The Burrow Blog

Sunday, October 19th, 2025

I thought Cosmos were included on this Voyage!

If you want to feel dramatic while reading this, I encourage listening to this while reading. There’s also this cool option if you want to feel like everybody wants to rule the world. Come on…you know you want to. But to make it clear, you're not being peer-pressured to listen by any means.

When we talk about being on a voyage, we like to imagine it’s something glamorous — a bougie sailing charter gliding across the Charleston Harbor, and we’re dressed up for cute photos, relaxed, and sipping on a Cosmo (yes, my drink of choice just like Carrie Bradshaw…judge free zone here) or a glass of Prosecco like we have it all figured out and look like were living our best life.

We think, “Oh, this is going to be such a fun journey! And wherever I land next? Obviously will be clutch.”

But here’s the twist: when it comes to the voyage of our personal lives — improving your mental health, fighting for that job promotion, or waiting for that guy to finally text you back about the second date — it’s rarely a luxury cruise.

It’s more like that Wolf of Wall Street moment — Leonardo DiCaprio screaming that the jet skis just went overboard. You know the one. Yeah. That’s us, trying to “trust the process.”

Because everyone loves to say it: “Trust the process, trust the process, trust the process.” Or the classic, “You’ll be fine! You’ve got all these amazing qualities!” I think we can all agree there have been times where we have heard this before, and it just made us want to scream rather than comfort us. But when the sea gets rough and we just think to ourselves what the actual hell, it’s hard not to feel like we’ve been sold a very sparkly scam.

Okay, Harry Potter moment. It's sort of the same vibes when Harry, Ron and Hermione were traveling to find those damn horcruxes and stop Voldemort from taking over the Wizarding World. Anyone else remember that awkward fight that happened between Harry and Ron? Yeah...that's the inner dialogue that happens..and it sucks. No guys, like really, really sucks. 

I mean, we signed up for a journey, not a mutiny. And I couldn’t help but wonder… why don’t we ever talk about how horrific the process can actually be? Is it because we don’t want to scare anyone else off, and have fingers come back at you for discouraging someone? Or because we think if we admit it’s hard, we’ll jinx ourselves into a shipwreck?

Of course, we all want our happily ever after. But maybe it’s time to admit — sometimes the “process” is less Eat, Pray, Love and more “Eat, Cry, Caffeinate.”

They say captains go down with their ships, but honestly — would you really let your own ship sink? If someone came up and said, “The waves are bad, abandon ship!” while you’re still afloat ...would you just leap overboard? That would be like baking a batch of cookies (that were a pain in the ass to make), and then not even taking a bite. You wouldn’t just be hungry — you’d be hangry and furious. You didn’t go through all that crap for nothing.

Sure, maybe things don’t go as planned. But don’t our ships always end up somewhere?

Let’s take my man Superman (and yes, Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill are forever the best versions for the films, Tom Welling for TV series — I will kindly argue if someone disagrees, but please, let’s all stay emotionally regulated).

When he was learning to fly, it wasn’t like, “Oh hey, I can fly now, yay!” He had to practice. He fell hard, really freaking hard. But he got back up. Sure, Jor-El was there with his intergalactic dad speeches, but ultimately, Superman had to lift himself. He could’ve sat there in his tight little blue outfit and said, “Screw this, I’m not saving the world today.” But he didn’t. He trusted himself enough to do the damn thing. Here's evidence if you're wondering...and come on...you know he's a little dreamy to look at. 

And then there’s my man Sam from Lord of the Rings — 99 percent confident he is me in hobbit form. Because let's face it, we are loyal, big-hearted, and just nice dammit. And yes, rocking a few curves because well… we like POE-TAY-TOES.

In The Two Towers, he talks about those scary stories — the ones we’re afraid to finish because we don’t know if they’ll end well. He says, “How can the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?” But then he reminds us: it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. If you're up for having a lot of feelings right now, here you go. 

Those are the stories that stay with us. The ones where the heroes had every reason to turn back, but didn’t. They kept going. And that, my friends, is one hell of a voyage worth staying on.

So to conclude, I couldn’t help but wonder…

When Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel for four years, do you think he never muttered, “Screw this, I’m going home?” Or did he know, somewhere deep in his exhausted artist soul, that maybe the cracks and the chaos were part of creating something so epic it would go on beyond his lifetime?

Maybe if we can remind ourselves that dark clouds don’t last forever — that one day, the sea will calm, the skies will clear, and the sun will hit just right then maybe, just maybe, we’ll start to believe that something beautiful is waiting for us on the other side.

Because sure, sometimes our dreams crash, burn, and ghost us without explanation. But does that mean the voyage is over? Or… is it just the course changing direction?

And when the waves rise, and the wind screams, and the future feels foggy as hell, you hold steady. Because the crew that's working hard for you is actually this: your courage, your hope, your passion, and even the parts that are afraid — they’re all trusting you to steer.

Because here's the common misconception: the storm doesn’t mean you’re lost. It just means you’re finally moving, just at a pace you might not enjoy. 

And just like that…

I realized, maybe the bravest thing any of us can do isn’t to find calm waters. It's just keep going, just keep freaking going man. Do we really want to just stop and stay stuck at sea? Hell no, we are getting on an island (snap your fingers after reading that line...gives a little umph friends, or it's okay, be boring). 

Welcome to my blog, from your Mount Pleasant/Charleston gay male therapist!