Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded

by Hannah Hart

Buffering is that time you spend waiting for the pixels of your life to crystallize into a clearer picture; it’s a time of reflection, a time of pause, a time for regaining your composure or readjusting your course. We all have a limited amount of mental and emotional bandwidth, and some of life’s episodes take a long time to fully load.

Was I myself only when I was with other people? Could I be myself alone? Did I have a self alone? I’d be fine. I just needed to take a walk. Walking always worked. Walk until you see a new perspective. Like an ant crawling along the surface of an orange. That’s what Mom always said. You may not see a way out, but you can always change your perspective.

My eyes hurt. I needed to look at something else. I walked into the desert, away from the burn and away from camp. It felt colder out there, and the lights from camp were specks on the horizon. Brighter than specks. The fires looked like fireflies from there, but they were nothing compared to the sky. Woah. I lay down on the playa to look at the stars. It was so dark, and the stars were so bright. I was alone. “But I’m not afraid,” I whispered into the night. I spread my arms out to make a dirt angel, feeling the earth below and the sky above me. “Thank you.” I heard something crack beside me. I thought of Mom again. You know what another word for fear is, Hannah? Intelligence.

That time, the gentleman offered me some advice for coping with feelings of fear. He said that when he got scared he just focused on the feeling of his body in the chair and thought of his breathing and of the air going into and out of his lungs. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was teaching me how to meditate.

Flying is a mutually agreed upon act of trust between passenger and pilot. And that’s kind of beautiful, when you think about it. So instead of filling the plane with your anxious energy, why not send out good vibes of calm and trust? Instead of distracting yourself or popping a Xanax, why not sink deep into the feelings and wade through them? If your heart is racing, slow your breathing. Don’t ignore your body just because your mind is scared. Your mind is a tool that can bring your body peace.

We do not have to have the number of homeless people on the street that we have. We should not teach our children that so many people are homeless because they have failed in society. The truth is that society has failed them.

Our society is stuck between problem and solution when it comes to treating mental illness. We cannot find a solution until we agree on the problem. And it is my humble opinion that the problem is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the misunderstood. Instead, let us seek to pursue knowledge over fear. Let’s find a way to save lives that can be saved. A wise woman once told me, “Another word for fear is intelligence.” So let’s get brave, and let’s get smart.