the straightaway...

We're back in Santa Fe, and I've been anxiously counting down the days in my head until I'm on a bus back to Phoenix, but today I feel okay.

Mainly, I've just seen myself become disconnected. Disengaged. I stopped seeing the beautiful things around me, it all began to blur together and things really get blurry when you're always pissed off about one thing or another. I've been really seeping loads of bad energy out, and not letting myself become re-energized by the forest and the wind and the peaceful love of the land.

In a nutshell, I'm premenstrual. But I've been feeling cross for much longer than that, I've been tired and fed up and cranky for weeks; unfortunately a large portion of the 63 days I've spent out doing this work. That makes me sad that I've compromised my potentially stellar recommendation just so I could be pouty and immature and gripe to myself about how hard and unfair it all is.

Also, I've felt as though I keep losing my grasp on things. For example, I'll tell myself I just can't take it anymore, or I'll start pummeling myself about being slow or fat or not good enough in some other fashion, or I'll have convinced myself that Richard hates my guts because I'm not the fantastic field assistant I made myself out to be and that I, in fact, am annoying and too inquisitive and expect too much and contribute so little. I can't appreciate myself or him, and depending on the time of day or how long it's been since a real bed and a shower, I'm either bashing him or myself as part of my deeply critical inner-monologue. How is that fair?

Today I've gone over my dunes of craziness and back down onto saner, more level ground. I've been praying very hard about it, and I really want to again be the positive influence on this work that I used to be so many weeks ago. I've made a lot of effort to stop frowning or swearing when the going gets tough (because YIKES! the hiking is quite usually EXTREMELY DIFFICULT!), when I'm pouring sweat because it is both hot and humid as hell, or when I fall and hurt myself (which I seem to do 50 times more often than Richard, so it is both frustrating and humiliating to bash my bones and softer parts when we usually do not have any flowers to speak of).

Am I really not cut out for this because I am a big crazy mess? Because everything I say to myself sounds so much like what my mom used to say to me growing up? Why can't I hack it? I was feeling so confident, so svelte, so cheerful, but that went away really quickly, and I sit and stew over the littlest things! I FUCKING WENT TO THERAPY TO STOP DOING THIS!

And here I am, at odds with my own bad attitude, not wanting to make life difficult, but not being able to shake the feelings of injustice that so often overcome me.

I don't have any doubts that the last eight days of this journey are going to be easy enough. We've had loads of interesting experiences, and for the most part, I've been motivated to move forward. But my heart hasn't been in it for a big chunk of the time, and I feel bad about that. I regret not doing it differently, but when I'm right in the moment, I don't have a clue how I could've just magically dosed myself with an attitude adjustment.

Either way, I know I'm responsible for my own behavior. I don't want to be a bad field assistant, that someone looks back on and regrets hiring me, because God knows I've been there and it scarred me deeply. I know I brought a load of emotional baggage on this trip and I guess there wasn't much I could do about it.

I talked to my mom last night and, of course, I feel worse for it. She definitely echoes all those nasty things I say about myself to myself when I'm feeling really low. I know I'm unusually hormonal, but dare I suggest that I'm on the cusp of depression once more? I really hate that land, it's dark and so lonely, and I don't care whether I die by lightning or volcano or atom bomb, just so long as it happens quickly.

In eight days, of course, things will be picking up speed in a different direction. I'll be headed home and trying to shuffle everything around for my friends' wedding and being in Tucson again and so on. But when I get back to Phoenix, the place of many former woes, how will I get back on my feet? Sure, I'll make it happen, probably, most likely.. But when can I be happy? It can't possibly be about me allowing myself to be happy, because I frickin' feel like I've tried that, and it's so short-lived.

Anyway, I'm going out of my way to be very nice and upbeat for my colleague here. He's losing his assistant and it's going to significantly impair his research methods, in the off-chance my contribution has been helpful or appreciated, and he has spent a great deal of money having me along, so I'm trying to be light-hearted and enthusiastic once more.

A big rock fell on me and I can't seem to get out from under it.

Dangerously premenstrual.