The Little Prince and the Fox

… and here’s another one today…

“… that’s what grief is — a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything.” [‘Wintering’ by Katherine May]

It’s snowing again. After a week of sunshine and progressively warm weather, this soft white blanket falling over the world feels nice, soothing, and especially gentle — something I really need today for my own “wintering”, for some recovery of my own. 

After some events this past week that have been very troubling for me and the breakthroughs I had after breakfast, in rapid succession, yesterday and this morning, today’s psychotherapy session was hefty. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’m ready and even eager to address some older, deeper issues of mine, but sometimes they get triggered and/or clarified without my trying, like a volcano erupting. In the past two weeks I feel like I finally started doing the heavy-lifting in my therapy sessions, and heavy-lifting is tiring. As an athlete, I know my body benefits from the right amount of weight-lifting: it helps strengthen me and thus avoid serious injuries, in appropriate ways/quantities. But it’s also tiring and not really fun. 

Last Sunday, I had a fall out, almost a fight with one of my dearest friends in California who was temporarily looking after my pet snake that I couldn’t bring along to Colorado with me. This event really upset me, for days. But apart from pain and anxiety, it also triggered self reflection and, ultimately, some deep and invaluable understanding about myself, my past, my behavioral patterns and relationships. 

After this fall out or break up or fight with this particular friend happened, I realized that I have found and lost many friends and other types of relationships along my winding path: but while some of them ended painfully, others just faded almost unnoticed, despite maybe having been just as deep or important. What was the difference? What brings on the pain for me in some relationships ending but not in others? 

I realized that the key was conflict. 

I am terrified of conflict. It might be the thing I fear the most in the whole world. Because when conflict arises between me and someone whose acceptance or affection or approval is important to me — be it a friend, a romantic partner, a family member or a coworker — it is intimately and indissolubly intertwined with rejection. If conflict arises between me and a person whose approval/acceptance/affection is important for me, then I feel responsible for the conflict, as if I were its only cause; I feel that I’m a “bad person”, a “monster”, and that as such I will be rejected. Although rationally I may very well know this is not at all true, this vicious circle feeds on childhood trauma so deeply ingrained within me that it’s really hard, almost impossible, to keep at bay. And I had never articulated it so fully, so completely, so openly as I did today: first, while journaling this morning; then, with my counselor’s help in my therapy session; and now, opening up here. 

I have also come to understand that profound, unfathomable, almost cosmic or existential sadness from earlier this week: it was grief. And grief precisely in the sense outlined by author Katherine May in her wonderful book ‘Wintering’ that I’ve just started reading. 

Yes, for me grief really is “a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything.” And that’s why I was feeling so abysmally sad this week: because of a conflict with a cherished friend who was then avoiding me, thus refusing me that “one last moment of contact that would settle everything”. This, in turn, brought up old feelings of rejection along with the unhealed wound from another relatively recent conflict and/or rejection (or something that felt as such to me) with another person who in some weird, confusing ways was dear and close to me, and with whom I wasn’t able to get the closure that my heart would really need. The closure that, for me, would come only from “that one last moment of contact that would settle everything”. That settling of everything which for me would mean the confirmation of “not being a bad person”, the confirmation of “not being a monster” — which wouldn’t need to come necessarily from the other person telling me as much explicitly, but rather from my own actions, doing one last thing which for me would finally represent “that one last moment of contact that would settle everything.” To help me feel good again, once and for all.

—————————————————–

[Opening up like this is terrifying, but much less terrifying than conflict is for me. This opening up, especially after having done it with my counselor this morning, is therapeutic and I know it will eventually bring me full healing. One step at a time, one layer at a time. And now that this scary step of writing here is taken, now it’s time for self-care: time for the warm, cozy self-care of “wintering”.]

I’m still on my runner’s high from this morning: it was my best trail run, yet (in wintertime here)! 

Dinner with my host family, some good sleep, and an early energetic morning, helped dispel yesterday’s sadness — and an emotional breakthrough after breakfast clarified it. [I’ll write more about this when I’m ready to do so.]

So today has been a really good day, confirming how much I not only love it here but also love the aspects of me that come out here. The winter and/or the mountains here seem to be toughening me up again, giving back to me parts of myself that I had lost or forgotten. The weird weather and temperate climate of coastal California, and then the isolation during COVID as well as the super long recovery from my own illness throughout 2020 and half of 2021 — it feels like all these factors took away some of my toughness, some of my readiness to always get out there no matter what the weather is like, how could (or hot) it might be, despite a runny nose or slightly weaker ankle. Now I’m doing things more readily again here: I’m pushing myself more while also respecting my body & mind & soul more. I’m getting out there no matter what, unless it’s really unhealthy or dangerous for me to do so (like a snow blizzard). I’m running in all temperatures and on all sorts of terrains that I had never tackled before, yearning steep trails and the woods. It takes so much focus to run on these trail here in wintertime because the terrain is so tricky, but I love it because it takes me to some other level or type of consciousness: I connect with myself as well as my surroundings in a way that I had never before experienced. I’m seeing and feeling new parts of myself while also, somehow, reconnecting to parts of me and my relationship with the mountains that I had lost or forgotten for so long. I love the way I feel here: I love the aspects of me that come out here. And I love the fact that, although most of my training sessions here are heftier than in California, I have much more energy throughout the day even to do my intellectual work (probably thanks to the limited amount of stress I have here). And last but not least, I love my body: having come into & come out with my non-binary/trans gender identity really helped me overcome my body-image issues; but the “toughness” I feel within me coming out in this environment puts me even more at peace with every little aspect of my body, with that overall boyish strength rounded off by the female thighs…

I’m not saying the fear or sadness are all gone, suddenly. But today I got some wonderful reprieve from them, thanks to being in the moment, being present here & now, focusing on the trail I was treading today. One step at a time.

I’m feeling terribly sad. 

I’ve been feeling sad in a sort of cosmic, unfathomable, maybe existential way for the past few days. And also afraid. But mostly sad. 

Last night, as I watched the end of the movie “Don’t look up” with my host family, tears streamed uncontrollably down my cheeks, and it felt like such a relief. I would feel the need to cry some more, to be held safely and warmly and cry. But I cannot manage.

I love it here and I’m feeling physically well and even mentally much better than just a few weeks ago in California. When I go running or hiking on trails or even driving down the roads here, I feel like I’m in a different state of consciousness or a different person or a different version of me from California. Maybe that’s why I’m sad, because every change also entails some loss?

I don’t know why I’m feeling so cosmically, so existentially sad. Or, rather, I can see many different reasons for being sad and/or afraid, but I think the true reason is buried deeper and thus harder for me to see at the moment. All I can put into words for now is this feeling of deep, deep sadness, like a bottomless ocean, dark and unfathomable — somehow quiet and yet holding some turmoil in its lonely depths.

If I had to make my decision now, I would stay here. In Colorado. 

I just had a conversation with my host family confirming that I can stay here until the end of May and even into June, if necessary. That means just four months here… And it feels like too little in this moment. I’m really enjoying it here, I just feel so well here. And it’s not that I’m feeling well here only now: I also remember how well I felt here last summer (as well as in summer of 2019). I know that I feel well here almost year-round. 

I also realize that part of my well-being here is in some ways biased: on one hand, because I’m staying in a lovely house with very nice people; on the other, because I needed a change from California. 

So come the spring or next summer, I might be ready to move back to California (or move to some other place)… but at the moment I really cannot see that happening. At the moment I’ve been thinking of ways to make it possible and sustainable and realistically satisfying for me to stay here at least for a couple years…

I’ve been running in the snow. Literally running not only on snow-covered pavement but also on snowy mountain trails in the snowy woods. It’s so beautiful!

I never thought that I’d actually be running in the snow some day! I’ve done several different types of winter sports and enjoyed snowy weather for most of my life, but even up to a few months ago I couldn’t have imagined that I’d be running in the snow one day. And yet I am now, and I’m loving it! Another new experience at the beginning of this new decade (my forties)! And my body (particularly my sensitive respiratory system) seems to be able to take it well. I actually feel healthier here than in California and I think the clean, dry mountain air here is better for me than the coastal damp weather… And I seem to do well with altitude, too. 

So, although I’m keeping my mind and options open and I’m not making any decision until April, at the earliest, for now, Colorado wins.

Wednesday evening and yesterday morning I shoveled piles of snow: five inches of snow had accumulated from the snow storm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I needed to clear the back driveway to get my car out of the garage and drive to the airport. The back driveway is about 25 square meters (~270 square feet)… Five inches on a surface area of about 25 square meters is A LOT of snow! I had never shoveled so much snow in my life (and hadn’t shoveled any snow at all in a decade)! It took me over an hour, close to an hour and a half, of hard work — a real workout! But I must admit that I enjoyed it — maybe because I don’t have to do it every day!?! 

Shoveling snow is tricky (at least for me). You look at it and it doesn’t seem so bad: nice and white, smooth and shiny, it almost looks friendly. Then you start and you realize how HEAVY snow is (“of course”, says the physicist in me, “water has a pretty high density!!!”). And then the piles start getting too high and the snow slides off them, so it becomes something that feels like a civil engineering project as you raise each shovel-ful of deceiving white fluff and ponder very carefully where to place it next. As the driveway starts clearing up, the snow piling up more or less neatly on the edges, pride and/or hope seep into your heart until the shovel hits something hard which isn’t the pavement… Now you’ve struck ice. This might be the trickiest part of it all. The ice is inhomogeneous, sleek and slippery in some spots, thick and rough in others: but everywhere simply too hard to do anything about it except be careful of it. 

However, this workout-chore gave me plenty of satisfaction.

Today, I started a different type of “snow shoveling”. 

Since starting psychotherapy around a decade ago, I’ve done several rounds of it in various countries (& languages) and with several counselors who used different methods/approaches, and tackling different aspects of my life and emotions. In the past couple years here in the U.S., I’ve done some counseling intermittently, mostly to address contingent issues or difficulties that arose at the moment, focusing more on practical ways to overcome them or deal with them rather than digging into the deep causes. 

Moving away from the setting that had grown familiar to me over the past five years cleared space in my mind and heart, and toward the beginning of this week I felt a desire that I recognized, that I had felt very intensely for the first time 8-9 years ago: the readiness and even eagerness to tackle older/deeper “stuff”, to dig into the “real issues”. 

So today I started this new process, or new phase: in this morning’s session, I started shoveling the snow that lays over my soul. And it was no lighter job than shoveling the snow off the driveway the other day. The snow covering my soul is just as deceiving, just as heavy — and the layer of ice under it, stubbornly covering my heart, is just as tricky as the ice on the pavement. This is going to be a hefty job. There’s just so much of it: A LOT of snow. So much I’ve never told anyone, not even my closest friends or romantic partners. So much I shut inside me, so much I buried deep down inside, so much I’ve been carrying around. I’ve been able to function efficiently in practical ways: getting through school as far as my PhD; finding good jobs; moving, traveling, learning a bunch of languages, adapting to new places and many countries; enjoying vacations and adventures and fun times; growing professionally; pursuing my hobbies and interests; meeting people and making connections. But in deeper relationships I have always struggled: when it comes to real closeness, that’s where the hard challenges arise for me (and I had to restrain myself from writing, “that’s where I fail”). 

It was hard work today. And it’s going to get harder — it’s bound to get worse before it gets better. But just as shoveling the snow in the driveway, I know the effort is well worth it: once the deceitful snow has been removed and the tricky ice has melted, then the road will be clear and safe for my car to drive out, taking my heart for a ride in the world with some passenger(s) sitting next to me, at last!

My emotions are all over the place. After the snow storm on Tuesday & Wednesday, today I experienced a storm of emotions.

I spent my first week here in Colorado alone in my host family’s huge house while they were still away —house-sitting for them and totally enjoying the solitude. I hadn’t felt so happy and peaceful and grounded in ages as during this week spent alone here in Colorado, enjoying this therapeutic winter on my own and yet not feeling lonely. I was enjoying this solitude so much that I was even a little concerned about having only one week before my host family came back — my “host mom” got back today, the rest are arriving tomorrow. I was also a little worried that my non-binary/queer gender identity might be an issue in some ways (when I was here last summer I was still coming into myself and hadn’t officially come out, yet). 

This morning, I was a little anxious while cleaning up and putting everything in order in the house and trying to prepare it as clean and neat as possible for my “host mom”. And then, I got on the road early because of all the snow we got in the past couple days — I worried about getting to the airport on time, blablabla. 

So I got to the airport stressed out already. 

Then, I walked into the terminal to wait for my friend at “Arrivals”, and started feeling more and more uncomfortable at each step. I haven’t been in an airport, not even near an airport, in more than two years, since January 2020 just pre-pandemic. And I have been avoiding places, especially indoor spaces, with many people almost completely. So being around relatively lost of persons in a place that is effectively indoors and that tends to be big and confusing and bustling regardless of COVID made me feel very uncomfortable, like an animal in a totally unfamiliar and even threatening place. And then I started noticing how many people were not wearing masks, or were wearing them below their nose, despite the mask mandate. That’s when panic started building up. First it felt like anger, actually, fury. I was besides myself with anger that there should be persons disregarding the rules and no one there to enforce the rules. I’m still almost shaking from anger now: who are they to decide that they are above the rules and can ignore the mask mandate and walk around with their face uncovered and maybe even talking in a group of friends?!? Who the hell did they think they are?!??? 

But besides, or underneath, the fury, there was also fear in me. Not so much fear from getting sick, at this point; but rather that fear that stems from being in an unfamiliar situation that feels threatening precisely because it’s so unfamiliar… I’ve gotten totally unused to being around so many strangers… I had to wait for my friend for over half an hour and by the time she called me to let me know where exactly I should meet her, I was in tears, on the verge of breaking down from what really was a panic attack. All I could say when we met was, “Let me help you with your suitcase — I need to get outside immediately”. If we hadn’t met up then & there, I would have sat down and cried and cried and cried. It was her matter-of-fact affection that helped me get myself together and calm down and drive us both home. 

That’s when the next part of overwhelming emotions started — fortunately positive ones, this time. It was wonderful to see my “host mom” again and it was just so delightfully evident that she was happy to see me, too, and grateful to be able to talk with me. Although rationally I know we enjoy each other’s company and my host family has repeatedly stated that they are delighted to have me around any time, in the past six months my heart had forgotten what it actually feels like to be with them — how familiar and comfortable and warm. And then, there was a brief moment when my “host mom” was on the phone confirming that we had gotten home safely and in naming me she not only called me by my gender-neutral nickname instead of my (gendered) full-name, as she used to until the summer, but she also phrased a sentence about me to make it gender-neutral. Honestly, I cannot remember exactly how much I’ve told my host family about my coming out — I think I had told them only about my gender-neutral nickname, thinking that I’d tell them the rest when I saw them this winter. But the fact that my “host mom”, whose native language is not English and is actually a very gendered langue, the fact that she seems to be much more receptive to the topic than I thought she might be… this is a huge relief and an additional warm feeling to my heart. 

And just sitting on the couch and chatting with her was so lovely… it reminded me of how well I felt here last summer, of why I’m back here now even when my host family is around, and in general how good it feels to be around people whom we like and who like us back.

It’s been snowing non-stop for over twelve hours, everything is covered in a thick, soft white mantel, temperatures dropped almost 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) overnight. 

It’s beautiful. 

It’s also a little concerning for me from the practical viewpoint since tomorrow I have to drive to the airport to pick up my “host mom”, but that worry is only very small and at the back of my mind, so I’ll leave it there for now. 

This real winter here is one of the things I’m enjoying the most. It goes so well with my current need for solitude, for retreat, for focused writing, and for healing. Yes, “winter therapy”. 

When making my decision for this semester and planning my move here, I often tried to imagine what it would really be like, what my days here would look like, and I also just let my emotions surface, tried to capture my “gut feeling” about this move. And what often arose, spontaneously, was the image of, and longing for, walks in the snowy woods on my own. 

Now that I’m here, I’m also just enjoying the snow from the window or on a short walk alone around my neighborhood. What I needed is a real winter, something I haven’t had since moving to California six year ago and that I actually even fled from (about a decade ago). 

I spent all of my childhood, teenage & young-adult years in cities where there were all four seasons, all very clear, each with their beauties and each with their function or purpose for our bodies. Then, about a decade ago, I spent three years in a country where winters were beautiful but far too long, summers too short, and spring & autumn were absolutely gorgeous but also too short. So basically I got too much winter. But that wasn’t the only — or the real — problem. The real problem was the partner with whom I was together back then; and now my own personal relationship with wintertime, with cold snowy winters like I had in the first 25 years of my life, needs to be healed.

That’s one of the profound things I’m doing here now: I’m healing. I’m healing those broken winters that wouldn’t have been so cold if I had been with a compatible partner or on my own. I’m healing wintertime memories from my childhood and teenage years with my family of origin back in Europe. I’m making connection again with parts of me that disappeared, or fell asleep or were put on hold, while I was enjoying the balmy, temperate climate of coastal California (which had its own profound healing purposes for me, as well — at least for a while). 

And I’m also healing just by enjoying all the aspects of real winter: the shorter days; the cold outside; the self-care that maybe comes more spontaneously from having to put up with more rigid conditions; the slower pace of life. 

Ideally, to be really well, I need all four seasons, well marked with distinct rhythms: I need a real winter to slow down, almost to hibernate, to be cozy, to reflect, to rest; spring awakes me again, literally, in all senses; then, I need a hot summer to feel passionately alive, to sweat it out, to feel the heat of the sun beating down on me, while maybe even relaxing and basking in the sun sometimes; and autumn to slowly unwind, to focus back in on work and goals again, to enjoy some mild temperatures, more balanced emotions, and beautiful colors. 

I realize these sound like “first world problems” and I feel a bit spoilt while writing this; but the way I mean that I need these different seasons with everything each seasons brings is that my body actually needs them in a very physical way — it’s the animal in me that needs these distinct seasonal rhythms, not just the rational part of me. 

And now, at this time of year, now is time for my body to soak in real winter! And in this particular juncture of my life, this snowy winter here also has an additional, profound meaning or purpose for me: emotional healing.

Today, I walked into my new climbing gym here in Colorado and I was seen. I mean my bodily presence was registered immediately and throughout the whole hour that I was there bouldering. 

It wasn’t just the “new face in town” type of thing. There probably was some of that, but it was also — mostly, I’d say — something else. Something I’ve become more aware or conscious of only in the past few years: the fact that we human beings really are animals and in many ways relate to each other at a basic, instinctual level that we observe all the time in other animals (that don’t spend all their time thinking). 

I grew up in a city; our dog had to be put down when I was six years old and I only had a pet turtle at home. I got some familiarity with cats, dogs, and tortoises through friends’ pets, and I didn’t fear animals; on the contrary, I went through a long phase in elementary & middle school where I’d collect and try to save or observe animals and wanted to become a zoologist when I grew up. But from adults around me as well as books I absorbed an attitude of detachment from other animals — indeed, I though of them as animals and us as human beings, as if human beings almost weren’t animals. I’ve always had the tendency to get into my head, to think a lot, to be quite rational; so that also led me to feeling remote from other animals. And I’ve had gender as well as body-image issues most of my life, so being in my head, rather than in my body probably also felt safer and/or more comfortable to me — the only way that felt safe or comfortable for me to be in my body was by being an athlete. 

I started to be in my body more when I moved to California six years ago. Looking back now, I realize it has been a gradual process that really became obviously apparent to me during the pandemic (and even painfully apparent for a while then). Now I also realize that this has been part of my fundamental liberation process that started when I moved to California from Europe six years ago: leaving behind me, at a great distance, my family of origin and my ex-partner who all negated and tried to thwart/stifle my gender identity was definitely a fantastic and very powerful way to start living in my body more. And this in turn allowed me to see human beings as they really are: animals, specifically mammals. 

There’s this funny memory from one of my birthday parties: there were two male friends of mine, with both of whom there was some level of physical attraction (between each of them and myself), and I remember how they looked at each other, their stance and the way they moved or held their bodies — their movements were exactly like those of two male specimens of deer or lion, or similar wild animals.

There have also been some painful instances that I remember very clearly. At the beginning, in the first place where I lived in California for over a year, I remember having the distinct feeling more than once of not being seen, i.e. as my bodily presence not being registered: I felt like I was invisible because no one really struck up conversations with me in cafes or on the street, nobody gave me the feeling of noticing I was there or of having any curiosity to get to know me. Then last spring, almost a year into the pandemic, I remember how eager I felt to be physically seen: so eager that I told a friend, “I want people to see my body” — so we went to a nude beach together! I know that feeling then was due to the long isolation and the lack of going to places like gyms where I used to go very often pre-pandemic, where people do indeed relate to each other on a physical or bodily level first of all: where we’re bodies, animals, with hormones flying around, before anything else. 

Before the pandemic I had never realized what an important factor that is to my general well-being. 

So now I have become particularly sensitive to the feeling of being in my body and of relating to the world, and other persons, around me through my body: with me as well as them registering each other’s bodily presence before anything else, like wild animals. 

It’s not an objectification of others (or of myself), at all. It’s rather a real, specific way of interacting with the world and with other animals of which I wasn’t fully aware until recently. And I like it. I like it very much (in the appropriate contexts). But I also realize that I like it now because I’m ready for it now: because I’m finally confident and comfortable in my body and also more clear and confident about my gender identity. 

So when I walked into the gym today and realized how my bodily presence was being registered, it felt really good: somehow I felt acknowledged at a very fundamental level — basic, instinctive, unfiltered. As one of the species (in this case, rock climber) — literally, as “somebody”. Oh, yeah! 

[Disclaimer: this post is going to be quite self-celebratory because I am not only very happy but also extremely proud of what I’ve just done.]

I made it! 

Yesterday I made it to my new (albeit temporary) home in Colorado and now I’m sipping tea in the living-room watching thick, soft snow fall outside the windows. So weather-wise, I made it just in time — one of the benefits of being a paranoid planner, I guess! 

I’m happy because I love this place and it feels like a homecoming, since I spent one of the most beautiful summers of my life here last July 2021. But I’m also happy because I truly needed this change. Maybe the stifling aspects of my life until last week weren’t due only, or mainly, to the location, but to my own situation, to the fact that I felt stuck in my own professional as well as personal life? Or simply due to my own nature, to my character, to the fact that every few years I need a big change? In some ways maybe I was getting too comfortable in my situation in California, and comfortable in ways that weren’t fully satisfying to me and that lacked growth in some important aspects of my life, and that’s why I felt stifled? 

Maybe I just needed to push my comfort zone further, in a great, momentous spurt again, as I need to do now and then? 

Over the years, I’ve realized that I have a very big and elastic comfort zone that I like and even need to push quite often. And I’ve done it again. I’ve just driven myself and most of my belongings across several States, over 1,300 miles, through desert and mountains in wintertime, on my own, to embrace change and start a new phase of my life, after having packed up years of my life in boxes and moved out of a place where I spent the past five years. 

This is HUGE. 

Admittedly, I got help from friends both for some practical errands and for advice or emotional support — proving, once again, how blessed I am with friendships. 

But then, at the end of the day, getting my belongings and my butt into my car and driving myself all the way here to embrace this new phase of my life, was something I had to do all by myself. And I did. Just like I did six years ago, when I packed my bags and moved from Europe to California because I felt stifled and unhappy there and needed to pursue my own dreams, or to push my comfort zone and grow. 

In this moment, I’m mostly proud of the practical issues I overcame, the aspects of really practical growth in this journey. Simply the fact of driving alone for so many miles in wintertime: I had never done it before. 

When I moved to start my post-doc, it was also wintertime and in some ways a similar trip by car in wintertime crossing mountains, but so many aspects made it easier (from the practical viewpoint): I wasn’t alone, since I was moving with my ex-partner, so we could take turns driving, navigating, and doing anything else; we were traveling in his car, so he was familiar with and had taken care of all the practical aspects such as winter tires, chains, non-freeze windshield fluid, etc.; we were crossing the Alps, with only one day of traveling and no stretches of being “in the middle of nowhere”. And this was over a decade ago and I haven’t been in real wintertime mountain weather for over six years now — and never on my own. So when the snowstorm started shortly outside of St. George, UT on my third day of travel, I panicked. But I kept a level head and dealt with it. The worst part really was the windshield fluid: when I took my car to the mechanics before leaving California, I told them specifically about my upcoming trip through the mountains in below-freezing temperatures, asking them to make sure they added the correct, “real” type of non-freezing windshield fluid. They assured me they had, and I trusted them. I guess I should have double-checked in some way: as soon as the temperature went below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, my windshield fluid froze, making my windshield wipers not only useless but also hazardous — and of course, I found this out in the middle of a snow storm in the mountains in Utah. 

I’ve ridden my motorcycle in conditions of poor visibility and I drove my car through a storm last summer, with rain so thick that visibility was nil and I had to stop for a while. So I know how scary it is to drive when you can’t see where you’re going, and I know that you’ve just got to stop as soon and as safely as possible, and resume traveling after you’ve regained visibility. I’ve done it before. But never in a snowstorm in the mountains on my own. So I guess it was the novelty of the experience that scared me: the fear came mainly from the situation being unfamiliar. But I’m really proud for not letting the panic take over. I literally talked to myself, admitting out loud that I was scared, and then, once that was said and out of the way, dealing with the practical aspects of the situation. I solved the problem and drove myself safely through the mountains and snow for the next day and a half. And in doing this, I also learned more about my car: for the first time, I opened the hood and inspected things on my own (I had done it before but always with persons who were experts and who therefore took charge)! 

This might all sound silly or “normal”, but for me it’s a big deal. I didn’t grow up around cars and this is literally the first car I’ve ever owned (I got it in summer of 2020) and only driven it in mild or warm/hot conditions. Give me a sailboat and put me in a storm: I know exactly what to do and won’t panic at all. Road trips and maintenance on a motorcycle are also much more familiar and manageable to me now (since 2018). But cars in real winter weather on a long road trip across mountains, on my own, is definitely pushing my comfort zone — or, at least, it was until the other day! 

What really helps me in these situations to keep a level head is thinking of the worst-case scenario and what I would do if that happened: once I visualize and almost “make peace with” the worst-case scenario, then I can calmly focus on whatever is happening in the moment, no matter how bad it is, and solve it as rationally as possible. And one of the things I like about this trouble-shooting and problem-solving in a real, practical scenario is that it can remind us (or, at least, me) of the skills and resources and knowledge that we really have and often forget. 

Dealing with new situations, with the unforeseen or unfamiliar, is a great way to push our comfort zone and something I really enjoy because it feels empowering and brings me a sense of growth. 

As my artist-friend said to me last week about some emotions I was sharing with them, “Isn’t it wonderful that at forty you can still experience such new feelings?” — Now I can add, “Isn’t it wonderful that at forty I can still learn so much, with so much enthusiasm, and that there’s still so much out there for me to experience?”!