So Long Story Short; My Body Pulled The Emergency Break

Sooo, I unexpectedly took a few days—just a little pocket of time away from everything. I didn’t really plan it, and I don’t think I even noticed at first that I had stepped back. It was more like I looked up and realized I had quietly slipped out of the constant noise for a minute, but clearly I needed it. I needed some time away, or some time off, from constantly trying to keep going, and untangle things, and somehow keep a hand on a little bit of everything at once. And when I say everything, I mean, oh boy... everything. The kind of everything that stacks up in your head until even the smallest thought feels like one more box balanced on top of a leaning tower.

I’ve been trying to understand what actually needs my attention, what deserves all of my focus, and how to hold that focus without squeezing it so tightly that I overwhelm myself—even though, honestly, I was already overwhelmed. My mind felt like a room with every light on, every screen playing something different, and me standing in the middle trying to decide which one to turn toward first. I’ve definitely been trying my best to do the best that I can, but I’m also starting to notice, again, that I am only human. I mean, yeah, I know that. I get it. I totally know that’s a thing: I am only human. I can say it so many times, and I can feel the truth of it hovering somewhere nearby, but it still doesn’t always—how do I say it?—really click for me.

At least not in the moment. It doesn’t always sink in that I’m allowed to be human, that I’m going to make mistakes, and that I can’t keep every plate spinning perfectly without eventually hearing one wobble. I know I make mistakes. I know I’m not perfect. I know X, Y, and Z and the whole alphabet after that, but at the same time, I’m still just trying to figure it all out while I’m already in motion. I think it was two or three days where I mostly slept, took naps, and tried to recalibrate and recuperate after days of not sleeping enough and pushing myself to keep up with so much. The days blurred together a little—heavy eyelids, quiet rooms, waking up and realizing my body still wanted more rest. I guess my body finally made the decision for me and said, okay, we need to stop for a minute. Like it had reached over, pulled the emergency brake, and refused to let me keep speeding forward. So that’s what I did. I rested, even if I didn’t fully realize that rest was what I had been needing.

So I’m just saying, like, hey—I’m going to keep trying my best to do my best. I know I’m doing a lot. Even I can step back, look at the pile of plans, ideas, half-finished pieces, and all the invisible threads tying them together, and say, okay, yeah, this is a lot. But I’m still trying to do as much as I can, as quickly as I can—not fast just for the sake of being fast, not just throwing things out the door and hoping they land, but, well... yeah, fast, while also making sure I do it as well as I possibly can. I want to get everything to you guys, along with all the other things I’m working through, working on, and trying to put together. I don’t know; I’m just trying to take this crowded, tangled world in my head and translate it into something that makes sense outside of my head—something you can actually see, follow, and maybe even feel—and I’m trying to do that in the best way I know how.

Hopefully, it all starts making sense soon—or maybe the pieces will click into place as the story unfolds. You know what I mean? I think you will. I mean, umm, it’s going to be a long story. Well... long story short, this is... this is… well, it isn’t really a long story in the traditional sense. Actually, it’s not a short story either. It keeps circling that idea: not short, not short at all, “long story short,” except it’s RHIStory & it's going to be long—that’s what I meant, that’s the phrase I was reaching for, or at least I think it is. Long story short. Or maybe I’m not even using it right. I was about to turn this into a post, something for an article or a blog, ready to go, ready to hit publish, but I kept going back to it, thinking about it again and again throughout the day, really the whole day, because of course it feels like a long story.

Beyond that, though, there’s this feeling like being led down a path where one thing connects to another—some people call them breadcrumbs, some call it the universe guiding things, others say it’s just the way things are meant to unfold, whatever that actually means. I think I understand it, or at least I think I do when I think about following those breadcrumbs. Whenever I imagine it, I picture Hansel and Gretel, those kids following the trail in the woods, and honestly, if I were them I’d probably follow it too, especially if I was lost and hungry, even though I know I drifted off there for a moment.

But the idea is that in life, one thing leads to another: a post, a video, a picture, a message, a small detail like a rock or a twig, and suddenly you’re on a path you didn’t fully plan for. And I need to pause there for a second because what I’m really saying is that tonight I got led down a road that wasn’t exactly pleasant or sweet, more like something intense, sticky, and even a bit frightening, and I’m trying to sit with that without pretending it’s simple. I’m feeling a lot from what I saw and went through, and even what I feel right now is heavy.

I keep trying to hold it together, not even intentionally, just kind of automatically, trying to be “strong” in quotes, or air quotes—no, that’s not a typo, I just need and want you to imagine the bunny fingers thing… 🦋 (And okay, that butterfly right there... remember the breadcrumbs and the path? Well, that’s my mom, she’s the butterfly.) Even though I’m not sure I’m actually holding it together in any meaningful way. I’m just trying to understand what I’m feeling, while noticing my own words as I type them, and it’s overwhelming. It’s strange because I know I’m human, not a robot or anything like that, imperfect and not following any script, and in some way I’m trying to make sense of who I used to be versus who I feel like I am now. I know that probably doesn’t land clearly, but it makes sense to me. I used to feel emotions in a different way before trauma, and I’m not saying it all appeared randomly or that it’s only one thing, because there’s been a lot in my life.

If someone is new here, just stumbling across this or listening while it’s read aloud, especially with something like ADHD and anxiety where reading itself can become difficult and blocking, accessibility tools like speech features matter a lot. And it also frustrates me when platforms remove accessibility tools without warning, as if people can just keep going the same way, or when something is offered as helpful and then suddenly becomes expensive or restricted, which feels really unfair. It reminds me of how support systems in general sometimes appear and then disappear or become harder to access, like therapy or medication or other forms of help that are supposed to support healing and progress, but don’t always stay consistent.

I know I sound like I’m moving across a lot of topics, but that scattered feeling is kind of the point of “long story short,” except it ends up being long anyway. I also think about having something like HSAM, where memory keeps everything stored, every detail, and while that might sound useful, it doesn’t feel that simple or good in practice. And then I catch myself while talking, realizing I’m doing it again—going too fast, shifting directions, trying to breathe through it. I’m not trying to suppress anything, just trying to understand it, even as I feel chills and a sense of emotional overload while writing and speaking this out. I also find myself trying to say things I’ve never really said out loud in this way before, noticing how things seem to connect back together in my mind. I even started forming this idea of “RHIStory,” which I describe as history shaped into a personal narrative—R for Roberto or Roberto & Riley, HIS as “his,” and then R-HIS-Tory combining into something like my story, or our story, or history with a personal lens, something that could even be used in different ways for different people, like a shared framing of experience. 

As I keep writing this, I notice again that I’m not really wrapping it up, even though it feels like I should say I am. It feels strange to even say that, because I’m still in it, still processing, still reflecting on a lot of intense memories and moments I’ve been sorting through, including old recordings and experiences tied to a difficult time that I don’t think I’ll ever fully forget. This is part of what I understand as a healing or mental recovery process, even if it feels messy and ongoing. I’m not trying to unload everything all at once, but I am acknowledging that I’ve learned and lost a lot through this process of being open and trying to understand things. And even now, I’m still trying to describe a kind of numbness that isn’t exactly a feeling but also isn’t nothing, more like something I can’t quite access or fully define, if that makes sense at all.

Sooo it’s definitely been a long, not a short story or even a timeline of the time I will finally be able to… breathe? Or feel, or if just anything be… be able to be happy & get to—happiness, but home and happiness… 

Okay, now I’m done for now because I have now said this or typed this in a way, well, in this way typing with my own fingers and looking back at the screen and my chest feeling like:

BREATHE-ROBERTO! LET THE AIR OUT AND IN

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So that’s my sign to paws and continue to take it—one paw at a time.