For me it’s a patchwork of moments stitched together with intention and grit.
Sometimes it’s chasing waterfalls, hiking until my lungs burn and my mind quiets. Other times it’s sitting still with dirt under my fingers. I dig out rocks. I feel the pulse of the earth in my hands. The grounding is real.
I reward myself with little treats. These treats are not just food but include coffee. Sometimes, I get a new stone for my collection. I might even buy something that helps my work move forward. It’s the small acts that remind me I’m worth the care.
Marijuana helps soften the sharp edges when life presses too hard. It’s part of the ritual, a moment to breathe deeper and slow down.
Face masks sneak in when I want to slow the world for a bit. They give my skin and spirit a break, sometimes I even get a manicure or pedicure. Thanks Stink!
Kayaking isn’t just exercise. It’s a ways I reclaim my body. I feel strong and say, “I am here, I am whole.” Losing weight is part of that journey because I want it to be.
My kitty boys? Those cuddles are medicine. So is time with my dog, the quiet companionship and sunlit walks keep me tethered.
Reading fills my mind with stories. These feed my soul. Spells, rituals, crystals, and oils wrap around me like armor. They also serve as a healing balm.
This isn’t neat or perfect. It’s my survival, my love letter to myself messy, real, and sacred.
I’ve outgrown my adult best friend. The boy I became a man with. The boy who made it feel like I wasn’t alone in a place where nobody felt like me. For years he was the only mirror I had. The only person who got it. Honestly, I’ve been outgrowing him slowly, painfully, one splinter at a time. I didn’t know how to let go. Not until the rope cut so deep I practically sliced my fingers off just trying to hold on. Now there’s no grip left. Just skin and scar. space and peace. I don’t hate him. Which is usually how I let go when my love turns to hate. I just no longer wish to participate in his delusions or fantasies.
Addiction
I’ve also outgrown habitual drug use. Or really, drugs in general. At least the illicit kind. I still like my plants: weed, nicotine, caffeine. Those feel more natural to me. Oh, and mushrooms. Can’t forget the little mushroom dudes. Sometimes they’ve taught me more than any therapist ever did. But the rest of it? That chasing? That hole-filling impulse? That’s gone.
Toxicity
I’ve outgrown toxic patterns. The ones I clung to because they felt like home, mostly outgrown. I mean chaos was the language I was taught love in. I grew up watching relationships rot from the inside out and thought that must be what connection looks like. So I repeated it. Over and over. Until I didn’t. I still have my self-sabotaging hiccups but no one is perfect.
Clothes
I’ve outgrown my clothes. Literally. I dropped over 60 pounds this year. I had told myself I’d do it as my resolution. For once, I didn’t break that promise. My body feels different now. My skin holds me differently. My knees don’t hurt on hikes as quick for sure.
Allowing Myself to Wallow
And maybe the biggest thing? I’ve outgrown the lie that my depression controls everything. Some days, yeah, it wins. But other days, a lot of days, it’s a choice. Not to be sick, but to sit in it. To fester in the filth instead of fighting. I’ve started calling myself out on it. Started crawling out of bed even when I don’t want to. Started facing the rot before it spreads. Because healing is choosing again and again not to let the dark devour you whole. If there’s no light in my line of sight I have learned to become the light.
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I clocked out at 6 a.m. sharp. Another twelve-hour overnight at the nursing home. That kind of quiet that isn’t restful, just constant. Oxygen machines humming low, the soft shuffle of slippers down the hall, someone crying quietly two doors down. You carry it home in your bones.
But this morning was different.
I had Saturday night off. That’s rare for me but, I’d gotten my shift covered to go to the No Kings protest. Before that, though, I needed to move. Shake off the weight.
So I drove 35 minutes home, changed, got Luna ready, and hit the road again. For an hour and eleven minute drive to Hocking Hills. I played Stevie Nicks and music from that era the whole way. I tapped my fingers to the beat on the steering wheel. I left the windows down and let the wind and exhaustion fill the silence.
The Trail
We hit the Rock House Trail around 8 a.m. The trail is only 0.8 miles one way, but the drop is steep. Narrow paths. Stone stairs. Roots like ropes knotted across the dirt. Luna walked ahead, tail high, tuned in. I let her lead. I wasn’t in a hurry to return to anything.
Then the cave appeared.
Rock House.
A cavern carved into sandstone long, tall, ancient. 200 feet across, 25 feet high, with arched window-like openings that let light in sideways, soft and slow. Inside, everything goes still. You don’t just walk into the cave, you arrive. You become part of its silence.
PIGEONS!
Except for the pigeons.
A few families live there now. You can hear them cooing, echoing from inside the cave and outside the walls, like voices trapped in stone. It was surreal. Luna didn’t bark. She didn’t pull. She just stood and listened. So did I. You have to.
There are ovens carved into the walls, like something out of another life. Maybe people baked bread there. Maybe they hid. Maybe they prayed. This place has always belonged to those who needed it. For a few minutes, that included me.
We took the rim trail up and out. It was steeper, louder, full of light—but I welcomed it. Something in me was lighter too.
One last stop before home: donuts.
There’s a new place beside the Hocking Hills Diner everyone’s been hyping for their maple bacon donuts. Of course, they were already sold out.
The lady who owns the donut place told me to call ahead next time. She’d put some back just for me because I live an hour and eleven minutes away.
So I got a s’mores donut and a Buckeyes donut instead. I sat in the car with my boots still muddy. Luna curled beside me. I ate them like they were the thing I came for all along.
And maybe they were.
What actually happened next:
I missed the No Kings protest. My Lexapro and Wellbutrin look the same, and I ended up taking two Wellbutrin and no Lexapro by mistake. I stayed in bed all Saturday and Sunday. I called off work and slept until Monday. Then I went back to my shift.
Sometimes plans shift without warning. Sometimes the body demands its own kind of protest.
I posted like I had intended. I showed up. But if you ask me, what was notable? Honestly, nothing leaps out.
Some days feel like that,
when you do all the things, but nothing stands out as extraordinary. No big wins. No moments that make you want to shout. Just the steady grind. The invisible effort that keeps you moving towards a goal.
It’s easy to overlook these days. To think they don’t matter. But showing up counts. Putting one foot in front of the other is its own victory. I know sometimes these days lead to you trying to convince yourself it isn’t worth it. It is still worth it, just so we both don’t forget.
Highlight Reels and Real Life
Notice the spelling of reel vs real?
Not every day needs to be a highlight reel. Sometimes, the quiet persistence of survival, of continuing despite the weight of it all, is enough. Real life isn’t what you see all over the internet as a whole, typically. Let’s change that together.
Real Work
That’s the real work not the reel work. The unseen courage. The days you can’t get out because indies start smaller, if not solo, typically. You are running a DAMN machine! YOU GO! The strength is in just being you when the world expects fake polished shit.
So today isn’t notable on paper, but it’s mine and yours. That matters.
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When the world gets too loud, like, shouting-through-a-megaphone-while-juggling-taxes-and-identity-crises loud, I log off. Literally.
I go to video game land.
Fortnite
It’s not real, and that’s exactly the point. It’s where Fortnite lives. Zero Build, thank you very much, because I’m not here to be Bob the Builder under gunfire. I’m here to run, hide in bushes, throw things, and occasionally third-party with wild success. Nobody questions it. Nobody wants anything from me but vibes.
Nostalgic
When I’m not dodging snipers and emoting after a win, I’m deep in the nostalgia zone. Crash Bandicoot spins like my anxiety but with better music. Spyro the Dragon? Pure escapism. He flies. He breathes fire. He doesn’t get bills in the mail.
Then there’s Streets of Rage, where I get to beat people up and no one calls HR. Sonic shows up too, sprinting through levels and collecting rings like my ADHD on a mission. Even South Park somehow makes the cut, crude, loud, messy, and strangely cathartic. Like therapy, if therapy was animated and extremely inappropriate.
Escapism? Disassociation?
In these places, the rules make sense: survive, level up, don’t get hit. Nobody’s trying to small talk you into a breakdown. Nobody misgenders you. And definitely nobody is asking for your five-year plan.
I leave my name at the login screen and go by something slightly ridiculous and highly specific. I’m not escaping. I’m just buffering. Rebooting the system.
And when I come back? I’m still me, just a little less crispy. A little more ready to face whatever fresh nonsense the world has in store.
So yeah. That’s where I go when the world is too loud.
How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?
I know it’s time to unplug when my thoughts stop echoing in my own voice. When the rhythm of my mind gets replaced by headlines, hashtags, outrage, and urgency. When I read one more story about someone like me, someone trans, or someone of a different race. It could be someone disabled or simply living, being silenced, erased, or attacked. Then I can’t even feel the full grief of it because the next notification is already coming in.
The build-up
It builds up, quietly and violently. The scrolling doesn’t feel like a choice anymore. It’s like I’m monitoring a storm I never signed up for, making sure no one I love gets struck. I absorb it all: the policies, the slurs, the opinions that mistake my existence for debate. And still, I don’t unplug. Not because I don’t want to, but because part of me feels like I can’t.
The Need to Unplug
If I unplug, who holds the line? Who keeps watch? Who amplifies the ones being shouted over, or reminds the world we’re still here? Staying connected feels like an act of resistance, even as it drains me. It feels like a duty, even as it blurs my sense of self. I don’t know how to look away, not when looking feels like a kind of protection, a kind of presence.
The signs are all there, though. I stop creating. I get snappish. I wake up already tired. I consume more than I respond to. My body tenses, my chest hurts, my hands hover over screens instead of reaching toward anything real. Still, I refresh the feed. I think if I just know more, I’ll be ready. I’ll be safe. But there’s no endpoint to awareness. There’s only exhaustion.
So when I do try to unplug, it’s rarely graceful. I have to force it: turn off the phone, leave the house, touch something not made of pixels or panic. Write a poem with no goal. Light a match and breathe. Let silence ring louder than the news for once. Let my thoughts come back in my own voice.
The Hard Part
That’s the hardest part, reminding myself that being informed and being overwhelmed are not the same thing. That I can care deeply without letting it hollow me out. That unplugging isn’t abandoning the fight. Sometimes, it’s how I return to it stronger.
Watching out for ALL Minorities
And it’s not just people like me I’m watching out for. My feed is full of grief and fury for so many others. Black communities are still brutalized and blamed. Indigenous voices remain silenced. Disabled people are pushed to the margins of every movement. Immigrants are treated like threats. Women and femmes are denied autonomy. Jewish and Muslim communities are caught in cycles of violence and erasure. The list doesn’t end, and neither does the ache of seeing it all unfold in real time.
Even when the news isn’t about me, it’s about us. All of us who live at intersections deemed inconvenient by the powerful. All of us who get flattened into statistics, headlines, or hashtags. I carry that with me. I don’t just stay online to protect my people. I stay to bear witness, to amplify, to hold space for others who are just as tired, just as sacred.
Respect
So when I say unplugging feels like absence, it’s not only personal. It’s collective. It feels like turning away from people I care about, even if we’ve never met. But I’m learning that I can’t hold all of it all the time. I can step back without stepping away. I can rest without forgetting. We all deserve that kind of permission, to pause, to breathe, and to come back when we’re ready.
“Past This” An original poem by: Axton N.O. Mitchell
Been working on myself and center Like gravity it is a tragedy, pulling you towards me… Away again and back alas.
Please just let this pass!
I won’t unlock the door, won’t pick you up off the floor… Settle the score Return to the masses, I must get past this. Continuing this route only ends my life,
