Bend, OR
Elevation: 3,623 ft.
10:35

Bend is the first place I have lived to make me miss summer.

Against all odds 2022 managed to drag what was left of itself over the finish line. A year of so much loss and sorrow and hard work. For me, for my family, for the world. I entered 2023 buried under layers of my favorite blankets - a “BZZT-BZZT” from my Garmin sent off into the cool darkness of my cave on wheels.

Absolutely toasted off my new dab pen, I laid there floating through a messy slideshow of the past year. Through memories of my friends, my family, my ex, my new life in Bend. They oozed out of my head and around my body, just out of reach - a nebula of cold, black syrup.

In waking life I have been feeling lost like I am floating through my days and nights.

Leading up to the new year I had been feeling a renewed sense of living for myself. I was soaking up spaces and faces and making significant changes in my life. I think I am still doing those things but it feels like I am living in slow motion, that I can’t actually touch anything or anyone. Like I am pushing along the bottom of a cold, dark, endless pool. Half breathing half drowning with no direction.

I ended the year, bat in hand, beating the life out of every bleeding second left high as a kite on the intense feelings of finally getting to know myself and living for that self. Yet now I feel more lost than I ever have.

But.

And there is a ‘but’, and I get to use it this time.

2022 taught me that two of the most important things you need to pull yourself out of these spirals are optimism and appreciation. Optimism not necessarily that things have to get better, or even will get better. More like optimism for optimism sake because the alternative is sadness. And sadness leads to overthinking. And overthinking leads to hopelessness. And hopelessness leads to isolating yourself, getting wasted, crying your eyes out to EDM at 3am while looking at pictures of your ex, and driving off the edge of that first high spot on 20 east - you know the one.

All said and done though, for me, I actually do think things will get better. I believe it.

Appreciation comes much easier for me. Appreciation for the clothes that protect me, the gas that moves me, and the food that nourishes me. Appreciation for the warmth of my blankets, the faint smell of juniper on warm winter days, and the tightness of a hug just for coming into work.

It has been:

1 year, 4 months, and 30 days since the surfing accident that almost killed me.
10 months and 10 days since Helena and I split.
7 months and 22 days since I started my Bend journey and cousin Pat ended his life.
1 month and 14 days since I moved into my truck.

Passage of time always puts things into perspective for me. Numbers and units made up to quantify the fluid cosmos, but it still helps.

I do hope that these posts become lighter with the new year. More often than not they become updates that quickly devolve into long, public therapy sessions with pictures - you know I know.

There is a lot to look forward to this year, even I will admit that. I am entering into it with Bend as my home base, full-time living in my rig, and with a pretty good idea of the wild places I want to see. I am entering it with more of a community and with a more developed, albeit shaky, sense of who I am and who I want to become.

I want to explore the rest of central and eastern Oregon. See the Wallowa Mountains and the Alvord Desert for myself. I want to see the rest of Washington’s north coast, its islands, and I want to bikepack Vancouver Island and get tacos at Tacofino.

I want to see the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, to feel the sun against my back in Joshua Tree as I rip it’s gravel roads, to muster up the courage to visit San Diego, and to find love.

Lastly, I want to improve my relationships with the people that already love me. Hard to write, hard to understand, hardest to do. An addendum to my advisor’s advice:

“I think maybe you should try spending time with the people, who want to spend time with you [and stop taking them for granted]”.

Yea, I think that’s all I got this time.

A hui hou,

Chris

Written to: “Mirage” - Rebelution