Shambhala.
A music festival I used to frequent back in my days of excessive drinking and recreational drug use. My first year, back in 2005, there was a running quest for the “rabbit hole”. Whether or not it does or ever existed is an ongoing debate. Maybe it’s real; maybe it’s just in your own mind. Either way, I found it.
I’ve changed a lot since then. My last time on “the farm” was 2011, and up until this past winter, I never thought I would be back.
But something in my life had shifted. Like I found something I didn’t know I had lost. Something opened up inside and a new appreciation of music sprang forth and suddenly, I felt like dancing!
OK, maybe it was just my Spotify subscription paired with an open floor plan. But whatever it was, I frequently imagined myself back on the dancefloor this summer. I mean, I work online, after all, so I can kinda do what I want and not have to worry about how I use my vacation time. That’s why I do what I do 🙂
So here I am at Shambhala once again. Sitting in my car with a drink of contraband vodka, settling in to tell you the story of how I ended up here after all these years.
It starts with a lemon. No, Life did not give me lemons. I bought one. I fucking bought one. It wasn’t a hasty decision by any means and I was so very careful, but it was rotten inside so I had to move on. My recipe for lemonade: living the best life I can, which is why I’m on this trip. If you haven’t guessed yet, the lemon is a metaphor and the story of how I came to purchasing a lemon is a whole other bowl of fruit. You can read about it my Ramblings.
Returning to BC after a winter in Mexico was exciting! I love BC & I love Mexico. I truly get the best of both worlds. My living situation landed me in a 19′ trailer on my parent’s property which wasn’t exactly ideal for any of us but it was just how it worked out. The lake is my favourite place in the world, so living there for 5 months should be a dream come true. Except I’m 40 and we live well over an hour from town. (read: cabin fever!)
It doesn’t suck, but it’s not how I imagined it would be either. While I am known to really quite prefer being alone, living with my parents and so far from town and the general public feels like a roundhouse-kick to my independence. The point is, being devoid of pretty much any possibility of a social situation, combined with work not picking up as much as I had hoped, combined with the constant disappointment from that goddamn lemon, made for a summer without any magic. I always say it’s best to have low expectations in order to avoid disappointment, but I’m only a nihilist on the outside. It’s easier to let people think I am. It’s a protective layer that keeps me real when I’m actually just a pulsating ball of anxiety & fear on the inside.
This story begins with the realization that no matter how carefully you shelter your heart, there are shallow, self-serving people out there who will find a way in. And being an honest person makes one a target for dishonest people – liars, cheaters, narcissists, sociopaths, anyone with more ego than soul. They are lurking in the shadows, salivating, waiting to cash in on your moment of weakness. After a while, you think you can tell when you’re dealing with a complete asshole, but they can be sneaky-sneaky, and I failed again.
After 5 years almost entirely devoid of any sort of intimate relationship or romantic connection (yeah, TMI but very relevant to this whole story), and 2.5 of those with my nihilistic approach to avoiding feelings altogether, the knee-jerk reaction to this major disappointment was to scurry back into my closely guarded “feelings-fort”, lock the door, and throw the key into the ocean. But you know what? Life is short. Life is really fucking short! I think it’s easy to forget that there are no do-overs, and Hollywood has distorted our perception of reality on that.
So I figured it was time to be proactive. I’ve got plenty of time to be dead later, but while I’m above ground, I’d like to be alive, not just existing waiting for life to start happening. No one is 6 ft under thinking “Gee…I’m sure glad I always made the most responsible decision” or “thank goodness I always did what I thought other people wanted so they wouldn’t judge me”, or “Yes, I made the right decision living in fear of being hurt. At least they buried me with my cats…JOY”.
The first step was to realize that there was no way I could have created a different outcome in this recent “event” of the heart. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I could have done to be a better person, how else I could have catered to the other’s needs, maybe I wasn’t attractive enough or interesting enough, wracking my brain to figure out what I had done SO wrong, that I deserved to be lied to…over and over and over. The truth is, the only thing I needed to change was how hurt I was going to allow myself to be over someone else’s shallow behaviour. I was basing my self-worth on whether or not I was “good enough” for one of the lowest life forms: The liar/cheater.
The second step was to look at the big picture and come up with a long-term plan. That meant realizing it wasn’t in the cards to come back to BC next summer. I have 2 cats, and finding a rental of ANY kind is damn near impossible, but throw in some pets and ask for a 5-month lease and you can pretty much forget it. Believe it or not, I thought I would just hang out in the USA for summer and see if there is a better chance of finding summer accommodations. But then I thought, if I get my shit together and stop moping, I could qualify for a temporary residency in Mexico which would open up a whole new world of possibilities!
The third step was to push myself every minute of every day to not be so depressed and to think positive. It’s hard, but if it were easy, everyone would be doing it, and the world would be a very different place.
The fourth step was action! Nothing was going how I had planned. So what? Make a different plan! It’s wonderful to have such freedom of choice. Sometimes, feeling like you’re getting a shit-kicking from life can be the all the inspiration you need. It was for me.
The fifth step was to remember that the universe will always provide the answers, but you have to listen, especially when it isn’t giving the answers you want to hear.
So the plan was to go for a drive. Partly because driving is an amazing therapy for me. Partly because I needed to get out in the world and interact with other humans in a natural environment. Partly to network with business owners in order to gain new clients. Partly because I needed to infuse some sort of magic into this summer & make some memories. There is no excuse to live in a place as amazing as BC and NOT have any good stories to tell!
The timing of the trip would land on the week of Shambhala. At first, I thought about which route would be best to avoid it and any traffic from it. But then I thought…..what if I went? I could buy a day pass for Sunday for $160, which is out of my budget, but with a future of such uncertainty, I chose to live in the moment! This trip is to address a lot of feelings, not just recent, but old ones too. Could I just go all by myself and still expect to have a good time? Um…fuck yes, I could! I’ll let you know how that goes. It’s only 6:30pm.
And with that, I think it’s time to go. The farm is “waking up” for the legendary blow-out of Sunday night. THIS is why I am here. Time to go shake out the cobwebs!
