tarynitup

When you are staring at the edge of the world and there’s nowhere to go, you realize you can’t run from your problems anymore. The vastness of the ocean giving my mind nothing to distract myself with, and in a way- it gives me more control over my thoughts. And it’s not long until the ones I’ve shoved down show up, some louder than others. I kept telling everyone I was leaving to figure shit out, and when I was on the plane ride to California, I kept thinking to myself “what shit even is it?”

Once I got to my hostel- I was pretty defeated. I forgot my anxiety medicine at home, left my vape at home, and everything was closed. I was in my room alone, sitting on the bottom bunk of an old school metal bunk bed, with only one other bunk taken. The bunk across from mine looked like someone was living in it, but at least there was just 2 of us for now. The room smelled like absolute ass because they were doing plumbing work on the restaurant below the hostel. When they showed me my room, she offered to move me upstairs in a more full room. At almost 12 at night, the last place you want to be is the one coming into the dorm when everyone is in bed.

TRAVEL TIP: if you stay in a hostel, always choose the bottom bunk if you can. Last night when I was in bed, I was so thankful I picked the bottom bunk because the guy that came in at 11:45 struggled a LOT.

In the middle of my break down, I had never felt more alone. My hostel was on the pier, and with the window open, I could hear everyone at the bars having fun, and I couldn’t decide on ANYthing. After a few minutes, the door to my room burst open and in comes this lively and loud girl named D followed by one of those guys that you have no idea how old he is because he’s wearing a bucket hat, has a mustache, a button up shirt, khaki shorts and flip flops. She sees me and gets excited about having someone in the room and immediately invites me out with them. I knew everything was closing soon, but it got my mind off of just wanting to go home. We walked across the pier and smoked and I felt SO much better, I told her I got in too late to get anything. We get to the bar and the bouncer wasn’t letting anyone else in besides D, and I sat outside with bucket hat and talked for a little bit, and finally went back to the hostel and went to our separate rooms.

I woke up on my one full day there, and I look on the windowsill and see a paper and a couple little nugs from D, it still just being us in the room. Once it took me an insane amount of time to decide which dispensary I was going to go to, I went downstairs as I was going between Uber and Lyft. Ok, now this is getting ridiculous. I get to the store and get my stuff and once I got outside, I ripped into the bag like a bear and got out my vape and hit it as hard as I could as my Lyft home is pulling up. I get to the hostel, I put a little pre-roll on D’s bed with a note that had my phone number. I think Cali is fucking cold, so I went and bought the first cropped hoodie since wakaan and found a Dr Pepper and started walking. It wasn’t long before I found myself on a bench next to the beach, realizing the reason I’m still stuck is because I’m allowing myself to stay stuck. Moving forward means letting go, and I just didn’t want to. I had too many questions, too many things left to say… but I had to accept that i would be wasting my words, and sitting next to the Baked Bear- I let my heart break so I could let go. Technicolor Beat came on shuffle, and I knew I was in the right place and doing the right thing. Accepting the one thing I avoided the entire time was what finally made my heart snap. I told myself that it’s ok that I had good times with someone and nothing will ever take away those memories. The stolen smiles, the sunrises, the eye creases and laugh I fought so hard for… it doesn’t matter if it was real for them, it was for me. And I have to let that be enough.

I let myself feel sad for a few minutes- and my phones goes off and it’s D. Perfect timing. We make plans and go to a bar on the pier with another person from our hostel. As we were sitting there- I knew whatever I just let myself feel made me feel different, but I didn’t know how yet. I split from them and I went and found an isolated spot on the beach and I sat and I just cried. Letting myself go through each suppressed memory and feeling like Harry Potter when he painfully connects to Voldemort through his scar. I realized that I haven’t been emotionally available but I’ve been trying to convince myself that I was, running away from anyone that has the potential to be real and finding comfort and loving the person I know will never check in because it was letting me hide behind their emotional wall. Also learning I couldn’t decide on anything because I didn’t trust myself to. My confidence was shrinking, even as I played it safe, and I was in a self built prison.

The one thing you don’t see when you’re in that prison is that you built it, you’re the only one that has the key to get out of it. Even if you think you gave away the key- you built the prison. You know the blueprints and you’ll find a way to get out.. but you have to be ready to be out.

I let myself love Adam, and right when my heart healed from that, I let myself love again and I hurt A LOT… but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have grown like I have and I wouldn’t have learned how I was setting up my relationships to fail.

Trying to reconnect with my old self to introduce her to my new self has been challenging, and this weekend introduced the 2 and I have to navigate what happens next.

If I can get here from where I was, I can do anything

Edit: this post was finished after a 9 hour delay/reroute to Oklahoma City (not to mention 2 weeks later also). I thought this was a pointless diversion, but it might not have been pointless at all. Everything happens for a reason, and when you realize that every single decision leads you to the place you are- you notice things.

Also- so much more time went by again before finishing this blog post.

I’ve known that my current job and career field has come to a brutal end, and I cannot wait to switch over but if I’ve learned anything over the last couple of years, it’s to take fucking baby steps.

People were shocked to know that I was in LA at the same time as Illenium and Said the Sky and I didn’t go. That was kind of the main point. I had always bragged about being able to travel alone… but there was always a show/festival/boy to motivate me and keep me on “track.”

Could I actually go somewhere to just- visit – and would I enjoy traveling alone as much as I did all of the other times?

At first, the answer was like NOPE FUCK THIS I WANT TO GO HOME. I landed at like, 10:30 at night- completely pointless to get in that late but I think it was cheaper. Plus, I got a good time alone.. in my bunk bed hahah.

There were several times that I found myself just… stuck. I could NOT make a fucking decision. It’s bad, but it has been hitting an all time high lately. Out of all of my trips- this one was the absolute hardest. Now that I’ve had a month or so to reflect, I can’t help but be proud of myself. I mean, I also beat the shit out of myself mentally that weekend, but I realized that I wasn’t just stuck on making choices on Uber vs. Lyft, this dispensary vs this other one, eat vs not eat, do ANYTHING or just sit… it was starting to seep into every aspect of my life. (This is why we deal with our shit, because it comes out like a Crohns fart on a first date eventually, and you’re praying it’s just air.)

I have been… content in dermatology. I’m good at it, so that makes it easier… but it’s not making me feel actually happy. Once I realized that the entire reason I went into healthcare was because of my wreck, I kind of got the ick for it. Add in a company that treats their employees like absolute dog shit (the ONLY good thing is that there are offices in Washington, Colorado, and Minnesota if I wanted to ever transfer, not to mention HQ being in Austin. But 10000%- fuck that job, haha.

Talking to one of my best friends, the one that kind of “sent” me on my journey to Cali, suggested I really think about what I wanted to do for a career. I was kind of upset with myself that I didn’t come back and immediately have an answer, but I guess I still haven’t fully learned I AM A SLOW PROCESSOR. One day, I’m scrolling through videos (which I do so much, different apps, random times) and deadass, for the FIRST time ever, a video came up about becoming a life coach.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those moments where it feels like you completed 1000 piece puzzle, but inside your brain and it actually creates happy chemicals and reactions and shit.. but I felt like I hit a comfy cloud wall. The last 6 months, when I was describing what I wanted to do (just didn’t know how to make it a job at the time), I didn’t realize that I was LITERALLY speaking the roles of a life coach. Down to adding in my blog and podcast into it… but never realizing what it is. There are so many lessons to learn from this trip and epiphany, but the one biggest thing is that you will see something when you’re meant to see it. You’ll meet someone when you’re meant to meet someone. Whatever is meant to happen to you, will find you. Months of embarrassingly long amounts of time of scrolling, never once did I ever come across a video talking about being one. I hadn’t even talked about it or talked about a therapist, and I know I just wasn’t meant to see it before I did. And for once, I know why- and it’s because if I had learned about it any sooner, I would not have done anything with it, and it would be a dead dream.

Now, looking around, sitting in our 4 bedroom super nice rent house (that has unlimited hot water, its amazing), driving a car that is tied to NO man, with a lease with JUST me and my best friends name on it, paying my OWN bills, and still being single because I know I’m still healing and my standards are too high- I realize…

I fucking did it.

I got up from rock bottom, again. This time- even fucking better than any prior times. My friend circle is small, my energy is carefully divided, and I make sure that when I’m drained, I do what I need to do so I can be better.

As far as the layover goes- you never know where things will go. The green eyed boy that got so mad about Tanzania being the right location for a tall ass mountain during our 3 hour discussion in OKLAHOMA FUCKING CITY taught me so much. The average person changes CAREER paths 5 times in their life. The odds of 2 different planes with all pilots hitting their max flight time when there WAS NO BAD WEATHER at 4pm, both coming from LAX, both stuck in OKC for hours. Frontier literally drove a crew 3.5 hours to fly our asses to DFW on a 25 minute flight, I’d be so mad. They even got on the intercom and said “we have enjoyed having you for this 25 minute flight” like i HOPE ya’ll got overtime pay, we landed at 2 am.

Finding each other on social media, we became friends, we fell asleep on the phone once and I actually woke up and we were still on there. It’s the worst, you feel guilty when you hang up. He was going through a hard time, moving to Denver for 3 months for work, and I’m proud of him that he’s taking time for himself to heal. And for some reason, I know that’s not the end of that story.

The last two times I’ve left LA, it’s rained and everyone is like WHAT! iT RAINED? And this time was no different, but I didn’t care. I woke up early, I had time to walk the pier before going home.

I stood there, watching the waves, remembering the first time I traveled to Cali and realized that life is just like waves in the ocean. Some you can see coming… some hit harder than you think… some fizzle out before reaching you… the only constant thing is the wave itself. You can fight the waves, you can stand there and be mad at the waves, or you can learn how to navigate through/under them. If you can’t find a light, be the light. Nature will teach you a lot if you let it, you just have to sit and pay attention. Sit outside in the backyard on a nice day and pay attention to how intricate everything is, yet how simple it is at the same time. Lessons are everywhere, you just have to want to learn them. In early 2022, standing at the beach in a DIFFERENT part of Cali, my feet were right where the water was coming up, and I just let my feet sink in the sand for 3-4 baby waves, then I’d move. All of a sudden, I was like HOLY SHIT, this is like life! If you don’t ever move, you just dig yourself deeper and deeper into something you won’t be able to get out of if you don’t move. \

You have to keep going. When the fear of staying the same is greater than the fear of whatever work it takes to change- that is when people will change.

Until then, we just do the next right thing.

With love,

-t 🤍