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Hi. Welcome to my Screaming Ravine.

Ok, so it's not really MINE. I don't own the land or anything. But it is a place that holds special meaning in my life. See, when I am overcome, overwhelmed or at the end of my rope, this is the place I go to let it all out. I drive up here, get out of my car, walk to the edge and just start screaming.

I scream profanities. I wail at God, only to have it reconfirmed that if God is up there, God ain't paying attention to me. I have screaming matches with the people who are hurting me, even though they aren't there in the flesh to get told off. Sometimes, I just break down and cry.

It's been a little less than a year since the last time I came up here. I decided I need to get some sunshine and do a little thinking. I started driving and ended up here. It was a beautiful day for dusty roads and blasting Stryper on the car stereo.  

When I stopped, I briefly considered getting out and screaming, cuz there's always something to shout out of my soul. I resisted since I figured me screaming "FUCK" and "BIG ASS TITTIES" and shit like that at the top of my lungs might scare the college kids who parked behind me and were probably waiting for me to leave so they could make out. Instead, I just sat there thinking and I realized that things are completely different for me than they were a year ago.

The last time I visited my Screaming Ravine, I was in sad fucking shape. My heart was in the process of breaking because the woman I was in love with was choosing to date a psycho suicide risk on the other side of the world that she'd never met in the flesh. I was so lonely and hopeless and despondent at the fact that I knew I needed to sever my connection to this woman. I couldn't imagine my life without her in it. And if I had been run over by a big-ass SUV at that moment, I wouldn't have complained. I wanted the suffering to end.

So I drove to my screaming ravine and poured my heart out. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why did this keep happening? Will women ever stop treating me like I don't matter or like I don't exist? Will anyone ever feel as intensely about me as I feel about her? 

Will I ever get to feel happy? Will I ever get to feel whole? Will life ever stop feeling like I'm the butt of a cosmic joke? If not, will I ever get the fucking punchline?

I did consider throwing myself off a cliff, but the healer I was (and still am) working with was able to talk me down. 

But I was still suffering. If you look at the photo above, which I took a few days before the bottom fell out, I think you can see it. I think you can tell something is going on underneath the surface. I was pretty miserable, even before the lady trash-binned me for the British bitch-boy. Nothing was what I wanted. That stone-faced glare I'm pulling in the above photo? That's the closest I could get to a smile, because any expression of happiness felt so alien and dishonest, it caused me pain. Happiness for me, at that moment in time, hurt.

But you know what? I'm not in that dark space anymore.

I'll admit that the broad strokes of life haven't changed for me all that much. I'm still trying to make a living as a writer and I'm still not succeeding. I'm still struggling financially. I'm still lonely and constantly question whether to keep trying to reach out or whether it's time to totally unplug and stop trying to communicate with my friends.

However, life is not all lived in broad strokes and little details mean a lot in the overall scheme of things.

First, I'm trying to dig my way out of the crater I was in a year ago. As mentioned, I've been working with a healer to unload the negative, poisonous feelings that have been killing me for way too long. Working with her has led me to the realization that I don't need to be trying to learn how to always be the best version of myself. Instead, the key is learning to love myself as I am, for who I am and not some theoretical version of myself that I have the potential to become. 

Progress has been slow, but I am feeling, if not more love, then more acceptance toward myself. There are still days when I get lonely and wonder if I have any friends who actually like me or if everyone I know is just full of shit. There are still days when I hate myself. But slowly, those days are getting fewer and farther between.

I'm also feeling more of a desire to get out and be around people. People suck ass, but the right people help build you into what you were meant to be. They inspire you and enlighten you and show you avenues that are open to you that you may not see yourself. And I have things to offer my nearest and dearest, too. It's like we're a symbiont circle. I need them and they need me. It's time for my recluse phase to end.

Another sign that things are different: I'm allowing myself to enjoy things and I'm trying to do more of what I love, instead of subjecting myself to shit like YouTube politics videos and constantly worrying about things that are out of my hands. I can only control what I can control, and I should use my control over what I can control to do things that make me happy. Obvious statement is fucking obvious.

(Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the lady who was killing my soul last year has been excised pretty much completely from my life.)

I still have so much to do to turn myself around. So far to go. But sitting on the side of the road, looking over my Screaming Ravine, the warmth of the April sunshine caressing my face (not in a sexual way, but kind of in a sexual way), I realized that when you add up all the small steps I've taken over the past year or so, I'm actually in a completely different place emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. 

I thought about all that shit and I let a slight smile slip across my face. I even got a selfie of said smile. (see below) It may not be a big cheesy grin, but it IS genuinely reflective of my current emotional state. In other words, I smiled and I fucking meant that shit.