Overwhelmed

"...now I'm sad and alone, I'm going to become bitter and distrustful of people because one person betrayed me. I'm going to hate those who have found their treasure because I never found mine. And I'm going to hold on to what little I have because I'm too insignificant to conquer the world".
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

It feels like there is no oxygen in the air, that I'm going to suffocate right in my comfortable apartment. My chest tightens, my heart pulses and sweat collects on my brow. I cannot form clear thoughts outside of whatever veiled perceived threat haunts me. Lately, the threats are many, in the form of all of the wonderful and exciting commitments I have dug for myself.

I'd die alone and no one would look for me for days, maybe even a week. I have a completely flexible job, an independently taught school between intensives, a social circle thick with semi-close friends, none of whom I talk to with regularity, and a lovely apartment, isolated up in the trees by the middle of the city. It is the life I dreamed of and it suits me, except on the days I can't breath.

These are coming more frequently. The end of the school year looms a few weeks away. A new job is gearing up, one I love and somehow have become completely immobilized by. My current job is restructuring. My big idea, the campus, looks bigger than ever, like a wall that now I realize I cannot scale alone, a wall I am touching my nose to and no longer seeing the bigger picture. My gay sustainability group is poised for great PR, but I panic about finding the right name. My health has caught up with me, I blame school for the lack of exercise and good posture, but it was I that caused my small belly, small amount of energy and low immune system. None of this helped by seafood poisoning leaving me in bed most of last week. My computer dropped, forcing me to replace it with money I do not have as interest payments grow steadily and income does not... And the email and school assignments and bills and social isolation never stop growing.

I make steps to fix all of this. I've networked to talk to professionals in PR to help me in my new job. I have been accepted into community funded counseling. I reached out to friends and will get my bike fixed up for the first time in years. I brought a second tennis racket back from Palm Springs to help anyone that can to teach me the game on any public court we can find. I'm restructuring my diet, canceling my costco subscription to buy more fresh foods. I'm drinking nearly nothing but water and herbal tea, both in growing quantities, I went to the gym last week with a new routine. I went back to church, it was great. I'm reaching out to be social, with a low success rate so far, but hope for the future?

I recently had a long conversation that changed my life, leaving me aware of how close I was coming to fully resembling the quote above and how that was impacting my life. It has shaken me and I feel raw, naked, exposed: completely vulnerable. So much confuses me, I took walks through the Olympic Sculpture Park and along the Alki point to clear my head. It's not clear, but I know I'd rather sit here in this clouded fog than go back to menacing denial. I am far from having habits that would cause any alarm to anyone I know, but it was not me. It will not be me. I am not a victim, I am an adventurer. As the boy says later in that chapter following the quote above:

"...it wasn't a strange place, it was a new place".

I'm in a strange and frightening place, but this is what I want in life. It is new and full of potential. And though there is much evidence to the contrary, I am not alone.