, but that’s the whole tree-in-the-forest kind of thing that no one can prove. When I hear the creaking or what I interpolate to be the swinging of a door I collapse inward like a paper bag before I could push against the embedded folds. I would like to sand over and smooth out this ingrained reaction but I don’t know if I will be able to until I actually put down roots in a new plot of soil all my own. It won’t be here because I need to get more roommates (sigh) and I will have more roommates when I move in with my Sister. I don’t know if the psychic trauma will be packed up with my belongings and travel with me, but I think that’s why 95% of everything I have will be donated, thrown or given away to disperse it back into the universe. Believe you me, that’s one roommate I can live without.
So, it’s been a while. I go in spurts, either blogging, writing, journal-ing or binge watching Netflix. Since my last update, I have gotten a job, broke my foot on said job, re-wrote a novel, worked in my company’s call center and am nowback into the world wearing heavy-duty boots so if I should miss a step and break something I would rather it be an arm or a leg or anything other than a foot. Eighteen weeks in non-matching shoes is NOT how I ever want to live again.
To say things got bleak during those weeks is an understatement. I was blessed by the women of the church who brought me food, chatted with me and lent me their knee scooter so I could actually get around on my own when I was home alone. I also still had Moms motorized chair which got me out on a daily basis where I could keep a pity party bag of M&M’s on hand while I wrote. There are times when I am still fighting the darkness, when I think about getting up and going out to strangers houses I hear this elfin voice in my head which echos in my heart I don’t want to leave the house. It’s not that I’m agoraphobic, I’m not. Seriously though, if I had my druthers, I’d stay home, in bed and write or sleep….basically just hide from the world. The world doesn’t work that way…Hell, I don’t think anything short of an asylum works that way. An asylum isn’t an option, my insurance doesn’t cover it nor would they allow me to bring my birds.
Moving forward is the only course of action for me right now. It’s hard. At times painful. The void creeps up on me, and I convince myself binge-ing on M&M’s is the way to keep the darkness at bay, but I know that is the scared little voice in my head trying to keep me close. I don’t know if ‘she’ will ever come completely out of the void and I might continually have to ply her with Lexapro to keep her quiet; one does what one must. My goal for moving forward this month is to get my Soul Searching: House of Dragons out to a publisher I identified back in September. They require an online presence. Though I count this as an online presence I’m pretty sure it’s not exactly what they were talking about. So, I bought pamelagartner.com (as such is my real name) and am struggling to figure out a way to get a website set up and hosted for as close to free as I can get it. I checked certain companies that promise a free website, but they charge you for hosting. Then I thought I’d check WordPress since they do a lovely job at hosting my blog, and this is what I learned….Blogs and websites are interchangeable. It’s just all in how you design it. Who knew? I’m waiting for a reply now to see if I can upgrade my bloggingfromthevoid.com domain name and also use my pamelagartner.com domain name for the premium price and if I can use the domain name I purchased from a different site. I wish I had known then what I know now, but all you can do is continually move forward.
I had a dream this morning, half awake and half asleep kind of dream. I heard my mother call me from her room. Not her normal morning call but more of a genial kind of invite. My mom was in her room and my sister S. was asleep in her bed while C was asleep down the hall. I walked into my Mom’s room and she was sitting on the far side of the bed while S slept. She was a solid vision, no apparition, do diaphanous edges, but solidly real. She came around to the end of the bed and I sat with her. I could feel her arm, literally feel. her. arm. I held on and hugged it. I apologized to her about not taking care of her the way I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to do better by her, but I just physically couldn’t and I couldn’t seem to rise above the fray in my mind which exhausted my body. (you know depression). I don’t remember if she accepted it or not, but it didn’t matter. I was able to say it to her. S. woke up and saw Mom but couldn’t hear her and C. came into the room and could hear her but not see her. Mom was happy. There wasn’t the roiling discontented aura she had in life, I think she was at peace. We wanted to know if she had seen my brothers J. and D. but she hadn’t. She didn’t want to face them. We encouraged her to see them. We didn’t believe they wouldn’t want to see her. I think I fell out of the magical level of sleep and into a deeper sleep because my dream degraded into something more surreal than pseudo-reality.
So, it’s been almost a year. 10 December 2017 feels like five years ago and yet it hasn’t even been a full 365 days. So much has happened this year, considering what I was dealing with there are days I am amazed I get out of bed at all. There is still a part of me that is a recalcitrant depressive but it has always been there, I’m learning how to work around it and move forward. The post Rectal-Cranial Inversion talked about how I “accidentally” hit June 6 as my start date for phlebotomy class. Had I stuck with that date I would have taken my test about the same time I took my test and I probably would have gotten my externship the same time too. Having the benefit of hindsight I realize the June 6th start date would have been a better time for me to go to school because my head, some days, is still solidly inverted but mostly not now. I wouldn’t have needed Red Bull to keep me awake through class, but it tweaked my anxiety to the point I couldn’t trust myself. For the externship I changed my buspar (anti-anxiety) and then dosed down my bupropion, my puppy-upper than can also tweak anxiety. Once I did that I didn’t panic and my externship people saw a noticeable difference. I’m planning on dosing down again in the new year to see if I can finally be free of some of these meds.
So, yes, I passed my test; 96/100. Not bad at all. I finished my externship with glowing reviews. I’ve gotten my certification and card from NCCT and I’m going to work with someone today about my licensing. I feel I am ready to go out on a job interview and nail it. At least I have the chemicals straight in my head so I don’t blather on like an idiot through the interview.
On the darker side of life I am still dealing with some of the little, annoying aspects of the depression. Like not taking care of myself. I have food but I don’t want to cook it, I’d rather go without or take a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter and be done with it. I’m working as a Lyft driver so I’m having to have to be more social than I like and than still wipes me out. I need to shower more, but who doesn’t. To help with pushing out my bandwidth I have started courses that will put me back on the path to getting my bachelors degree. I’m going for a basic interdisciplinary degree so I can include my history credits from 100 years ago but then I’ll be able to put on my resume I finished university. I might even go further to get an MFA in writing. Again, my dreams writing checks my body may not be able to cash.
I’m happy though. I mean for the first time, in a long time, I’m happy. I’d be happier with more money, but God has always provided when the world wouldn’t. I don’t think I’m ever going to mourn for Mom, not the way some people do when they tear up when you mention their mother. There are still parts that are angry with her but after the dream not so much. It’s done and I’m moving forward…..one step at a time.
Self Love is
Knowing what you need
EVERYDAY
Then making sure
You RECEIVE it.
💜💖💜
Mom died.
It’s been about seven weeks since her passing. Time seems to go buy at different speeds at the same time. I’ve hit new levels of stooopid I never knew I could. I’m still not eating right, sleeping well or taking care of myself as I should. The only thing I’ve been capable of doing is making crochets shawls. I can count to 8, I can sit and watch it grow and not have to do anything else. Since December 1, her last time to the hospital, I’ve made seven shawls. One is my “house hold” shawl because I would rather wrap up than turn up the heat. I seem to keep going back to the hook for comfort. They feel like hugs. I’m trying to make one for all the women/girls in the family for the boat ride out to skater Mom’s ashes. Hopefully I will be more back in the world by April.
I haven’t really cried yet. Maybe writing this out might break open the flood gates and release the torrent of tears that are just waiting for the opportunity to flow. I don’t know why it seems so hard to express myself that way. It could be the general fear of crying; if I start I won’t be able to stop. Or it could be the medication is still providing the buffer that keeps me from completely dissolving into a puddle. I’ve gotten the basics down in my journal but not really the emotions. I wonder if I’m actually going to have any. I mean, it’s not like this is out of the blue. I’ve spent the last 12 years taking care of her as she, well not exactly slowly, declined. The last three to five years have been the hardest, and living with her and taking care of her really tore the wellspring of hope out of me several times. It did happen really fast, in the hospital on the 1st, back home by the 5th, then dead by the 10th. There wasn’t a rally coherent good by on her end due to the hypoxia from the lack of oxygen.
My team of professionals and myself have held the theory/belief that part if not most of my depression and anxiety was due to my environment. Maybe I’m overmedicated now that the environment has changed or maybe I’m so completely overwhelmed (I had my car broken into after the memorial service and I drove myself to see my sister C. run in the Carlsbad marathon, I lost my job when I lost my mother, going back to school in February, and creditors filing suit). I’m overwhelmed. I guess I should stop trying to push myself so hard and try to do things one day, one task, one blog post at a time.
I’ve had some dark days, but in general I still have the light and hope for my future, so I don’t believe I’m back in the void, although, truth be told crawling back into that warm dark place to hide sounds really inviting.. I’ve had more bouts of anxiety than depression, I’m becoming more aware of my desire to take care of myself (like eat, bathe, change clothes, etc.) In some ways I feel like I’ve been reborn into this world but I’m going to have to fend for myself. I’ve got to find a job that pays well enough for me to write until the nectar of creativity runs dry.
My nephew gave me the best advise yesterday. I didn’t want to go home, it felt like a trap so he told me when he feels that way he goes out into the world and tries to find something beautiful. So, I went home briefly and grabbed Sammy and we took a trip to the coast and watched the boats in the marina and on the way home on Highway 35, I got pictures of a beautiful sunset over the foothills in the valley. It was beautiful and my anxiety was calmed.
Blogging From The Void 