This entire month of January I’ve taken my mental health and placed it on a pillow. I’ve tried to encase it with rest, soul searching and self reckoning. It took year 3 of my coochie business for me to resign to the fact that my business shuts off for the most part in January. It used to stress me out. Still does to an extent. You go from high anxiety 500 boxes in one month to high anxiety 50 the next. You make a profit in December but sip off of it like a hamster bottle in January.

My goal is to make the best of my downtime and travel whenever possible. This January has been a bear for traveling. It’s cold everywhere except the southern tips of the country. My travel outlet is my truck. I enjoy traveling in it. It’s my steed wherever I go. Flying is an option but I must’ve inherited my father’s past trauma of flying in the war. There is nothing that will put my mind at ease when flying. Especially now that I can’t drown in a bottle of vodka. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I know it’s coming one day.

My body kicked out the love for cold weather this year. That was shitty timing what with it currently 18° outside. I used to camp in sub 30° often now I bumped up my thermostat to 40° plus. Its also colder camping alone. I get antsy if I can’t travel or camp it’s almost became an obligation to me like I’m letting myself down if I don’t go out and be all you can be outdoors. I pushed myself too hard my last trip in August. Gville – Glacier Park – Tetons- Crested Butte – Gville in 9 days of road tripping solo. Crammed two trips into one. I lean heavy on these trips to calm my “nerves” I inherited through my mother and of course to explore and getting out of my comfort zone. It was an epic road trip for how much I traveled but I felt like I worked overtime the whole ride. Just trying to be too much of a cowboy at one time. I’m not tone deaf. To be able to take time off to travel is a great privilege. I just mucked it up.

Weather and timing is doing its part to keep me home for this month. I took a two nighter to Hunting Beach at the beginning of the month. Mostly to rest my wrists from the joint pain of folding salami and turning cheese into origami. Once I saw the writing on the wall that no epic adventures were to be had this month, I adjusted my expectations. I enjoy traveling, camping it’s my numero uno hobby. It can also be exhausting. The payoff is worth it but it doesn’t disguise the fact that it’s toiling. I travel to reset not relax.

Rather than bounce off the walls for the month I put it in reverse. I gave myself some sit on your ass tasks to exercise my mind. Not high stress more like a mental spa day but for the whole month.

Changed my workout routine (maybe forever) to mostly using body weight and yoga. I’m burning probably half the calories I’m accustomed to and can’t tell you if I’ve even got all my rings to close on my watch (something I used to obsess over) more than three times this month. Did some hikes but this time I took my time. No PRs to focus on, I’d rest intervally and take some notes.

I’ve read a lot, wrote a lot. I’ve felt my brain respond like a sponge. I know that rest is the best medicine for the body I just thought it meant for the people that needed it. I never allowed myself to fall into that category. I keep racing that one person in the mirror.

I also chose this month to rid my body of most of its processed sugar. That’s the silent killer. I’d snack on candy, chocolate, pastries whatever I had around me. Right after I ate any meal I had to have sweets to offset it. Sugar mucks and fucks your brain almost as bad as my other vice. It slid in through the back door while I was kicking vodka out the front one. Added sugar BAD (insert image of Phil Hartman Frankenstein skit). I treat myself once a week to ice cream because fuck off, give me something man.

I’ve spent some solid healthy time sitting still. If you pay enough attention you will feel your body letting out a barely audible loooong sigh. Like that big exhale in yoga it feels like you could give your whole soul a solid crack. You almost have to Velcro my ass to the sofa most days. I took some time off to embrace it. Sobriety also helps put that fire of chasing chaos all over the place. I’ll save some talk about chaos another time.

Rest has helped me situate my anxieties. Sometimes my anxieties are like bubble wrap you can’t pop. You twist them and stomp on them as hard as you can and they just won’t fucking pop. You poke it with a needle and it just fills right back up with air. I will visualize my anxieties when I’m laying in bed at night. I picture Tom Cruise in Minorty Report as he physically flips through someone’s memory banks on a big virtual screen. Using motion to slide and shuffle through memories and experiences. I do the same. When one of those snakes invades my head I visualize it like a film segment, I clip it and throw it in the recycle bin and replace it with a sunrise, sunset or some other vivid memory I’ve created to stomp on the snakes. I’ve practiced this over the last few years and the symbolism works for me. I use the recycle bin in a literal sense. I know they’ll be back.

Also when I move slower it allows me to focus on the other things I reckon with. Road rage, creativity blocks and just my general attitude towards society when I get these snakes. I know I come across as bitter some days. I try to break one small habit a week that needs stomping out. Little bads make big bads over time.

I spent a solid part of my day yesterday with headphones on vibing, eyes closed, head back with some music that I’ve loved over the years all the way up to bed time. And then some more. Tears rolling from my eyes in gratitude.

I

Could

Literally

Feel

Myself

Healing

In between music sessions I was talking with my wife and all I said was “I can’t believe I waited so long to do this.” To go sober, to heal my brain from the poison I fed it for years. “I feel like I just opened another chamber in my brain. I literally feel myself leveling up”. I wanted to cry when I told her this but I’m not a public cryer. She knows this.

I absolutely don’t have all the answers to combat my snakes but I’m winning more than I’m losing and that’s a giant step for Chad’s mankind.

I wouldn’t mind it a little warmer however.