This week I choose to share a collection of stories that I have written over the months and years. They are real and raw, and while this isn’t like the normal chats that I post, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

The Human Condition In The Key of a Dreamer: A collection of stories (I)

I can still remember the first time I looked into a mirror and didn’t like what I saw staring back at me. Who was this person? They had long blonde hair and blue eyes, eyes that were rimmed with red and gushed salt water. They traced tracks down my cheeks in the second floor bathroom of my middle school. I cried. I cried for myself to love me and to figure out who the fuck I am. 

I am a person who lives with manic depression, a phobia of throwing up, a severe anxiety disorder, PTSD, who binges, who makes jokes about trauma while they still can’t forget the screams, who can’t focus without four layers of background noise. This is me. I can find a million ways to say “I love you” to my girl, but ask me to say it to myself, and you have found me a challenge.

So I dyed my hair, and then cut it, and then shaved it. I wore combat boots instead of neon sneakers. My eyes became rimmed with black mascara tears as I leaned over the sink and told myself to get my shit together. I wore leather coats and read novels and poetry, hoping to one day become an author.

So much of my young life seemed to be trying to fit into a shoe the shape of those who have come before me, and will continue to come after me. 

I have always been in love with stories, especially when the main character is hurting beyond belief. You see, the hero’s journey begins with a call to action, continues to challenges, a transformation, and a return to the center: a full circle.

The Campfire Scene

The sun was slowly setting over a small clearing in the woods. From the clearing a fire blazed as the echo of laughter filled the starry night. On small logs sat five people, one was a girl. She was no more than 7 years old and her shoulder length blonde hair flew into her face while her bangs lay glued down, she had bright blue eyes and wore grass stained jeans with a t-shirt that had been washed many times but not one of those washes ever quite got all the mud stains out. Next to her sat her brothers, one wore a bandana around his dirty black hair, while the other sat close to the fire and held a long stick.
“Hey do you want to go fill up the buckets with water?” The dad asked as the three kids jumped up, their small bodies ran to the three buckets as they were, one metal bowl, one stove pan, and one broken plastic tub that once held chalk. The siblings raced to the flowing river down the hill. The two boys got there first, and filled up their pots and pans with cool water. The sister pushed in and struggled to lift up her plastic container now filled with the cool liquid.
“Hey guys wait!” She yelled as the boys rushed back up the hill.
“Come on!” The oldest brother shouted back. She sighed as she messily wiped her short blonde hair from her face and wadled back up to the dying fire.

I feel nauseous whenever I am moving

It’s the summer before my 7th year of school, and I sit between my two older brothers as my dad drives us down a two lane road in the middle of Arizona. All of a sudden, I start yelling, I need a bathroom, It feels like I could puke. We pulled over at a rest stop and I leaned over that toilet for what must have been a half hour until my mom made me get up, telling me that I was okay. It was a few days and about 23 rest stops later when my mom figured out it was motion sickness; I feel nauseous whenever I am moving. And how poetic is that? Every time that my life moves my anxiety consumes me like the holiday season. I like to think of this as the beginning of my anxiety, and my origin story. The good girl with the long blonde hair and blue eyes who realizes she is not bulletproof, that she has to face challenges and temptations and the fight for her life.

Fiction and Fact

I have always been obsessed with stories. The Hunger Games, Divergent, Harry Potter, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Fault in Our Stars, Percy Jackson, The Heroes of Olympus to name a few. An adventure series makes going on a quest and fighting the bad guy sound so magical, like if you could do that you would matter. I’m not sure when I realized that the truth of fighting the bad guy would not be so glamorous, especially when the bad guy is your own mind. While we may not all go on quests and great adventures, we all have our demons. My demons suck. Can anyone else relate? My mental illnesses can consume me for days, weeks, and at times in my past, years. Sometimes it’s hard to be the hero, you don’t want it thrown upon you the way that life is. Sometimes you wish that you could search for an easy way out, an escape route, a way to make the agony of the pain, sadness, or panic that you endure end. But when I think this way I remind myself of those books I read as a child. Did the hero back down when it was all too much? No, but did the hero have to do it alone? No way. Two of the most important things to know about this world are 1) it sucks; and 2) You don’t have to go through it alone. You are never alone. Even on the darkest days, whatever demon you have that won’t leave, there is still someone that can talk you off the ledge of your own mind. You see, sometimes we are our own worst nightmares. Sometimes we are the villains in our stories.

Until we meet again,

Stan (they/them/theirs)