I wouldn't lie to anyone by saying there was disappointment for a moment. I did a lot. Juggled between family, having a newborn, dealing with burnout, work, life, comfort, and safety, acting like a project manager for your own ideas is hard. It's also a pretty hard pill to swallow when the plan doesn't work out. I mean after my burnout last year, I was totally numb for all kinds of feelings and experiences, and they happened a lot. It definitely took time, but as with any challenge it just requires one simple thing. To do something about it. Spending time alone, work on a creative project (my first photo-book sold out!!!), long walks, no internet, build things, cycle until you severely injure yourself, start writing again, and witness your firstborn coming into this world. Let's not lie ourselves, all those things are hard, but there is a reason why we always admire people who do the hard thing. Coming from a Balkan state like Bulgaria, we have plenty of prejudice about many things, and I wouldn't think that's only in Bulgaria. But facing them, doing something about it well that's extremely hard. Because you actually go against yourself and you don't know what's on the other side. Maybe you won't be liked or loved anymore, maybe you won't love yourself. I had this crazy idea to travel around the globe, creating memoir about it. Making a book out of it, showing it to my kid when she grows up. Well it's not gonna happen now, and strangely enough I'm okay with it. It felt like if I don't do it now, it might never happen. Then you sit down, breathe through it, and remind yourself what a buddy of mine told me once- "Okay, it doesn't need to happen right now, there is time for everything.". You stand up, even with the mind-bending pain l have been with for the last 8 weeks, and you keep going. Instead of bringing myself down with blame, guilt or project that to others, which would be so easy, I just started to write about everything. It's a blog, just with a different beginning and I think that's way more special. Here is a photo, from a walk I did between Zaandam and Wormerveer two days ago to visit my physiotherapist.
***I did a few voice memos while walking in the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen to see if it's gonna be a nice experience to document my thoughts and write after that. It's amusing to hear your raw thoughts out loud. I was a little bit "Who's that guy!". But it felt like a way to get closer to myself. Walking in the dunes of North Sea on your own, not seeing a person for even 40 minutes in The Netherlands, especially in Randstad is a big deal. That's like one of the largest metropolitan regions in Europe. So basically seeing people walking, biking, doing is something normal, so once you don't see that for a while you start to feel funny. Recording memos was also interesting, felt my voice dubbed, because I was in the open with nothing or no-one around me.
***“We will start with exposure to the pain, you will perform all the movements that trigger it." That's what my therapist said today. I don't want to lie to anyone, especially to myself when writing this but, inside I was so happy. Someone advising me about something that I believe in so much. Exposing myself, making myself uncomfortable, treating myself in situations which I know will be unpleasant, and I don't mean in some masochistic way, like not to feel pain. More about putting yourself in certain situations. Like after a burnout and severe inner ear infection, I started to develop this phobia of flying, I'm flying again. You start loosing weight because you cut off snacks and junk food, and then have a bag of chips and you start tripping in fear that all the work is gone. So yeah, that mindset is useful to ground you down, and has helped me so much in life. Don't forget the uncomfortable conversations, facing yourself, your partner, your family, your social and cultural norms, honestly treating myself differently has always protected me. I can tell you once pain stays in your body, your mind starts to play tricks on you, but exposing yourself to it. Well, that's exactly what you need to hear.
***Sometimes I think I enjoy doing things because I can. Like this website. I wanted to have a photographic inspired website, but I've always enjoyed writing too. Because today was supposed to be the start of my walk in Japan (which I have started preparing for the last 14 months). Unfortunately posterior chain injuries are a new level of mental challenge due to the severity, stress and lack of immediate treatment, I needed to postpone it. I wanted to document the experience, but I never did a thing. So to make myself feel better I sat down (technically I was laying on my yoga mat with knees bend and feet on the floor) and made this, amazingly simple and zero friction system to keep a blog for less than a day and completely free. I use the Notion API to call a document which I use as a database. And basically I write everything on my phone whenever I want and it magically appears in here. Everything is stored in a table, tidy and simple. It reminds me of the old Tumblr days. I even added an RSS, not because someone will subscribe for it, but because I know how to. So, you can say I created the actual system I needed.
***As I'm spending a sunny day in Utrecht Botanical Gardens, admiring the greenery, the butterflies, and the educational signs, teaching us about the cycle of life, it gets me thinking. Everything is a cycle, and sometimes a cycle feels like a loop. Identifying what's a loop and what's a cycle, is a hard job. But we know some, I used to smoke, I used to drink, I used to enjoy listening people bad mouth others, or blame others for my own fears and failures. I also remember I read a book for something completely different, it was about economics, and how a corrupt and poor country will always be corrupt and poor. There are no elections, no democracy that could save an already established loop. The only thing there is, is to break the system, or corrupt the loop by completely destroying it. Often it's a single event that breaks a cycle. Your grandmother passing, the birth of your firstborn, events about life and death have that power on all of us, as they are the essence of a cycle. But not always, sometimes it's just a slowly growing seed of doubt that we put in us about something, and once you know that, you start working towards breaking the loop.
***Curiosity has been one of the most important and useful skills to nurture and develop. It's helping me understand better what I want. It's helping me appreciate the people I enjoy spending my time with. It's also helping me solve problems and remove obstacles. Two days, friends, cameras, 40km walking, Eastern Docklands & Westelijke Eilanden. Photography has always had that therapeutic power to make me be present and appreciate a moment, with no expectation, just a point in time and you being with it.
***Today I was supposed to be in Japan, but due to severe neuromuscular posterior chain injury (yeah I’m reading a Trigger point therapy book) it's basically possible to survive a flight of 14h, but then again, I was supposed to walk for 10 days with an average of 15km, with max of 24km. It's just doesn't make sense, with the pain that you experience when sit, or when you wake up. That also brings me to the point, we all want immediate closure and action nowadays. Once you stay in the bay of pain for a while you start to use this feeling to clear the rest of the noise. You start to observe the relationships, the behaviour, the importance of the small routines. Thank you pain and see you sooner than you think Japan ✌️
***I was offered morphine for the pain, that happened exactly two and a half months ago from today. Today walking has been the only thing that saves me from the inexplicable pain that is nerve pain. Since then I have lost more than 13kg, I also tried cycling in Mallorca for 300km and completely destroyed my body. I’m so glad it happened, because every door that's closed allows you to open the other one. In there, you find the monsters that you wanted to avoid in the first place. And you have to face them.
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