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I've been slowly reintegrating back into reality.

I landed a week ago. Stood, squinting in the California sun, puffy-eyed from 27 hours of sleepy suitcase dragging, waiting for Shane's white SUV to peel around the corner at Burbank airport. I wondered if this was the last time I'd pull something like this--stuff three bags full of clothes and books and disappear from my life for five months. With me, it's impossible to know for sure.

Shane arrived, still jet-lagged in his own right. In a last minute twist, he had come to sail on my ship for the last week of my contract. He arrived home a mere 24 hours before I did, and picked me up, still fresh from the adventure.

"Ben wants me to come to Joshua Tree... tonight, Baby." He beamed as we wove through crammed freeway traffic.

I smiled. Ben is Benjamin Uyeda, architect-turned-Youtuber, design and build magnate, creator of HomeMadeModern, friend and mentor of Shane's. Shane films and edits maker videos, ads, and vlogs for Ben and a few other Joshua Tree content creators. It's the main reason we are working to move there, hopefully this year.

Shane and I ate dinner together before he took off for JT, and I slept for twelve hours in soft linen sheets, on a new cedar bed frame he built while I was gone.

I knew better than to plan too much for my first week back. I took my time, reaquainting myself with the house by vacuuming it's dusty nooks and rearranging its plants. I cycled to the bank and post office. I walked my roommate's dog along the LA river. I trekked through grocery stores, carefully picking out bread, fruit, eggs, salsas and spreads. I cleaned and unpacked and observed and savored.

I did some freelance ghostwriting and editing, opening my laptop at my kitchen table or in a cozy porch chair outside before the midday heat kicked in. I went to an affable job interview at a fancy Michelin "food studio" paired with an indigenous forest art installation in Boyle Heights. I wove the SUV down Topanga Canyon road and lay on Will Rogers State Beach, chatting with an old friend whose wedding I recently missed. It was cloudy and cool by the water but we didn't much care. She was the same glowing marvel I'd met years ago, confident and silly and at ease, unphased and laughing after so many global shifts.

I mostly let my phone lie wherever I set it down, stopping for a few family phone catch ups, writing down TikTok ideas but not filming any yet. I've just been... appreciating this place. It's the same place I left, but I am different, so it feels different.

I was depressed in this house. Deeply stuck. Wanting constantly to get out of it but also desperate to never leave it again. I was exhausted by the grind and bent on sabotaging myself. I felt deeply unable to reconcile my insides with the outside world. Raw from excessive media consumption. Bogged down by everything I couldn't process about love and humanity and myself.

I was coming to grips with my codependent history--with decisions that led me to walk, naively, into mental abuse, manipulation and sexual trauma in a past relationship, while saying over and over that I was just fine.

I was sifting through my habit of saying 'yes' when I'd rather say 'no'. I discovered, with shock and disappointment, that it was an unconscious habit, hard to recognize until it was too late. I didn't yet understand that 'no' was still available after saying 'yes' at first, even though it might feel inconvenient or embarassing. It was still allowed.

In short, I had given deep, numerous fucks about everything and everyone, until my well had run dry. Dried up, cracks showing, and no longer able to give a single fuck, I assumed myself of no use to anyone, and therefore a waste of aliveness.

I am not useful to anyone I shouted to the void in my mind. I want to disappear.

"Maybe your task is not to be useful to others right now," said a partner, a mother, several friends, a psychic and a licensed therapist. "Maybe you need to be in service to yourself."

The idea made me cry, hearing it.

"What do you want? What makes you happy?"

I can't be happy if I'm not making someone else happy, some old part of me screamed, battered and misled. I wanted to let go of her but she persisted. She crouched in the shadows until an opportunity came up for me to break my pattern of people-pleasing and then she would reach from the void, gripping my mind and steering me to some excuse or distraction or lie.

I hated her.

I didn't understand that she was the part of me that most needed love.

"Maybe you need to be in service to yourself."

What the fuck does that mean?

I tried things. I treated myself as best I could while barely making rent. I said 'no', to people, to jobs, to sex, to alcohol, to weed. I made little videos, dancing and making funny faces in my backyard. Sometimes "serving myself" meant fading into nothingness, being still and quiet for hours upon hours, sleeping through the productive day I had planned and letting go of the outcome. Occasionally a panic attack overtook me and my only option was to hold fast, wriggle and sob on the bed or the floor--wherever I was when I dropped and curled into the pain. In these moments, I actually felt better alone. With a witness, even someone like Shane holding me, I felt more ashamed, and the attack would be louder and last longer.

Then I booked a ship contract. Four and a half months in the Mediterranean. A dance/host hybrid gig with decent pay and free food.

"I'll write my book," I said, too ashamed to admit that I was tired of my life and just needed my own space, needed to excuse myself from every conversation in my phone and the voices that played out their expectations in my head.

Shane was devastated and afraid for a few hours, the night that I told him I was accepting the contract. Then he was supportive and excited for me and determined to grow himself alongside me. It was truly a decision for myself and myself alone. The distance would be harder for him, at home among the responsibilities I was abandoning and the rooms I used to warm. That was kind of the point. I wanted to drop everything and fill my own cup. I convinced myself I needed to at least try.

I lied on my medical history form and left the "depression" and "anxiety" and "panic attack" boxes unchecked. Something told me it would be fine.

I flew to Rome, penning a flutter of whimsical journal entries and remembering my love of travel along the way. I embarked the ship and surrendered to it's system, it's hierarchy, it's corporate trainings. I ate plentifully and rehearsed diligently. I memorized scripts and improvised jokes. I watched a brand new adult playground at sea be slowly furnished and staffed. I read books, curled in my tiny cabin. I forced myself to be as honest as I could with this host of new people from everywhere in the world. I thanked the ship for its sweeping ocean views and abundant plants, its free espresso and crispy french fries, and my own, teensy, heavenly space, where no one else could go. I put on dresses and heels I never thought I'd wear again. I hid from the late night cabin parties and drunken shenanigans, opting for sleep and Shane's pixeled, smiling face nine time zones away. I laid gentle boundaries with my money and free time. I danced hard. I wore a series of outfits ranging from badass to ridiculous, taking them on like characters in a play.

We were restricted by Covid for the first eight weeks--my only time ashore was a bubble tour to a mediocre mall in Civitavecchia, Italy. The constant isolation wore down the crew as a whole, and I empathized. Personally, if bubble tours had been the only option for the rest of the contract, I probably would have been fine. I was accomplishing the things I needed: Time to myself. Figuring out what I like and want. Taking a break from the LA hustle.

But free shore leave was eventually granted, and I took it greedily. I traversed the streets of London and Liverpool, and scaled a mountain in Wales. I chewed warm croissants and delicate macarons all over Paris. I splurged on VIP seats to the Crazy Horse cabaret, and watched Beyonce's Partition video come to life on a cast of doll-like French babes. I slurped Belgian beer and waffles and fries on the cobbles of Bruges, Blankenburg, and Ghent. I sailed the canals of Amsterdam and stumbled into a sex show in the Red Light district that I'll never forget, mostly in a good way.

I hiked the warm, sandy hills overlooking a Dutch beach in Ijmuiden, peppered with old Nazi bunkers, now covered in graffiti.

I walked the ramparts of an old Moorish castle in Malaga, Spain, where I also ate squid ink paella, sipped fizzy Aperol, and received a decent massage, directly on the beach, for twenty euros.

I went topless on strips of beach in Barcelona, Mallorca, Sardinia, Corsica, and Cannes. I bought postcards made of cork and walked miles of cobblestone streets in Lisbon under the stars. I swayed to beats spun by Idris Elba in an Ibiza club at 2am.

Between port escapades, I milked my time on the ship, stopping for brown butter ice cream or a spicy vegan hot dog or a truffle pizza between shifts. I tried board games and arcade games I'd never played before. I tested almost every plate at every restaurant. I hammed up my time on the mic, telling star stories or hosting music trivia, teaching 90's dances or offering sassy dodgeball commentary. I snuck into the private karaoke room and sang myself hoarse. I attended the production shows over and over, screaming friends' names from the rafters. I exercised when I felt like it and drank when I felt like it. I let my body rest and enjoy itself and thicken. I let myself play.

I did write--not a whole book of course but I did look my habits of sabotage and defeat straight in the eye and write anyway, not every day but enough to know how to keep doing it (hopefully). I wrote a lot of snippets and journal entries. I wrote candidly and holistically about my past mistakes. I wrote a couple of "Tableaus of Life at Sea" and a Mother's Day piece for a contest on Vocal. I wrote a plan for my writing routine and career. I also aligned with an unexpected writing partner. We met through an old writing class. He values my feedback, pushes me to write more, and pays me to edit his own work. I feel validated and challenged by him, and bouyed by our mutual need of each other. I am meticulous and thorough. He is good at charging through resistance and meeting deadlines. It feels good to be navigating the choppy waters of authorhood with him.

I met a host of new people and thrust my most authentic self at them. Showed them my unmakeupped face and my love of an early bedtime. I practiced saying no, and saying what I liked, and not needing to explain myself when I wasn't participating in the group plan. I talked myself out of buying fast fashion clothing and jewelry to fit in more, and rocked my quirky hand-me-downs and thrift store finds. I skirted gossip as best I could and told people when I felt they were being inappropriate or unfair. I spent the most time with the people I felt safest with: a gay, Australian reality cooking show star, and a quadruple-threat drag queen with a mutual love of books. Out of this came friendship and acceptance and laughter and healthy boundaries. It also drummed up a new understanding and appreciation for my life at home.

I don't know if my cup is full, but it is no longer empty. I feel... excited. I feel like I am learning what I need and figuring out how to give it to myself. I have a fresh trove of memories and journal entries to write on: exotic and unlikely moments that made me laugh and cry and get to this new version of myself. I have also swapped the need to write a fast book for the desire to write a good book, slowly and imperfectly and with as much consistency as I am capable, which, I'll admit, is not very much on the surface. Yet, here I am, writing another 2300 words just for curious friends and family. For practice. For potential.

Shane and I are a tangle of awe and rose petal eyes, but we are also getting used to being back in all the same rooms and getting our separate work done. We are airtight, faces and bodies smushed in affection, then we are bosom buddies cracking inside-puns, and then we are professional and courteous copilots, sharing notes on our inner compasses and what we've learned while apart. We are evolving, on our own and together.

I don't know what the book is or when it's coming. I know better than to promise a dozen more essays about my cruise ship realizations and recollections, although the ideas are flowing and the desire is there. I just know that I am worth filling up with the things I love and the adventures I crave. I am worth making space for. My garden of fucks, however dried up and cracked, is worth tending to, worth figuring out how to make lush again.

And, I know I will keep writing.