the monsters we make

there was a tiger behind me and i knew it

Hot breath dripped on my neck. I heard the tiger’s ragged, snarling breaths only inches from me. I squeezed my eyes tighter and scrunched my shoulders as if that would help. Bracing for the inevitable, I muffled a scream. Why didn’t anyone stop this from happening? 

I was not supposed to open my eyes. That rule had been clear. My other instinct, to jump up and run, wasn’t allowed either. I was supposed to sit here for the remainder of the meditation session. 

But that was before a tiger was behind me.

I was moments away from decimation. A wet whisker brushed my neck. This was it. This was the end. 

Only a second before sure death, I whirled around. Expecting to be met face-to-face with the monster, what I saw was worse. 

Nothing. 

There was nothing. I only saw the wooden wall at the back of the meditation center. There was no tiger. It was all in my head. 

I was on the fifth day of a ten-day meditation retreat and this wasn’t the first time my mind had betrayed me. 

It happened once or twice a day: me becoming convinced I was going to die. Usually, it was the tiger who was the culprit, sometimes a murderer. Once, I was sure an atomic bomb had detonated and we were the last to hear about it. Another time, I was certain that my legs had caught on fire. 

With nothing to do but sit and be, I self-destructed. My mind taskless for eleven hours every day, ten days in a row, meant that I created monsters to keep myself occupied. 

It’s not unlike what is happening now. 

As I’ve written prior, my partner and I recently left Spain for Scotland. We moved to a beautiful apartment and have a wonderful relationship. I should be happy but the gray is seeping in. 

I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps the change in weather or the loss of community. But I knew these things beforehand. I was excited for solitude, I was going to work on all of the projects I could never find enough time for in Spain. 

This should be a dream situation. When I was living in New York, I would have given anything for time like this. I wanted to be left alone, with no social commitments. I wanted to write. I even wrote this poem about how much I longed to sit in a room alone. 

swood.writes

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Now, I am sitting in a room alone and I resent my solitude. I feel trapped in the very dream I dreamed for myself.

The gray distorts everything. I can’t see straight, I can’t remember myself. My creativity has drained out through all the cracks and I can’t bring myself to turn to the projects I was so enthusiastically juggling months ago. 

I know I should go to a cafe and go make friends and go to pilates, but instead, I lay in bed and watch Instagram Reels until my brain melts. My friends remind me that I just got here, that it has only been a month. I need to be patient, but I’m terrified that if I don’t get out of the gray now, it will never lift. 

I have the sneaking suspicion that what happened in the meditation retreat is happening now. I am making my own monsters. 

The meditation retreat showed me that the only way to destroy the monsters is to open my eyes and face them. First, I must name them. 

What is the monster? The monster is loneliness. I am lonely. 

I say it. I say it out loud. I tell my mom. I tell G. I tell the girls at the run club. Edinburgh is lovely, except that I’m lonely.

But the more I vocalize my loneliness, the less powerful it becomes. It’s like how in the moment I opened my eyes, the tiger disappeared. Once I admitted my fear, the shame drained out of it. It couldn’t consume me anymore.

I stare straight at the monster and get curious. Why does it feel so scary? 

Because loneliness is familiar. I’m transported to my childhood, struggling to find friends in high school and college. 

Because I don’t know when it will end. I want to make the most of the move and be adaptable. 

Because I want to be happier than I am. Saying it feels like a failure, but also a relief. I am human. I am not impenetrable. 

Each admittance is liberating. Pretending these fears weren’t there only fed them. They got bigger in my mind. As I start telling the truth, I feel the gray lifting. 

That’s not all. All of those things can be true and there can be other truths. When I’m not just focused on the monsters, I can see the other things happening. I’m recovering my love of reading. I’m writing some. I’m making friends, slowly, but it’s happening. 

Most importantly, I’m learning how to face my monsters without running away from them or drowning them with food. I’m learning how to admit darkness and not be consumed by it. 

Recently, probably because of the parallels, I’ve been thinking about that meditation retreat. It was five years ago, right after I graduated college. Ten days of complete silence, no talking, technology, eye contact, exercise, writing, reading, or really anything but sitting. It was the most mind-bendingly uncomfortable I’ve ever been.

It was also one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. It showed me that I can outwait and outlast. I can face everything I need to. 

Now I look back on the tiger with fondness and can laugh about it. I can’t believe how real it felt. How impossible it all seemed. I thank the tiger for what it taught me. 

Much like then, I know there are lessons waiting for me here. I know I’ll come to think of the gray with fondness too. 

The monsters serve us because they require us to face them.

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