Camping.

This weekend, we went camping on a whim. We booked on the friday night, left on the saturday morning. It was 3.5hours , or 200km away from home. A big ask for one night away, but I find it hard to ignore that little voice that tugs at my consciousness and asks for adventure.

Despite the longish drive, the trip there passed without much anxiety. I did things that I previously avoided - for example, I usually dont like to drink water before I go somewhere, because then I need to pee, and needing to pee makes me anxious. I also wasnt going to eat my lunch until we arrived, incase the sandwich somehow made me sick (less of a vote of confidence for my sandwich making skills and more about how far I'll go to avoid the slightest possibility of discomfort), but I drank my water, I ate my sandwich. I was doing the things and I was feeling good about it. We arrived, we unpacked, we went out to dinner, we sat by the fire and we looked at the stars. It was magic. Soothing. Heart-filling.

And then, the morning came, and along with it, the prickly version of me. The one who can't find her voice because her neck is burning. The one who is both terrified, desperate, and angry. We had gone for a walk to find breakfast, Lila was buzzing with questions, and Anth (seemingly) enjoying the crisp Autumn air. Its as if time warps, and I can feel my insides turning. I'm at war with myself, quietly begging, "why do I have to go through this?" I kept walking, because, what else can I do? Where do I go? I feel like I'm drowning in darkness, weighted with a terror that is both horribly mental AND physical - like a shadow in my tissue and bones.
Did you ever play that game as a kid, where someone twists your arm and you see how long you can hold out before you yell "Mercy!"? I feel like I'm forever playing, and I'm on my knees breathless and broken having said Mercy over and over again, waiting for the pain to relent. Wondering how much more of it I can take. I'm so desperate to walk along this street and just be walking.along.this.street, I pray. Just let me walk along the street without falling to pieces.

Slowly - and I mean slowly - it lifts, like a fog; the adventurous me coming more into focus and the prickly me dissapating into the air above. The rest of the day is more special, because of this, as if everything is in technicolor and I can feel our little family like warmth in my hands.

I get a hug from Anthony that envelopes me in comfort. We go apple picking, we eat a pie for lunch, we sample different types of honey and I feel like snoozing on the way home. I feel most unremarkable within myself and that IS remarkable, that is what I long for. Its a reminder that those agonizing stretches of time where my anxiety ripples around my body, weighing my limbs down like cement and throwing reason, logic and normality up like a frisbee, they END. They end. They fall away into the background and I'm able to breathe again. To live again. To participate in exploring the world.

Sometimes I wonder if its worth it - doing the scary things - when I find myself struggling so bad to get through. But here's what I know: I get so much good. I get to have these adventures, even if I spend a period of them feeling metaphorically on my knees, they're still punctuated by moments that I cherish. And the other option? To live in the 'no' and the 'i cants', to spend so long in the refusal that i can no longer say yes to even the small things? I have spent so much time in that place of nothingness [a good half a decade, at least] and what I learnt was, just because you're looking the other way, it doesn't mean you get to avoid pain and discomfort.

The truth is, the light feels brighter when compared to the dark, and the dark feels darker when compared to the light. I think this is why I have these moments of such contrast - the adventurous me and the prickly me, the me who screams mercy and the me who says 'well, where to next?' And though sometimes its tempting to respond with 'nowhere next', for fear of the panic and the anxiety that inevitably stirs, it doesn't let me see those bright moments, those warm hug moments, those apple picking, big smile, hand holding memory-making moments.

And, yeah. That was camping, in a nutshell.