I’m feeling very ready to leave Montana. I have to tell my partner “for just a bit” because he loves it here and wants to come back. But I can’t lie that I am. I’m ready to travel and explore again. I’m ready to sleep in the desert or the forest and wake up with no one else around us for miles. It’s beautiful, the freedom of the RV. And I’m just ready to be out of houses again. I swear, everything has mold.

I’ve been through even more changes recently. Change as of the last few years, and especially this year, even this month, hits me fast. When you flex the muscle that is leaning into what is being called of you, you transform, quicker than you even knew.

It’s that YES to everything. It’s leaning into that YES to I’m scared to try and make it in the world without a certification in X, Y, Z. It’s YES to all that creates insecurity. It’s YES to the big unknown. It’s YES to the worry of, will I make it and get to do everything I want here?

If I got another tattoo, it would be yes on both my hands. So I can see it. So I can reach out and pull the YES in. So I can remember to stop fucking resisting life.

We all do something to get in the way of this YES. This posture of acceptance and surrender that pulls us forward into the vortex of time and change.

It’s been the greatest help to use Wilhelm Reich’s framework for this. To understand why I heave and haw, why I spiral, why I ruminate, why I create suffering for myself. My posture is to resist. In some ways, I like to suffer. It’s the masochist in me. It’s the addict.

When I was younger, it was the part of me that was miserable in a 9-5, knowing I’m built for bigger things, and an artist that, instead of doing anything about it, just got high and very drunk. Just partied in DC when Town was still a club (such a good club—debaucherous).

I’m lucky I never lived in NYC. I got sober at about 25 because the pandemic hit, and I just couldn’t stand having more weekends just GONE.

And I was never one of these people who really struggled to quit or something. When I wanted to stop, I just stopped. I really haven’t drunk since then, although I have a glass of wine with my partner here and there (he usually finishes it).

But, I wouldn’t say I’ve been sober since 25. I was still using MDMA, 2CB, and Ketamine, which are drugs. They’re not teacher plants. They’re just chemicals. And even though I used some of them in a therapy setting, I was still partying with them too.

There’s a bunch of things we tell ourselves about why this is all okay…