There is no magic trick.

“You, me, a floral dress and a bottle of wine – I’ll love those night walks forever!”, my witch giggles over my shoulder…
… And I blush, as I remember myself walking with my bottle of wine through sunset for most of the pandemic.

Recently, someone asked me for a help with a rather personal problem, and it made me revisit these moments. I remembered listening to the one and only album of Ex:Re so far. I remember sunsets that felt like forever. And I remember drinking a lot, for the world to blur away. For me to stop crying, or to be able to read my e-mails. It was a terrible time, but it also was so important, and I learned so much about myself.

“But?”, my witch giggles.
“What but?”
“Sounds like there was a but.”
There kind a is.

I was asked for advice to start doing things again. Things that seem too huge and have become impossible. And I realized that there was this hope to learn a magic trick from me, an experience that can change it all, and make it all easy again. They reminded me that I had overcome these things, and had started to live my life again, after long times of night walks and drinking.
And I did not know what to say.

Night walks and drinking where a dark kind of fun, where I explored my personal limits, and experimented with my connection to reality. It was an escape route, but at some point I could not escape anymore.
At some point, I just had to start doing things again.
And I know how tough that is.

When I thought that I could not ever start doing things again, and also realized that my drunk night walks had become a problem, I started to see a therapist, and it made my life hell. I actually needed a lot of time to recover from therapy!

My therapist sometimes asked me what would happen if I just did things again, and I talked about how terrible it could feel. So, he had me train myself into feeling less, based on a wrong diagnosis. What I did there was numbing myself. It had a long lasting effect. For a year or so, I needed to learn how to feel things again. Numbing is worse than pain.

So, I could not suggest to go and see a therapist. It is a 50/50 chance to either get better or much, much worse. I also could not suggest drinking and walking around at night, because that is rather unhealthy in the end.
I just couldn’t say anything.
Except to keep going.
And I remember how desperate I sometimes was. I was looking for such a magic trick. I thought there was something I needed to learn, to do. A key experience after which I could live again.
And there was not.
I just had to live all on my own again.

I did those things again that I was so paralyzed by. I read my E-mails, I took my exams. And I felt terrible. It was not a good experience. It just needed to be done.

In my theatre years, I once came across Tschechov’s play “The seagull”, and was impressed and puzzled by the character Nina, who came back into her hometown as the fallen girl that ran away with artists but was not successful and now lost. She states in her monologue that in the end it is about enduring. Or about keeping it going, if you read a different translation. Just about being there and still being alive, no matter how tough life gets.
At the age of 19, I was wondering if this was positive or negative. The other character in love with her was not so good at enduring and commits suicide at the end. And if we are simply enduring life, is that still living?
I still can’t tell, but sometimes, we just have to endure, for other things to hopefully start.
So after all the drinking night walks, the floral dresses much too cold for the weather at night, and the screaming, and singing, and exploring limits of what I can take … All I can say is that there is no magic trick. It’s about keeping it going. Enduring means feeling things. And feeling things, is the opposite of being numb. It is bad, it hurts, but at least it is there, and I am there. There is nothing worse than being there, but not feeling it anymore.

I think that quite often in life, it’s okay to not be okay. Things don’t have feel easy. They just have to be done. We don’t have to chase the perfect state of mind. We just keep going.

That’s why life is tough, but also full of surprises.
“And why wine was invented!”, my witch giggles into the night.