(written on the 13th)
Not really a whole lot to say about today, as I didn’t really do anything today.
The wind got a little bit boisterous last night, but not super crazy. I think I experienced much worse at the Cliffs of Fortrose way down on the southern coast of the South Island. 🙃
I think I woke up relatively early again, the continuing side effect of it getting dark early and light early.
After I’d been up for a little while but still hanging out inside my van with the storm doing its thing outside, a wonderful woman pulled up, put on her rain jacket, and began walking toward my van (mine a lonely vehicle in a gravel parking lot beside a river with a cyclone barreling toward us 🙃).
She walked over to the driver side front window, and I, lying in the back, reached over and opened the door. She asked me if I wanted a place to stay and a hot cup of tea. 🤍
So cool. 😊
I politely declined, thanking her and letting her know that I was a bit of a storm lover and was actually waiting for the storm to roll in. 😁
I didn’t tell her that I had chosen that little spot by the river because it was super close to the ocean where I was hoping to catch both sides of the cyclone and the eye. 🙃
I’ve always loved violent weather, and I haven’t been in a hurricane since I had the exciting opportunity of experiencing hurricane Gloria in Connecticut in 1985 as a little child (where we got both sides of the storm and the eye 🙃).
As the morning went on, I was disappointed to find that what I thought was a category 3 cyclone had been downgraded to a category 2. Then it had been changed from being designated as a tropical cyclone to being an ex-tropical cyclone (The latter doesn’t necessarily mean the strength of the storm is any different, just that the type of storm changes. I guess that’s pretty common in New Zealand because the tropical storm hits the colder Waters near New Zealand and starts to change.).
The most disappointing part was that apparently the sustained winds had dropped to 40 mph. 🥺
I was looking forward to my van being thrashed about by the heavy winds. 🙃
Oh well.
As I watched the storm tracker (which was a lot harder to find than I would have expected), I noticed that the cyclone’s path was shifting, and, hoping to catch the eye, if there even was going to be one, I drove back through Tauranga, then past Te Puke, and even up at Otamarakau Beach Reserve (a small sort of afterthought-of-a-park looking place [which I appreciate], with a very small gravel parking lot and a porta potty-sized lung drop.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that it happened to be a freedom-camping spot as well. 🎉
So… my veging shifted locations. 🙃
When I first got there, I wandered around a bit taking pictures, getting blown about by the wind, blasted by the blinding sand and near horizonal rain.
After that, I mostly veged, popping out here and there take pictures of the frothing ocean.
This is such an incredible, beautiful country.
It’s funny… to have the privilege of being here for nearly six months, without needing to work, and yet… despite enjoying perhaps the pinnacle of natural luxury, I continue to be mentally very unwell, because… wherever I go, there I am.
Hope continues to be on the edge of non existence.
Which translates into a reality where no passion I have is strong enough to overcome the helplessness and hopelessness I feel.
I wish at least one passion were. 😞
But I live in a constant state of near emotional overwhelm, to the point that I can no longer handle challenges that come my way.
They’re too much for me.
Nor can I create or build anything if it’s going to take serious effort, determination, and commitment.
I have no strength left.
I’m as a bubble having emerged from the thundering falls floating on the surface of the water, exceedingly fragile, at the mercy of even gentle breezes and small ripples.
And so I remain… wasting (to my compounding self disappointment) the precious hours of my life away in front of my phone screen, because I can’t get myself to be the man I used to be, let alone the man I want to be.
And adding the physical issues I experience, the near constant pain and discomfort, and the continual companionship of the fear of continuing and even worsening health issues in the future, it’s more than I can handle, even in this privileged opportunity I enjoy here in New Zealand, and so I regularly find myself simply wishing to die, even saying it aloud:
“I just want to die.”
I’m so tired.
And I’m ashamed of myself, that the loss of half of what I wanted most, and the associated experiences, has managed to so thoroughly incapacitate me, such that I cannot muster the strength to enjoy the other half of what I wanted most that’s still available to me.
Broken heart. Broken mind.
Sometimes… after a gospel conversation with a friend or sibling, I feel strength and hope and passion again, and each time that happens, I hope that maybe, just maybe this time might be the time I’m able to pull out of this internal hell I live in.
But each time my hopes are dashed as when the reckoning comes, when the choice to face a challenge is set before me, my little bubble bursts into countless scattered droplets.
And I just can’t.
It’s too much.
😞
And I retreat into my phone, my miserable but safe escape.
Maybe… next time. Maybe next time I’ll have the strength to push through, to say no to the escape and stand up and fight.
But every time I stand to fight, I lose, I fail, and that… confirms, again and again, that I no longer have what it takes.
But… maybe next time I will…
😞
…
At least I can still love and care about people, even if I can’t get myself to do anything more for them than just love them in the moments I’m with them and reach out digitally from time to time.
😕
Beautiful beautiful post-cyclone sunset.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 