Today was rough. All morning and afternoon, I found myself teetering along an emotional knife-edge, often slipping into full-on freak-out mode. Instead of being thrilled to be on our land, or completely enamored by the fact that we're living our DREAMS... I was miserably questioning everything, wondering if we'd made a horrible mistake by deciding to move here.

The main reason for my wigging out—besides the emotional upheaval of leaving friends and family yet again, and the moodiness of being on my period, and the jarring shock of moving into a camper in the woods after two months of climate control, easy dishwashing, and hot showers—had to do with TICKS. When I found one buried in my arm, another crawling down my shirt, and still another in search of a nice spot to settle between my toes... I flipped.

I felt violated by the stupid f*cking blood-suckers, and I was terrified that I'd never be able to feel at ease in the place I'd chosen to spend the rest of my life. To pile on the anxiety, I was hyper paranoid about contracting lyme disease. Honestly, I wanted to run screaming from this tick-ridden hellhole and catch a bus back to "civilization."

By the end of the day, Tyler had talked me down from my tick-induced ledge of doom, and I was feeling more at peace about the whole situation. He agreed to help enact thorough tick-checks at the end of each work session, and I agreed to not obsess about the blood suckers further.

I know that living with ticks will feel normal eventually, and that someday I'll be able to pluck them off nonchalantly and think no more of it, but today was not that day.