thankyoueverso: the outdoors and me....

okay so after my 'woe is me, boohoo' post yesterday.....

(which i do apologize for....and as an update derek bought me a rumbi salad and we watched the big bang theory, and that made it all better....

oh and kavakava)

anyway....i was right about today being better. i woke up, got myself to work for a meeting with my boss and put in some time there.

and then i dropped by my mom's house (she always makes me happy :D)

and then last but certainly not least....i went to a little park up the street from my house....

OMG.

this park is beautiful. it's breathtaking. it's not a conventional park at all, because it's set on the hills...there's grass, but then there are tables and swings just randomly set here and there in the middle of the mountains...

so it's as wild of a domestic park as you're going to get....

and it was BEAUTIFUL.

to say i was freaking out inside is not doing it justice....

i went and walked around, sat on the swing and took some pictures for a good half hour to forty-five minutes. no music. nobody else around.

just me and nature.
and i know that sounds uber corny, but you don't understand....

as a kid, i thought i was going to "grow up to be an Indian." yep, i was certain of it. i was going to live off of the land and live in a wikiup .

a wikiup, very much like the ones i built. only i wasn't as cool as this person.

(i got to be exceptionally pro at building these things. not kidding. i studied how they were built and imitated it with some neighborhood friends. not a drop of rain got through my wikiup's roof. seriously.)

anyway...so i used to spend every second of every day outside. i loved it so much that i wanted to live in the wild. bugs were my friends. you get the idea.

well, i grew up and still loved it. i loved it all the way until i was....twenty. when the depression set it, phobias set in too. lots of them. i became scared of pretty much everysinglebugalive. that's a lot of things to be afraid of. so needless to say, my time outdoors went from a ton...to close to none. i'd book from my car into buildings because i was so freaked out by the possible bug encounters i might possibly have.

i know this is rambling....but i promise it all has a point....

so this summer, i really made headway on my bug phobias. my number one fear, dragonflies, don't bug me 90% as much as they used to. but i still didn't spend much time outdoors, aside from taking walks around my neighborhood. no hikes or walks in the hills like i used to do so much.

but when i went to this park today, something inside of me went nuts. it was so beautiful. and there were bugs, plenty of them. big buzzing grasshoppers and a mean-looking wolf spider practically walked over my foot to cross the path i was on.

but i didn't care.

i was entranced by the feel of the outdoors. by the sounds of all of the life surrounding me. the brush was teeming with insects and i was amazed by it rather than repulsed. i wanted to take my shoes off and run around barefoot like i used to....but i didn't because my feet were leather back then, not so much now...

i was so happy to be outside. the smell of the air, the feel of the wind. i didn't care that my hair was going to smell like outdoors, or that bugs were everywhere or that i was beginning to sweat from the intensity of the sun....i was soaking it all up...and it came full-circle....i was like that little kid again who wanted to "grow up" to "be an indian". it was epic.

i got back in my car after awhile quite reluctant, and a little sad that this final turn-around had to happen right as summer is ending....but also quite stoked that it happened at all. i'm already planning all of the camping trips i was too spooked to take this summer, and the hikes. i'm totally going boating next summer too. i'm going to do it all and then some. and i'm really, really excited...

i also decided that although winter is coming, i'm going to try and spend time outside when i can anyway....after all, there's sledding :D

so after my bad day, i had a great day. the kind of day that reminds me i don't need medication. i just need to go outside and breathe in LIFE and remind myself that the world is more than everything man made, SO much more....

and sidenote: i'm studying animals and native american history. on my own. because i can.

here are some pictures from my adventure :D