probably a metaphor

I drove the rugged golden circle of Iceland. I tripped acid barefoot in the rain. I slept in the choir loft of an empty church on the Outer Banks. 

When I feel depressed or worthless, one of the conscious defense mechanisms I employ is listing the things that I have done in life. I list my accomplishments until I realize I'm a strong person. I am, in effect, exhibiting evidence. 

I drank on an abandoned skyscraper in Pittsburgh. I meditated for a month in a Buddhist monastery. I screamed into the grand canyon.

This process works. It doesn't fix me or anything, or judo-flip me back into a good mood, but it's a brake before I go off the edge. It's treading water, and if I find myself doing this a lot, I know I need to book a therapy appointment, or hit the gym, or really focus on myself in a positive way. It's hard to force myself to self-care sometimes.  

I got drunk on sake at an izakaya in Kyoto. I spent a week staying with nomads on a road trip across the Mongolian steppe. 

I'm a recovering cutter. It's important I stay on top of this stuff. Single men my age neglect this stuff. We don't talk about it, we don't advocate, we don't put in that labor. It's so much easier to just roll over and give up. I have to stay on top of it. It can beat me, but only if I let it. The loneliness, the worthlessness, can get unbearable. 

I went to a Balkan wedding and danced to gypsy horns. I smoked hookah beneath a sunset full of seagulls on a rooftop in Istanbul.

I don't value myself. Not intrinsically. Paradoxically, I value the things I have done. Is that a masculine thing, to value oneself based on the work I do and what I can provide? On my accomplishments? Or is this a capitalist thing? Any way, I did all of these things so that I could feel valuable. I don't feel it otherwise. I barely have a sense of self unless I can see my own wake. It's why I moved abroad. 

I sang karaoke in a shanty-town in the Philippines. I made love on the floor of my attic while a band played on the floor beneath us. 

I remember starting this as a teenager. I'd take these intensely long walks just to feel something. They were pilgrimages, looking back. A hajj to myself. I started doing things so that I could say "I'm the sort of person who does this." I started doing this just so that I could have the story later, so I could have something to look back on and know who I was. 

I passed out, drunk and in my own vomit, in an alley in Korea. I wept until the capillaries in my face burst. I overdosed on antidepressants. 

It's been over a year since I've gone anywhere or done anything. 

I can't lose myself.