It’s 6:26pm CST on Monday, January 27th. I’m sitting upstairs in my bedroom with the door closed. Two of my closest friends are downstairs cooking dinner, the other is in her room, likely also with the door closed.

As I near the end of these 4 weeks living together in Nosara, Costa Rica, I feel myself feeling similar to when I leave my family’s home in Maine. A mix of utter exuberance at the idea of being alone, a low-lying guilt of not juicing more quality time out of the visit, and ultimately overwhelmed with love and care for the beings I was just with.

In these seasons I begin to miss the humans I’m currently with. I hear Kelly downstairs washing dishes and can smell the green curry Ranieri is making for dinner. I’m still wiping away tears from my conversation with Amanda earlier, where I found myself, yet again, nuzzled against her chest crying - this time on the beach in our bikinis, covered in sand and ants.

I sort of can’t believe it, the humans I’ve come across in this lifetime. I’m feeling what we call in AA, “a gratitude dump”. I always cringe but also twinkle a bit when I hear people reference these.

I woke up this morning feeling, quite honestly, depressed. I’m not clinically diagnosed other than a therapist who dubbed me (upon my provoking) - “anxious with mild depression”. I felt both validated and incredibly hollowed at the label. Part of me felt like I’d gotten a gold star for my Big feelings, another part of me began to repeat the phrase again and again, a self-labeling mantra “anxious with mild depression”. You know the idea that if you begin smiling, even when you’re not in the mood, you’ll likely begin to smile on your own? Well the same rings true for repeating non-diagnoses.

Whenever I wake up feeling low I try to “figure out” - why was I depressed, what Tetris of life events had to come together to land me here, a place I am not unfamiliar with. How do I prevent this from happening again? Surely, if I can break down exactly what happened, when and by who, I’ll sort the issue, trick out the matrix, and I’ll never feel this way again.

I found myself washing dishes a couple hours later, still plugging away at my “issue”. It must have been the drugs in college, I must have fried out that little part of the brain, what is it called - the amygdala?

An hour or so later I found myself at an AA meeting in Nosara. It’s on the open-air top floor of a place called The Treehouse. Two dogs are present and about 15 people. The meeting starts off with a reading about balance. Immediately the shares start rolling, noting on how some of us only comprehend/operate at an “all or nothing” (hence the sobriety), someone else shared on our obsession with victimhood. I was in the right place.

Finally at the end of the meeting a woman shared with tears in her eyes that she was having a bad day. I felt my own tears well. When she finished I raised my hand and cried, and shared. I vocalized what I’d been feeling for the past couple of days. What a gift.

In my time speaking I shared that I too love these black and whites, or so I think. I wake up and immediately there’s a label - “I’m depressed” or today is a “bad day”. Binaries give a false sense of control.

I continue on about how I’ve been in a shit mood, feeling like I don’t have enough space and in the journey to avoid how I’m feeling I get angry instead, I make others out to be bad (so I can be good) or taking up too much space (so I can sanction why I don’t feel I have enough) - further isolating and darkening myself. What I ultimately came to is that letting up on the control, lifting my hands and putting trust in something outside of myself - is always the answer. Of course it takes some recognition in order to get to this point, of which is not always available, but it is possible.

I left the meeting to go to yoga with Kelly. She knew how I was feeling and set up my mat for me, scooching my blocks closer to me in class when I needed. Finally I could see it, I’m not the victim. I’m so incredibly lucky.

The last thing I’ll leave from the meeting is something the first share said, “Victim’s don’t get sober”. Obviously sobriety doesn’t apply to everyone, so let me interpret this - Choosing victimhood avails us nothing. Most of us have been or are victims in one way or the other - we’ve had real shit happen to us. I’m not suggesting to deny that in the least. What I’m sharing is a perspective shift, from deciding that life happens to us, that we are beaten down and don’t have the tools to get up - to the CHOICE that we are empowered, that we can and will get what we need and deserve. I’ve found that in my (extremely privileged) life - this often lands me in a more open place, where I can actually be helpful to others. That being said, I couldn’t hear this today until I was ready to. So no sweat if you’re not.

That helped me today, I hope it helps someone else too.

Love you mean it.

Zoë