Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 6, When You Are Summoned, Cont.

Remember when I said: “This sort of thing doesn’t just accidentally happen to people.” (Read about it here: Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 5, Cont.)

Ending up in Alaska, that is.

On the surface, ending up in Alaska, given my aforementioned aversion to Alaska, looks unwittingly random. Chaotic even. Escapist, perhaps.

There are a lot more layers than I can explain. I haven’t mentioned yet that the year prior to visiting Alaska I started envisioning trees.

I know it sounds funny, but yeah, trees.

In 2012, I was living in Marina Del Rey, California in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I was constantly planning trips to big cities, and filling my schedule with big parties, and filling my mind with big ideas about the big plans I had for my big future in Los Angeles…

And in the shadows, I was secretly getting screamed at by emotionally reckless, compassion-deficient people hiding in my social circles.

Emotional abuse is not always easy to detect in social circles. But it always has its tell-tales.

I tried to leave my abusive relationships more than a handful of times. These attempts were usually coupled with grand gestures of apology and remorse to socially demonstrate that I was the unreasonable participant who had instigated, while alluding that I needed to be charitable and forgiving of people’s mistakes. I mean, who’s perfect, right?

No one is perfect. Equally, abuse is not justified.

Repeat abuse is another topic. It requires astute discernment and conscious, decisive action to resolve and end, or at least to get oneself out of harm’s way.

I’ll leave it at this.

One morning in 2012, after a very long party, and a very long night of getting screamed at, I started to fantasize about trees…

Trees don’t yell…

Trees don’t bribe other trees with gifts and favors, implicitly asking them to ignore abusive behavior…

Trees don’t try to coerce you with guilt and shame into doing what they demand in order to prove your affection for them...

Trees don’t manipulate and estrange you from your family and close friends…

Trees don’t lie to you with promises of good behavior and a beautiful future outcome, while repeating the same hurtful actions…

Trees don’t steal your life force energy, drain your vitality, and extract your joy for their own personal amusement and entertainment…

Trees don’t shrink your support network and stand by complacently watching while you shrivel...

I mean, it had to be pretty freaking obvious that I was shriveling.

Well, in all fairness, perhaps my complacent social counterparts were shriveling too?

In all fairness, my life looked pretty good on Facebook back then. I made sure it did. So how could they know? I can’t say that I fully knew what was happening in the lives of all my Facebook friends either. What was the truth about a person for all anyone knew back then anyway?

Food for Thought: What is the truth about any of us now?

Despite what my Facebook profile appeared to reflect about me, it wasn’t the truth about me. Most of my photos showed me visiting swanky places in big cities, dressed up in sassy outfits, going to poppin’ parties or intimate social gatherings at trendy venues with other peacocking, style cartel fashionistas.

There was a part of me that loved the attention. I didn’t come out of my social shell until my late 20s, after I moved to West Hollywood. Yet there was another part of me that remembered she desperately wanted and needed something else.

I wanted arbor-filled nature.

I wanted to heal my frayed nerves.

I wanted peace.

I needed peace.

And I had gotten far enough along to realize that I wasn’t going to get my needs met in the Lower-48.

I guess this sort of does point to Alaska, now doesn’t it? So looking back, yeah… Pretty freaking obvious.

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August 2013 — Manhattan Beach, California

August 8, 2013, I was summoned the first time…

When my mom and I returned to LAX after a week of experiencing the midnight sun, casually counting more trees than we had seen in both of our lifetimes combined, and getting on each others’ nerves almost irreparably, I was ready to make some key life decisions:

1. Leave my stuff in the Manhattan Beach storage unit.

2. Pack up my Prius.

3. Drive to Alaska.

4. Not tell anyone.

(Okay, I told three people…)

I left the next day.

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