I Am Still Alive

To survive you need to learn to hold contradictory things in your head at the same time. I am going to die; I am going to live. There is nothing to fear; be wary of everything.

You have to learn to assume that you will fail and assume that you will succeed at the same time. This is the only way to stay smart and careful and stay moving and motivated. You cannot give up and you cannot let up.

There is not a single second to spare on regret out here. One fish is gone. The other is still here. I have a fish and it doesn’t matter that ten seconds ago I had two. What I’ve got is what I’ve got.

And it is freeing, knowing that the forest does not care, does not judge. My failure will go unmarked—no mourning, no mockery.

I’ve already let go of the need to know precise time. There’s only the time it takes, Dad would probably say, if he were here to say anything at all.

Even though I’m starving, I feel queasy, an odd churning in my stomach. It takes me a minute to recognize it. I had the same feeling after the accident, when they told me Mom was dead.

My mind refuses to retrace my footsteps, to go further into the past than the night, the fire.

I didn’t want to think about my life before, because I loved it too much. Loved Mom too much. I could lock everything up and forget about it until it all healed over, however long that took.

They think I’m wounded, but there is a difference between a wound and a scar. I’m done bleeding. I’m tougher now. And if these scars sometimes make things stiff, make it a little harder to move smoothly through a conversation or the routines of normal life, they just keep me from forgetting.

For the first time in my life, there are no expectations of me at all. The only thing that matters is what I want, what I can do.

Here the sounds that wrapped around me were wild sounds and the smells were wild smells and there was no light to stain the sky except the sun.

I look at the wall where those first words - SMART, NOT STRONG - have been joined by dozens more. Pay attention to the wind. Steep drop west of the snag. Say something out loud at least once a day. Remember they’re coming.

Fire is warmth and food and clean water, but it’s hard and time-consuming, and people die because they spend all their time making the fire and no time finding water or building a shelter.