hardly

A restlessness has been brewing within me over the last month. I blame the twin forces of my body healing, allowing me to do more yet also not all I want, and the passage of time leaving me living in Seattle far longer than I could have imagined. It has been beautiful to stay put yet I feel cut off from the part of myself that’s incredibly curious and alive. I can only walk the same block so many times until I wonder what another block might be like (or what walking this same path consistently might lead to beyond recognizing every neighborhood dog).

I don’t know when the idea popped into my head to go solo camping. It might have been last year when I went camping and felt the immense panic laying awake all night anew. I thought sleeping next to my girlfriend, one of the few humans I can sleep soundly next to, would help. She grew up in grizzly bear country and has a sleep constitution that reflects the boldness of sleeping in the woods with grizzlies. I’ve never seen someone sleep so well and so easily outside before. I’ve always been a light sleeper with stories of my dad opening my door as a kid to check on me only to find I’d quickly open my eyes to stare back (how creepy). In college, a roommate never showed up to the dorms one year and, when a friend was returning from studying abroad, she asked if she could take over the other half of my room and all I remember thinking about was my sleep.

Over the last few years as it’s grown worse, I’ve started finding ways to carve out my own room. A few times, it meant I rented a two bedroom apartment preparing for pals to pass through and knowing my sleep would be impacted. Even then, if I’m in a small enough space and a friend is sleeping on an air mattress near me, I still can’t sleep. A dear friend who I’ve known for 20+ years stayed over for a few nights last summer and the first night I did not really sleep, aware that he was in my living room. Eventually, it waned as my intellectual brain talked down my anxious one.

I’ve grown weary of this part of myself — and curious. I can now feel the difference between my nighttime panic. The hours of my heart pounding feel different when it’s because I’m in a new place or sleeping next to someone else. When I’m now needing to go into situations where it’s likely I won’t sleep and I’m trying to decide what to do, I evaluate the decision partially based on if I’ll be okay if I don’t sleep that night(s). I know what it feels like well to stay awake all night, sometimes with no discernible reason. This wordless panic is the worst and, based on my current theory, it’s likely due to the trauma from being born via traditional surrogacy happening before I could form words (this is reported amongst adopted folks).

When it came down to decide whether to go solo camping, this is what I had in mind. Worst case, I stay up all night. Best case, I sleep a bit. I also realized there’s a spectrum of ways to solo camp: car camp, camp at a campground, backpacking, bikepacking, etc. I decided to give myself two options by camping at a campground by driving my girlfriends RAV4 in case I needed to curl up inside her warm, big car. Next time, I told myself, I could try back or bike packing solo. Yesterday, in an almost trance, I headed out for the campground and felt my restlessness start to fade.

As if to give me extra motivation to actually do it, a glimpse of the northern lights was possible last night in Washington. I never saw any but the chance of it made the hours I was awake more exciting. I listened to audio messages from loved ones interspersed with podcasts at very low volume when I needed it. I put my tent up right next to the river and the sound of the water was perfect white noise minus the three early 20s who stayed up until at least 3am down by the water intermittently shouting at their dogs and each other.

Earlier that day, I sat where they were now howling into the night to read and watch the sun slowly say goodbye. I thought about my grandma — when I see especially beautiful places I like to hold her two rings in my hands, usually snapping a photo. I spent time woodcarving too, just soaking up being back next to trees and moss again.

It was perfect. I hardly slept and that hardly mattered.