June: Sitting with Stillness

I’ll start this off by admitting I’m cheating since it’s not yet June but here I am writing this article. I typically craft these posts in between destinations, when I’m traveling from one place to another. In my last article, I wrote on a train to Florence and the one before that on a flight to Rome. But here I am still in Italy and I have so much to say because (for the record) it’s been a weird, frustrating week. Today marks my last week before Albania and yesterday was one month since I quit my job and set out on my voyage. It is beyond wild how drastically different things can shift over 35 days and crazy how quickly time passes by. When I was younger I would always hear elders say things felt like they were “just yesterday” and how fast time goes. I would roll my eyes and think they were senile because being a teenager, you don’t understand the complexities of life outside of high school. Now as I approach my third decade of life, I find myself pondering the same exact thing…

The week started lovely, I met a really nice Albanian boy and we spent the weekend together drinking Italian wine and making love under the Tuscan moonlight. It sounds romantic AF but if you read any of my other blogs, you know how easily a romantic weekend in Italy can turn into a year-long nightmare full of wasted tears and heartbreak. So I didn’t get too swept up in this “under-the-Tuscan sun” dream and took it for what it was, a fun weekend with good food and highly enjoyable sex. Well, the next day comes around and in combination with lack of sleep, if any, the smell of cigarette smoke, kissing a stranger, and taking numerous forms of public transport where people were coughing and sneezing up a storm, by Tuesday I felt under the weather. It started with a sore throat and then graduated to a 101 fever. To make matters worse, being that there’s not much to do when one has the flu, I was logged out of my Instagram and haven’t been able to get back in since (listen to my latest podcast for more on that). So here I am, 5 days bedridden with absolutely nothing to do without social media. I didn’t realize how much time I spent per day on my phone but you learn fast once you’re without (if you ever care to experiment)…

Not having access to Instagram albeit annoying, was a lesson in stillness. I believe that sometimes when we refuse to unplug or slow down, the universe hands us a frustrating situation in an attempt to do it for us. When we ignore the cues or write off the signs from the universe, the messages tend to get a lot more apparent, loud, and unavoidable. For example, when relistening to a podcast I created several weeks back, I heard myself mention that I’d been spending a lot of time on my phone. I found it serendipitous that only 10 days later, I’m permanently logged off with no apparent solution to get back in. All I wanted was to log on and see my feed. All I could do was absolutely nothing. Being forced into stillness is a measure of surrender. So many of us are extraordinarily uncomfortable with silence. You don’t need me to point out how when you go to a waiting room at the doctor's office or restaurant and get there before your friend, your immediate reaction is to whip out your phone and start opening apps. If you don’t do this, you can at least observe 90% of everyone around you doing it. Or on a date, if there is a so-called “awkward” silence, our gut instinct is to fill the gap with small talk. But what is it that makes us feel such discomfort in just being? That is a good question I’ve been asking myself for years.

Last night I had therapy and my counselor pointed out how I am always “boy hopping”. I initially thought, no I’m not, I’m always alone, I spend so much time by myself and I’m hardly ever in a relationship. Yet when I let what he was saying marinate, I recognized the truth in his observation. I am always running from one guy to another. After my ex Nick there was Noodle, after Noodle broke my heart, there was Dan, then Mike, then Pablo, and now this next dude. It goes on and on and on… I used to think I just fell in love easily but now I can see how men are my favorite form of distraction. Being hyper-focused on a new crush allows me to avoid the feelings of rejection that are so deeply boiling inside me. Texting another kid all day numbs me from the crippling emptiness because if I’m thinking about him, then I’m not forced to let the loneliness in my heart take over. If I’m preoccupied with the next person who “wants me” I can forget, at least for a short while, about the last time I was humiliated, heartbroken, and felt invisible. I get my external validation from sex and love but people seek gratification in all different ways. Whether it's attention on Tiktok or binge drinking on the weekends, these dysfunctional coping mechanisms are unhealthy and self-destructive ways we seek temporary pleasure.

But what do I do, Michael? I asked… I crave connection and intimacy, I don’t want to be a celibate monk for the rest of my life but I also want to form something solid and real, something deep that goes beyond the sexual chemistry or new relationship energy. “Then you need to start being with yourself” he added. “How do I do that?” “Notice all the times you are tempted to leave yourself”... We leave ourselves in a variety of ways, through overworking, spending 5 hours a day at the gym, watching Youtube, chasing emotionally unavailable suitors (ding ding).

Something very important I’m learning is the power of remaining in the present, even if there’s nothing going on or it’s not so much fun. There is so much beauty in these quiet moments, especially the less-than-stimulating ones. Can we pause, close our eyes and take in the silence? Instead of pushing away the stillness, will we relish it? Because so much of my life I’ve spent running from the present, reminiscing on the past, or rushing to the future I’ve missed a majority of my youth. It’s in these middle moments, the in-between, where we aren’t quite where we used to be or where we are going yet, that transformation occurs. When I was single I was desperately seeking the next person to entertain me, when I was unemployed I was frantically searching for the next job, and so on. I felt discontent with where I was so I assumed the only fix was to find a solution.

We are taught when things aren’t panning out that the answer is to do more, try harder, hustle, or grind it out. Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s rarely ever worked for me. It’s just led to more misery and confusion about why my hard work isn’t paying off. I think this last year, the universe has delayed so much in my life because what it wants most for me is to slow down. Just think, when we were adolescents we couldn’t wait to grow up. Now that we’re adults, we wish we would’ve enjoyed our childhood. It’s been like that for me, my entire life has been a nostalgic memory and I’ve wondered, where was I the whole time? Do you ever feel like you’ve missed out on your own life? I can totally relate. We take pictures, we make vlogs and in the midst of it all, we watch our life from the sidelines.

This morning I woke up and it is my last day in Italy. In just a few hours I leave for Tirana. And what a shame it is that the first thought I had today was, I can’t wait for one month to pass so I can go to London… What a tragedy it is to rush the moments we’ve been longing for, only to yearn for the next. My goal for myself over the next 4 weeks is to take it all in. To soak up these precious memories I’ll never get back. Because when you think about it, you never relive the same moment twice. And there is beauty in the impermanence of it all, but for now, I’m allowing myself to take a breath, no rushing, no speeding up the process. I give myself permission to let it linger, the joy, the pain, the now. To not wonder what comes next or perseverate on what came the minute before. This breath, this second, right here, is all that’s real. It may not be where we wish just yet, but if we sit with it, we realize, it’s all we really have, and for now, that is enough. For now, this moment is all I need.