Peyton is in 8th grade. Blonde, formidable beauty in her future, remarkably rebellious, sharp as a nail, and tragically wrapped up inside her own mind. We sit side by side on the dirt path as her classmates wait in hushed chatter farther up the trail. Peyton's eyes are red, and she presses her knees to them in attempt to stop the rush of tears. She says that she is having a panic attack, and that she just got diagnosed with anxiety a week ago, and that she has the wrong medication for it. How do you usually work through these emotions? I ask her. She shakes her head in defeat. I don't know, I was just diagnosed with this shit last week. She says. I ask her if she has ever felt sad before, or scared, or alone, before her diagnosis. She nods. I ask her what she does when she feels like this. She says how she cuddles with her dogs, listens to music, or plays with a fidget spinner. I feel so alone. She says. We find her a rock, and I tell her to hold onto it and feel its otherness. Look at the trees, look at everything that is existing around us. You are anything but alone. She smoothes the rock in her hand, and we eventually rejoin the group. I don't know if she found community in her surroundings, the rock, or if she just moved through it herself.
Peyton absorbed and became the trait of anxiety when she was told that she had it. She tells herself that instead of feeling anxious, she is anxious. Instead of feeling lonely, she is lonely. She becomes that trait, and she feels trapped and alone by it. Every single being goes through a myriad of emotions daily, and many more over a lifetime. If we personalized and became each of these things, we would have no idea who we really are when we strip away the fluctuating emotions.
I hike a few miles in Yellowstone by myself to meet up with my group. I jump at the opportunity to hike alone today, even though the thought of encountering a grizzly by myself sends chills up my spine. I soon relax on the hike, mostly when I hear a cacophony of birds. Birds in the west aren't the same as the east coast. Oddly enough, in the east, birds are constantly filling up the air with their songs, but in the west they don't fill the space as much. Perhaps because the west seems like it expands limitlessly. These birds that I hear on the hike fill me with a familiar sense of comfort. Birds singing have always made me feel fuller, less alone but not overcrowded or intruded upon. I listen to the birds as I move through the forest and past fumaroles, and I don't feel as nervous. I think about if I was taken down by a predator in the forest, at least there would be some witnesses to my demise. Witnesses wouldn't change my fate though, only I can do that when I embark on solitary endeavors.
I look up to a ridge where there is a break in the tall conifers. I see a herd of elk bolt through the clearing, chirping and bugling as they pierce through the thick clouds that fill every gap in the forest. I stare at their strong bodies propelling them through this landscape, and I can't take my eyes off of them. I revel in the feeling of non-significance in this place. The feeling of being a spectator of all this magic that unfolds around me. When we as humans are trapped in our minds, we no longer are present in this world. This world consists of so much more than ourselves. To realize that is to break out of our minds and allow ourselves to just be in this place. It also allows us to realize that we are no longer existing as just us in our minds, we are surrounded by so much in existence that our loneliness is assuaged.
Whenever I feel alone, scared, or stuck in my head, I look around me and find comfort that there is always something bearing witness (having eyes or not) to my existence and current vexing.