The Desert

Written at age 23

I walk outside most days and remember that you can’t breathe out here, 

I suck in the warm dry heat as it reminds my heart it’s not beating fast enough. 

She listens and works a little harder. 

I walk outside and the pieces of me that long for the trees that change colors, melts into the sand that is put where the grass can’t grow. 

I plant myself here too. 

In the only shaded place that I can find, hiding from where I’ll get too much sun and shrivel up. 

I don’t see myself blooming until I am tested in the wind. 

She stands. 

You used to come here too, to remind me that the same love I give is the same love I lose myself in. 

When you spend too much time in the heat you come inside feeling drained, giving and giving and giving until the fountain says enough. 

“She essentially told me that I need to collect myself and get there. That seemed to have been a common theme of my time in Arizona, collect yourself and get there.”

I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona on March 13th, 2021. I decided about a month and a half before moving that I would make the transition across the country essentially by myself. I did have some friends coming out at the same time and one that I would live with but I was without my most precious thing, my family. At first the idea of this move was really exciting and the relocation itself was new and fun. Once the reality sets in that you are now across the country from everything that you have once known and based your identity off of, you realize that now you have no choice but to start over. From scratch, all by yourself.

The first two months of living here felt like a long vacation. I came here with no job and only the things that could fit in my car. After driving across the country in my Chevy Malibu filled with clothes and a couple sentimental items, I began a new life. I never really gave this move, or this life, a lot of thought. I’m not even sure if I processed it before moving because the excitement took over the fear of potential failure. I have had a lot of moments that may have felt like failure, but at the end of the day all of these moments taught me a much needed lesson about myself. There has been no other choice for me other than to make it happen. To pay my rent each month and keep going each day. I have wondered more times than I can count, “is this what being an adult feels like?” But since becoming an “adult” I have realized that adults don’t even know what being an adult feels like. Adulting can look however you would like to make other people think that it looks but the overcapping theme is that no one truly has it all figured out.

I describe Arizona as a rollercoaster that I couldn’t seem to get off of. It has high highs where the view of the mountains and the dry air and palm trees feel like a movie. I look around at my rooftop pool and feel like the luckiest girl in the world. And then suddenly you are jolted into the lowest valley where it feels dark and cold and lonely. I have realized that on this roller coaster, there is no time for the in between period because you are flying faster than you ever planned to. I was on a ride that I had asked and prayed for but never particularly prepared for, some would say these are the best kind and I’ll let you know when I get off if I agree or not. 

While living in Arizona, I had been asked more times than I could count if I liked living there or not. At first the answer would always be met with a smile and then I would say “yeah! But I really miss my family.” Then before I knew it the answer was, “I’m not an Arizona girl.” And now the answer is, “yes.” I did like living there, but I think above all what I  liked is all that Arizona taught me. I have been so many different versions of myself in that state and I feel like I have no choice but to appreciate each version. I appreciate the version that went out for the first month feeling like she was on a long vacation not realizing the reality that was soon to set in, I appreciate the version of myself that hopelessly and vulnerably opened up to others, I appreciate the sad version of myself who preferred to be alone in her room, and I appreciate the version of myself that I am now. The one that was brought together by all of these different women and grew and healed and manifested a new beginning. She went through a lot, but she overcame even more. 

While living in Arizona, I found myself in the hospital on two different occasions. The first time, I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that I couldn’t breathe. And when I would try to take a deep breath I would have a really dry cough. I also had a fever and it felt as if my heart was beating out of my chest. I would try over and over to get a deep breath but each breath felt more disappointing than the next. When I woke up I knew that I needed to go to urgent care because something was not right. After I arrived, they discovered that my pulse was resting at 125. The nurse doing my vitals asked if I was anxious, my eyes instantly filled up with tears because the answer was “am I anxious?? I am across the country from my family and everything in my body is telling me something is very very wrong.” To which I actually replied, “not really.” The doctors then performed an EKG and advised me that I needed to go to the emergency room as it did not look normal. 

I remember driving myself to the emergency room, feeling as if it was something out of a movie. I called my mom and finally let the tears flow. “It’s my heart,” I finally managed to get out. She essentially told me that I need to collect myself and get there. That seemed to have been a common theme of my time in Arizona, collect yourself and get there. So that’s exactly what I did. When I got there the tests immediately started. That’s the thing about having a tight chest and shortness of breath, nobody wastes any time. When my results started coming back in they found that my white blood cells were 26,000 when 10,000 is the high side of normal. I was then admitted into the hospital and moved to my own room to try and find what was causing the infection. 

I will never forget my doctor in the emergency room saying to me “you look so healthy on the outside, but on the inside you’re really sick.” That was the moment that I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be leaving that day, and most definitely wasn’t making it to my 3:45pm shift.  A day or two passed and my heart rate was still staying above 110 and the doctors were not able to find what was causing the spike in my pulse or my white blood cells. My breathing was slowly getting better and I had had every test that the doctors could think of. My mom bought a flight across the country to be with me and arrived the next morning. She walked in the room as 4 male doctors were telling me that considering all the infection tests came back negative it was most likely a panic attack. There was something inside of me that didn’t believe this, but it was silenced by the pieces of me that felt betrayed by my own brain and body. I also didn’t have it in me to tell four grown men that had spent a quarter of their lives in medical school that this just couldn’t be it. The voice in my head was then telling me that my mom had just flown all the way across the country for anxiety. Like I couldn’t control my brain and it was telling my body that it was being attacked and I wasn’t allowed to intervene before the bodily reactions took over. But I want to reiterate that the voice in my head saying that this was my fault was loud, but it was not alone and the loudness didn’t make it true. There was still the quieter voice in my head that was begging to be seen. Begging me to trust myself and what I already knew within. 

Anxiety was a common thing for me in Arizona. In fact, I recently read a couple weeks of a text thread with someone I was close with, and was so surprised to see that I was telling someone everyday how anxious I was. Anxiety for me has always been a bodily feeling. The only way that I can describe it is as if my heart is in a tiny cage and is beating hard against the cage. I would feel this feeling of my heart beating against my chest and would figure out what my body was telling me to be anxious about. What was I missing? When I was younger and I would feel this feeling I would be anxious about it keeping me up all night and then being tired at school. This feeling would then prevent me from sleeping and cause a cycle of sleep anxiety I would later grow out of. I grew older and the anxiety trickled into other things but the commonality of it all was my heart trying to break through the cage. My junior year of high school I wore a heart monitor for 2 days after thinking that MAYBE there could be an explanation for this, something to give me an answer that it wasn’t all in my head. They found nothing and also said that it was probably anxiety. People would always ask me “what are you anxious about?” and at that time the answer was nothing. But after years of my body telling my brain there was SOMETHING, the reasons began to get easier to find. 

I had another “attack” 3 months later. This time I was convinced that maybe it was an anxiety attack. I felt the tightness in my chest coming back and the hard, fast beating heart. I remember the feelings of my chest contracting and holding hostage the deep breaths that I so desperately wanted to take. I was working a shift at the busy restaurant in Scottsdale that I had worked at for around 6 months at the time when this all started to take place. I texted all of my friends to go home and get me my anxiety medicine that the doctors had given me after the first attack only to sit unopened on my bathroom counter. Then came the lightheaded, dizziness. I felt my legs starting to collapse under me and remember looking down at my apple watch to see my pulse at 178. I was able to leave work and take the anxiety medicine that I thought would instantly make all of the feelings go away. A couple hours passed and I realized that I was still feeling all of the same symptoms except now there was a new fogginess in my head from the anxiety medication. I felt deep down that this was not an anxiety attack.

I went back and forth in my head on whether or not I needed to go back to the hospital. And then I heard that little voice in my head speak up saying “trust yourself.” I heard her calmly and knew that I had no choice at this point but to listen. I remember calling my mom for the little push that I needed to go back to the hospital, and she told me that I needed to listen to my body. At the hospital they found that my white blood cells were back at 23,000 and the nurse told me that there was no way that an anxiety attack could elevate my white blood cells like that. (A nice side note is that the nurse’s daughter and I had the same birthday). She told me she was proud of me for trusting myself and I needed to keep advocating for answers. I felt like that was my sign that a lot of times we already know what’s wrong but we still go to others for the answers when all we need to do is listen to that voice in our head that we keep trying to silence. The doctors once again weren’t able to find what was causing my white blood cells to elevate, and to this day I still don’t exactly know why that kept happening. Maybe it was my body trying to wave the white flag hoping I would finally listen this time. Anyways, it was obvious that there was a relationship to my heart and I began a new journey on finding those answers. 

After the last hospital visit, I went to a cardiologist where it was discovered that the blood in my legs has a hard time getting to my heart in time and it causes my blood pressure to drop and my heart rate to rise. Additionally, after wearing a heart monitor for 2 weeks, it was discovered that I have an abnormal heart rate that will beat 4 fast beats in the middle of my normal rhythm. This isn’t all that uncommon, however, most people can’t feel it. And when you can feel it, it is something that is very annoying and commonly confused with anxiety. This feeling would happen to me often and when I would feel it I would think that I was anxious. It then became a cycle of fast beating heart → what am I anxious about? Then I would find something that I thought I was subconsciously anxious about and suddenly I had convinced myself how anxious I was about this thing. Now I have to compartmentalize where these symptoms are coming from. Did I feel the beating chest first and now I am anxious? Is this something I am actually anxious about or something that I feel like I SHOULD be anxious about? All of this to say; listen to yourself and to your body. I believe that the answers are all already inside of us if we just choose to listen to them and advocate on their behalf. 

Arizona for me has been a giant lesson in trusting myself. Trusting that when I come here I will find a job. Trusting that I will meet people that will guide me to new opportunities. Trusting that I will advocate for myself when something is not right. I have had so many examples of times where I could have listened to other people and at the end of the day made a different decision. A decision that wouldn’t have led me to some of my people. A decision that wouldn’t have taken me out of my comfort zone. Or a decision that wouldn’t have allowed me the chance to hear and trust that I already know the correct answers. I have had to learn that I need to sit in my feelings and listen to that little voice in the back of my head. The one that may seem quieter than the others but is the most confident, the most calm, the most unwavering. It’s important to realize that the loudest voice is not always the truest voice.

When I was thinking about moving to Arizona, I vividly remember hearing a voice in my head telling me “you have the tools.” This was a voice that was so strong. This was the entire reason that I knew that I needed to come because it left no room for second thoughts. I knew that I had put in the work that was going to bring me here to learn and accomplish what I needed to grow. This is the same voice that has convinced me to advocate for myself when my health was on the line. The same voice that told me things were going to work out when I got a new job in Chicago and made the decision to move across the country again. It sounds cliche, but the things that were meant to break me made me stronger. 

I think everyone should move across the country at least once. Do it, go, move. As my friend Taylor would say, “ jump.” It’s going to be scary but I think that it’s a lot less scary than waking up in 40 years and realizing that you have yet to live your life. It’s a lot less scary then always wondering what it WOULD have been like if you would have just taken the jump. So take it and take it now. Because you could choose to do it in 40 years, but why not get to know ourselves now? Why not figure out who we are when everything we know is different? I have realized by doing this that I am capable. If I am capable of moving across the country alone, with no job, and making it work. Imagine what I can do when I have more answers, when I’m even better at trusting myself. Imagine where I will be in a year because I did this last year. Imagine where you could be if you were to start right now. Today. Make the jump, and when you realize that you landed on your feet, make the jump again.