begin again.

When the social distancing measures in Vietnam were intensified in the beginning of April, I, like most people, was desperately trying to find ways to stay sane without the numbing distractions of commuting to work and running time-consuming errands.

Writing, and journaling specifically, has always been my tried-and-true way of remaining sane, and I can say that despite not having stayed consistent with it throughout the years because the eras in my life that aren’t documented in my journals were absolute dumpster fires. Make no mistake, these eras weren’t dumpster fires because I wasn’t journaling about them, they were dumpster fires because I was burning piles of garbage that had been tossed inside me to rot, releasing incredibly toxic fumes and poisoning the people around me in the process. Yes, I am the dumpster in this metaphor. And dumpsters can’t write, so why would I?

No but seriously, I swallowed this fear for a long time — not only the fear of my garbage, but the fear of my fire. I watched people I truly cared about catch third degree burns at my own hand, and did very little, if anything at all, to help them. Even when there was nothing left to fuel the fire, it smoldered under the ashes. Every time I put pen to paper, I felt compelled to write my truth, but I was disgusted by the person I’d become. So I stopped writing. I learned to survive inside my head. I didn’t want to add anything else to the fire, and despite being a deeply emotional person, I shut myself off from any dumpster-sized feeling, even (and especially) the good ones: love, friendship, and community.

Before I left Pittsburgh a year and a half ago, I started a blog called RIILEEADVENTUROUS. My intent was to document my experiences while traveling, living abroad in Southeast Asia, and the lessons I was sure to learn along the way. I never told anyone about it.

Because shortly before I published my first post, an unexpected event sparked another fire in me. I was positive that moving to Vietnam would add oxygen to this fire, so in the interest of not letting it get out of control again, I defaulted to “Survival Shutdown” mode, just in case. I didn’t make another blog post; in fact, I didn’t write much at all during my first year in Vietnam, and it’s something I try not to regret too much because I know now that my unhealthy coping mechanisms were just trying to protect me at the time.

We’ve seen from the coronavirus and the necessary measures we’ve all been taking to contain it that shutting down is never sustainable. I have the fortune of continuing my life semi-normally thanks to Facebook and Google, but even I found myself losing it by day 12. It was the perfect excuse to dive back into writing, and now that I’ve started, there’s no containing this new fire in me. This time I’ll feed it with something different, something organic and honest, something raw and real.

And maybe this time, I’ll try to keep it out of the dumpster.

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