A Garden on the Screen. A Fire in the Room.

Has it ever happened to you where you’re minding your own business and the nastiest thoughts come crashing into you?

I was in my hotel, cocooned in artificial calm. Sprawled across the oversized sofa, feet up on the glass coffee table, I was having the kind of quiet, predictable day I usually crave. I should have felt calm. But I didn't.

I had surrendered myself to one of my favorite YouTube channels, The Perennial Garden, with hosts Allen and Lars. They were strolling through their Danish garden, showing off what's blooming in springtime with upbeat and fun voices. A safe place. That's when it crept in.

Thinking back, I felt it coming, slowly, inch by inch from my core. Like a heat building behind a wall. I told myself it would stay small. That I'd smother it like I had done so many times before. I was wrong. That day was different. It was the eruption.

The fire in the room

It grabbed me without asking. "What are you doing with your life? it whispered. "You’re wasting away."

I didn’t move. I paused. Calculating the best formula for a quick escape. Anything to abort what was erupting inside of me. “If I just turn the volume up", I thought. "If I drown it with Allen and Lars' voice, with dahlias and whimsical garden paths..."

Too late. It’s in my lungs now.

Slowly, it turned my face toward its own. I looked into empty pits, reflective like black glass. It roared, “you are rotting away.”

I tried guarding myself, but its force was too strong by then. I couldn’t get away. That’s when it dawned on me: my refuge had been compromised and there was nowhere else to run.

“You’re hurting me!” I shrieked. Determined, it kept going, growing, engulfing my hotel room. Twelve hundred square feet vanished beneath a suffocating smoke. There was no more space left for me. Lounging day is over. The monster caught up to me after weeks of evading it.

“How long are you going to keep being a failure?” it escalated.

Its voice was everywhere. Bouncing off the walls, sinking into my being. It knew things. All of my shortcomings. It kept records!

“Remember the job interview?" It sneered. "They asked your expected salary and you aimed too high. And you actually thought they’d call you back. Of course they didn't call you back. Pathetic!"

I clenched my eyes shut.

"And that time you got scammed out of $1,000?” it continued, delighted.

“Or selling your home for way less than it was worth because you thought you were doing the right thing? You didn't have the spine to stand your ground!"

Each word burned more than the fire in the room. Flames licked at my feet and curled through my gut. I couldn't breathe.

"All those days you stayed inside", it went on, relentlessly, "instead of promoting and growing your business? Too many examples of you failing!” It shouted. 

There. I was swallowed whole.

All I had wanted that day was to relax and watch Allen and Lars stroll through their garden of Eden. To see the new varieties Lars had planted flourish. Everything was in bloom in their well-established backyard. But this thing tore through my joy like a vandal, setting ablaze everything that seemed fireproof.

"Leave me alone!" I murmured. My body folded inward. I wanted to fight it. I tried to stand, but the monster weighed down my spine. 

"Leave so I can continue watching my favorite YouTubers," I mumbled. "That's my escape from reality."

“Exactly!” It shrieked. “All you do is escape! So, don’t you dare be surprised when I come to collect.”

Its voice echoing through the living room: “Your dreams are grand and bright. You want to catapult yourself and your family to new heights but you are weak! Who will realize those dreams if you’re so lazy?”

I collapsed, sobbing on the floor with my face pressed into my palms. Tears splattered onto the glass coffee table, leaving smeared constellations behind. “Why did you say that? Why are you persisting with such painful words? You’re not here to help. Get out! I don’t need this now. I want peace.” I couldn’t hear Allen over the TV anymore. The screen might as well have been black. There was only the raging monster and me, huddled on the floor, cold with loneliness.

I whispered for a savior to come rescue me. “Please help me!” I whispered once, then twice. I rocked my body back and forth, like a child abandoned in an adult body.

“Stop crying!" It snapped, locking eyes with my soul. "Stop pleading for a savior! No one is coming.”

There was no regard for my well-being. Its presence was all-consuming.

For the twenty-six minutes of the episode, my world collapsed. The monster set me ablaze with facts sharpened into weapons. The more it talked, the more I believed what those facts supposedly proved about me. Worse, I helped. I even created memories. I fed it more failures. I replayed abandoned plans: the fashion rental business that fizzled, the vacation property idea that died before it breathed.

It's not the first time it has come with that intensity. But twenty-six minutes is a record!

“You keep consuming instead of creating," it said coldly. "You’ll deteriorate. You were never meant to sit and watch Allen and Lars! And for as long as you remain passive, I live wherever you are. I don’t need your permission to be your mirror.”

So, there, on the floor I stayed. I’m not sure how long it took for the smoke to thin, for the darkness to retreat. Eventually, the day ended and I went to bed. I survived.

Fast forward weeks later, back home, I asked myself the questions I was too broken to ask then:

What purpose do you serve?

Why did you show up when I was at rest?

Could you have talked to me without hurting me?

I had mistaken escape for relief. A change of scenery can you give you space, but it can’t do the emotional work for you. I had spent weeks avoiding what was happening inside me, and when it finally caught up with me, it had a backlog of material to use against me.

Next time, I’ll try to notice the feelings without immediately believing every thought that comes with them.

I don’t have to believe every voice that knows my history.

Until next time, somewhere within,

Emi

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