2024-09-17 (Tuesday) — Paralyzed

I’ve been… paralyzed …for the last… four days now I guess it’s been.

Here I am in Utah with family and friends I could visit, but I’ve been paralyzed in the same parking space since Friday night.

I have no explanation or reason for it.

I keep waiting for police to show up one night while I’m asleep, knock on the window, and tell me to leave, but no one’s come yet.

I can’t get myself to do anything.

I finally got out of my van and did more than just walk 50 ft away from it: I started hiking up one of my favorite little canyons.

Blessing and a curse of having a toilet in the van now. 😅

As I’ve been here for the last 4 days, I’ve noticed an interesting little phenomenon: Lots of people have come to this little parking lot and headed up the trail. It’s apparently is/has become a much more popular place than I thought it was. Probably because they put a parking lot here. What’s odd, though, is that the people that are going up to the trail are not people who I think are actually hiking up the canyon. There must be some spot that’s become a favorite picnic spot and a favorite spot to take pictures.

Why do I think that?

Well, because families are walking up there with little toddlers, and one of the first things you come to on the trail if you’re actually going to walk up the canyon is a really sketchy spot that is not safe for little kids.

Not to mention to even get to that spot, you have to go through a bunch of scrub oak without much space on either side, so the women going up there with dresses… Not likely they’re going to make it very far.

Anyway…

I finally, for the first time in the 4 days that I’ve been here, actually started walking up the trail. I went as far as the little dam I made back in… 2022, I think it was. Of course, every year, with avalanches and whatnot, anything that I make will get totally destroyed, so there’s no more dam nor was there the last time I was here.

I’m only writing an entry right now because I’ve lost reception. I’ve had reception without any issues for 4 days straight. Reception good enough to stream with my phone without even using my Starlink. Even streaming while I’m hiking up the little canyon. I sat there with it streaming for quite a while, and then it suddenly stopped.

No surprise, because I was a good ways up the Little Canyon, and I always lose reception there, I think.

I stayed there for a little while longer, and then I headed back.

But my reception never came back.

😒

So weird.

4 days without a blip, and then as soon as i lose connection for the first time, I can’t get it back–at all?

Not even enough for a cell phone call.

Whatever.

I guess it’s a good thing because it means I’m not staring at my phone consuming whatever it is that I’m consuming at that moment. I’m being productive in some way by writing this post.

Been fighting off a migraine since yesterday.

Poor nutrition and hydration, I imagine.

I’m tired.

Gotten a little more depressed each day since I got here. Didn’t even really realize it until… Sunday?

Now I can see I’m in full-blown paralysis mode.

I think it was easier when there were responsibilities I thought I had.

I’m wasting my whole time in Utah alone and paralyzed.

To family and friends reading… I’m sorry. I’m… not functional right now.

I thought I was doing better.

I guess not.

It’s a spiral. When I don’t do the things that I feel like I should be doing, then, somewhat unconsciously to start with, I start to get down. And then the longer that I keep doing what I’m doing and not doing the things that I feel like I should be doing, the more I spiral until I’m paralyzed.

Not sure exactly how I managed to crawl out and go up the canyon. I think maybe I just felt stupid for being in one of my… places for 4 days without having even left a parking lot.

My back has been better. Ever since I swapped mattresses right before leaving on the trip. I realized the one I’ve been sleeping on is way softer than the one I’m sleeping on now. Apparently soft isn’t good? I sleep on my Back, even though I hate it, because of my spine issues, so I figured soft wouldn’t matter , but as soon as I switched to this other mattress, I’ve been noticeably better. Still plenty of nerve and pain issues, but not anywhere near what it had been for the last few months or so.

Maybe it also has to do with doing As much physical labor things?

I don’t think so, though, because I wasn’t doing that much heavy physical labor in the last several days before I left and was still having plenty of problems.

I think.

It’s later in the night now, and I have reception again. Earlier I kept looking at the reception icon, but nothing… how could I have signal to stream for 4 days pretty much straight without even a hiccup, and one short walk up the canyon, and i lose it all? Rover is in the same place. Nothing has changed.

I think it took maybe 2 hours for signal to come back? It’s been fine since. But it’s like by losing the signal, somehow it made it super challenging for my phone to find it again? Once it found it, I’m back to streaming without any issues whatsoever. YouTube, prime… Whatever.

Sometimes technology makes me scratch my head.

I managed to do some working today for the first time in a long long time. I probably put in 3 or 4 hours working on JustAnswer.

That helps my mental state. The more I keep not doing those kinds of things, the more disappointed I get in myself, the more stressed I get, and the more I spiral.

My goal was to answer something like 15 questions a day, 5 days a week.

I think I’ve answered 20 today. So I’ve reached the goal for at least today.

I want to just be able to go out and do the good that I’ve always wanted to do. Part of me is ashamed of myself for allowing the pains and struggles of my own life to get in the way of the good that I could be doing for other people.

So much I could have done that I haven’t done because I’ve just gotten in my own way, unable to bear my own burdens.

I’m tired of me and scared to go out and make a difference that I want to make and the way that I want to make it because… I don’t want to be a public figure. I don’t want that attention. I don’t want that pressure. I can’t even hold myself together in my own life as it is.

But I want to make as big a difference as I can.

So many thoughts swirl around in this little head of mine.

Lift the world.

~ stephen