I spend a lot of time in a car. More than an hour a day. I know that probably doesn’t seem like a lot for many people, but it is for me. I hate driving. I hate being in cars. I find it incredibly tedious and stressful at the same time. As soon as I get in a car my body wants to fall asleep. I don’t know why. Probably a combination of the physical inactivity and lack of mental excitement. It requires just enough attention to not die, but doesn’t actually use your brain in any challenging way. I look forward to the day when cars will be obsolete.

As I drive around these flat, endless suburban roads, I think about how this entire area used to be covered in glaciers that slowly ground away any features of the land. In fact the meltwater from the last glaciers is what created the Great Lakes, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. The Great Lakes contain more freshwater than any other single lake system on Earth, holding roughly 21% of the world’s surface freshwater supply.

About 10 or 15 years ago mom and I went on a weekend away to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. This is the southern most point of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes system, and the millenia of wind and rain have created natural sand dunes that cover a wide area. We went for a walk up to the top of ‘Mt Baldy’; one of the largest dunes in the area and part of the Indiana Dunes State Park. The path was marked with a sign that said ‘WARNING: Strenuous path to top’. I have a photo of my mother standing next to the sign. Being from such a flat place we are unaccustomed to even the gentlest hills and mountains.

Mt. Baldy is what is known as a living dune.  Every year it shifts a bit further inland, burying trees, car parks, toilet blocks, or whatever else lies in its path.  

Mt Baldy is not a real mountain – it is only 38 meters high. The path is not what I would call strenuous after living in New Zealand the last 16 years and having climbed actual strenuously steep paths. But it is the closest thing us midwesterners have to a mountain, so much so that when I studied a certificate in Te Reo M`aori and they taught us to do a pepeha, I would say ‘Ko Mt. Baldy te maunga’. I spent many summers camping on the shores of Lake Michigan, besides Mt Baldy, battling mosquitos and lighting campfires with my friends. The beach is famous also for its riptides which can drag people out from shore. Once, sitting on the beach, a woman began screaming as the lifeguards pulled a lifeless little girl out of the water not far from us. That was the 2^nd time I saw someone drown. The great lake is more like an ocean, demanding respect.

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is not far from Gary Indiana. Famous for being the home of Michael (and the rest of the) Jackson (family); it was a centre for steel production until that industry collapsed. Also famous from the song “Gary Indiana” from The Music Man, it is now a very economically depressed area. Still the beach is very lovely.

Swimming in lake Michigan is always cold – except towards the very end of summer it becomes tolerable.

I slept until 1 pm today, which I must have needed. When I finally got my shit together it was a beautiful warm sunny day.

2:40am – I can’t sleep. I suppose I have only been up for 13 hours but still, it’s nearly 3am, I should have been honkshemememeing for hours by now. I feel so tightly wound, so full of anxiety I tried to distract myself by finally watching an episode of Heated Rivalry. Well, wow, I do have to say it was very…compelling. I was tempted to watch more but I decided to save it for later. However as soon as the episode ended I started spiralling again. My way of coping has been to spend the last 2 hours researching newsletter platforms and if I could possibly self-host a Ghost application on my Framework Fedora Linux computer that is my laptop (more on that later). Short answer is yes – long answer is – I probably shouldn’t. 

Whenever I feel anxious about something, too anxious to sleep, I go down rabbit holes of research. Maybe it’s my high interoceptive sensitivity – I will spend ages reading scientific papers (well, just the abstracts) about new psychological discoveries, setting up a portfolio website, learning about other things. This helps shift my focus from the problem at hand.

The problem at hand is that I am absolutely shitting myself.

How am I going to do this?

I am so scared my whole plan is going to fail. And I will end up back in Wellington in an even worse position than I am currently.

Or that it will succeed, and in 6 months I will have to figure out what to do next.

I have spent the last 3 months using every free moment of my day to be fruitful – either producing capital, either financial or social (both of which I enjoy! But it has been a grind) – or being very intentional about resting so I can continue to produce capital. Now I am suddenly on a completely different timeline.

I have to slowdown, reset, reimagine.

I am so anxious about the coming weeks and it is really hitting me. I know I just have to take everything one day at a time, and that is really the only approach I have where I don’t totally lose my shit.

I am trying hard to not slip into bad habits of coping mechanisms, turning to drugs/drink/sex. I am a grown up and I know better! They make the worry go away for a bit but not the actual problem.

For the last few weeks I thought I might be pregnant.  My impending departure had made my beloved and I more amorous than usual.  Not that I really expected to be or was trying to get pregnant or even want to be pregnant but I realised one thing had lead to another and things kind of lined up and there might be a chance. Something that I just kept on the periphery of my mind. Something that would have had some strange poetic justice or irony or I don’t even know what it would be. I thought it would make for just the kind of ridiculous thing that would happen to me; go away from my partner for 6 months, only to find out I was pregnant.

I got my period today and there was some sadness I wasn’t expecting. I keep thinking I have gotten over things and that I am ok and I can be happy and then there is just another wave of pain and grief and loss I don’t have capacity to process.