Letter To Myself

Coming in contact with my needs over the years has been a surprising process. I don’t think of myself as a complicated person. I know myself well, and take the best care that I know how to take. And yet I realized that I have minimized my needs for the sake of others over the years. It has hit me recently while integrating into a new place again. There’s a lot on my mind, and I’ve been having insomnia for the first time in my life. I feel my place here, in Port Townsend, is temporary, and will pass before I know it, since I’m starting school in September and have to move to Seattle before then. And yet I have to establish the full trappings of a life here—community, work, routine, friendships—in order to feel any semblance of grounding, and in order to support myself. This on the back of having done that no less than 8 or 9 times over the last 10 years.

It really hit home yesterday when I was jogging down the road in my crocs and suddenly found myself flying through the air, landing with the back of my hand smashing into the gravel road. My friend came over and asked if I was OK, and all I could do was hold my head in my hands and cry. Such moments of total overwhelm at least offer insight, and I felt this one opened up to me how I've really been doing. In reality, how I'm doing is that for the first time in 8 years or so, I fully unpacked my things in a space all my own. Which I think is something that would be very easy to take for granted, if I'd had it all along. I probably would have found other things to be stressed about...

In my case, I feel like I've had a base level of elevated cortisol for quite a while. And when I finally unpacked all my stuff, my body finally let go. It manifested as intense lower back pain and exhaustion for a few days, which slowly went away. Now the insomnia, and emotional breakdown after something I'd typically have laughed off.

I guess I’m not sure what to do at the moment, because though I’m taking as good of care of myself as I know how, I’m still struggling to reach a baseline of inner peace. At least it seems that way to me. Maybe time will heal. We'll just have to see—but I can start with being more clear about my needs, I think. For myself, and with others.

Thank you for reading