Waiheke, Aotearoa New Zealand
June 13, 2021

Rough.

I've just arrived "home" after months on the road. Months of living in a van, adventuring across New Zealand, filled with cold nights and brilliant sunrises.

And it is not a good feeling.

I tell myself to give it time, to let things settle.
But my mind races, my emotions cluster around claustrophobia, stuck, decaying, caught.

I feel like a cat caught up a tree, aware of how I got here and theoretically capable of getting back down - but overwhelmed by how much I don't like it that it's hard to take concrete actions.

It doesn't help that I'm coming back to the same home that honestly still needs a lot of love. For most of 2020, I poured my energy into these walls, these floors. But coming back after some time away, it's clear that there's still a lot left to do, and no way past but through.

But it's also the view outside my windows. Houses and trees loom, stationary, never shifting even in parallax. I feel like I've fallen into a dollhouse, the world big and towering; and me flitting around from window to window.

Horace the Van is tiny inside, smaller than the couch in this house. But he makes up for it by being a part of the vastness that is outside. And that always being outside, more acutely than anything else, is what I miss.

The first few days here I've have waves of nausea, caught out of balance, trying to reorient. And I can't tell you what next week will hold yet.

But I haven't found that balance yet.

Have a fulcrum-aware week,

-Steven

p.s. The best thing I read all week was a slice of only-in-New-Zealand that you might enjoy. See, there's this small town, and they're having trouble with the number of free-roaming horses. 🤣

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