If you follow me on social media, you have probably been aware of my incredible summer. I was truly blessed with a warm summer in the great outdoors. Being outside is essential to both my healing and thriving, so I decided to get myself out for as many activities as possible.

I started hiking again after years of not doing it, and I chose to take up camping in the process. My family had a cabin in Manistee, MI, so I had never spent any time tent camping. I always wanted to “live” in the woods as primitively as possible, and I used to joke about living in Montana away from everyone. Further, the only true camping I have ever done was on a weeklong hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail. So, I stopped wishing and started doing. Last, I wanted to do something new and different that I had never thought of doing. The opportunity came up to start kayaking, so I jumped at the chance. I love water! I hate being wet! I could be on the water without getting wet, and I could soak in the sun, the calm, and the magnificent scenery.

My bucket list kept growing. There is nothing wrong with that at all. We need something to live for, or at least something to look forward to. The more I did, the more I wanted to do. I was fully enjoying myself and yet wishing for more. It wasn’t enough to paddle a kayak on a beautiful July day; I needed to be reading too. But you can’t enjoy the Ospreys soaring in the perfectly blue sky while floating on a serene lake AND read a book. It doesn’t work that way. I was experiencing joy and disappointment at the same time. There is nothing wrong with having two or more opposing emotions or sensations at the same time, but there is cause for concern when you don’t stop to pay attention to them.

Now, there are many things in life that sneak up insidiously. This lack of contentment was one of those things, but it wasn’t as if I didn’t FEEL it. I, like many people, tend to push my feelings away to look for a logical solution to the problem. I know! I’ll just try to fit more things into my day! I’ll tire myself out by getting up early every morning to go to the gym and work hard. Lunch won’t fit into my schedule today, so I’ll just eat a snack. I’m too tired to meditate, read, or reflect on my day, so maybe I will fit it in tomorrow sometime. Except I wasn’t fitting it in. I was neglecting my food intake as well as my emotional and cognitive health. The first thing to go after that was my sleep. My mind couldn’t shut off because I wasn’t letting it ever get through any one thought before moving to the next thing. My body couldn’t relax because I was hungry. How can you fully relax when you are hungry? I mean, before grocery stores, that restlessness was what allowed the hunters and gatherers to have the energy to go find food.

Here’s another secret about me that I know is not unique to me. When I am distressed, I make myself busy. If I am doing, I don’t have to think about it, feel it, or even acknowledge it. If I am being, I am going to acknowledge the pain, think about whatever the stressor is, and I’m going to feel it. How awful! I was making myself busy, but I was doing that completely subconsciously. Okay, I’m still doing it, and not so subconsciously anymore. That is why I am writing about it. I need to be honest about where I am because, amid all the stuff going on in my internal world, I am also isolating myself from deeper connections.

To be fair, I’ve had some external stressors that knocked me off the horse. The biggest of these stressors has been confusing for me. It brought up more pain that I felt truly prepared for despite the progress I’ve made and my positive mental state. I haven’t been entirely sure how to deal with the complexity, so I chose to ignore it as best I could. The thing about a significant stressor is that it doesn’t actually go away. It sits there and grows while you ignore it. Remember one of my previous blog posts where I discussed the story about the monster? Yeah, well, the monster has consistently grown, and now I feel too overwhelmed to know what to do with it.

Now you know. My summer has looked incredible, and it has been. But below the surface is a lot of emotional pain, discontentment, confusion, grief, and isolation. It can be both, but I (we) need to allow it to be both. Life is messy. One of my good friends set an intention this year to “live out loud, be messy, and be real.” So, here’s to a probably very slow and ugly start to allowing myself to also live out loud, be messy, and be real.