One of the most important tasks of
a map is to identify the dangerous places. Landslides, impossibly strong
currents, jagged rocks – we mark down where they are, so the people who come
after us can know to stay away. Some choose to venture in anyway, but the map
helps them know they need to be cautious.
There are
days when my entire head seems to be a dangerous place. There are hurts so old
and deep that the resulting emotional scar tissue rises up like mountains.
Waves of emotion will crash into me at unpredictable moments, strong enough to
send even the toughest ship off course. Monsters of panic lurk in the shadows,
always ready to send their claws at my throat.
I started
mapping the inside of my head when I was in high school, trying to time the
waves so I would at least know what direction they were going to toss me in. It
took me years of careful, methodical study before I could predict them as well
as the tides, trying to organize my life so that my tasks best suited my
emotional state and forgiving myself when I couldn’t. Learning to let the water
only carry me so far, and to never forget how off course I was.
Those years
added more details to the map, cautious expeditions into the thickets of fear
and careful outlines of the boundaries of the pits of self-doubt. I know the
shape of my scar-tissue mountains, and have carefully outlined a few careful
trails that will let me navigate the foothills without getting caught in an
unclimbable area or falling to my death. I have marked many of the places where
panic waits, and though I can’t avoid it I am no longer surprised.
None of
this has razed the mountains, cleared the jungles or defeated the monsters
waiting for me. The purpose of a map is only to identify what’s already there,
leaving the choice of what to do with it to the person reading. It’s a light in
the darkness, not a weapon.
But oh, how
I need that light. The world is still a terrifying place, full of uncertainty
and things that want to hurt me, but over the years I have stopped being afraid
of myself. I know the contours of my mind as I know few other things, and even
the dangers have become as familiar to me as the walls of my bedroom. I have
learned how to navigate them, and because of that they are no longer enough to stop
me from exploring the wild, beautiful places my mind contains as well. Any
jungle has its treasures as well as its dangers, and if you watch for them both
there is no place that’s closed to you.
I’m not quite there yet. There are still a few
shadowy places that I’m not brave enough to venture in, too uncertain what I’ll
find once I cross beyond the boundaries of what I know. But I will, one day.
A map maker
doesn’t like blank places.
