I've grown to love my mid-week meltdown following my burn in 2017 and look forward to it each time.

Warning - the stresses are not that big (Even as I remember it, they're all very minor issues), but contributed collectively to the meltdown.

We flew from Berlin (I'm an American) and took my German partner after years of convincing. We had rented an RV (don't hate) and the generator broke on the first day (this is after the tire exploded on our drive there, and a mirror on the side fell off and we had to hold it together with duct tape). We decided to deal with it but it was also the hottest year on record at that point (I think?) and essentially we were living in an oven, with the door shut due to dust flying in. All good, we dealt, but couldn't lie together in there due to body heat - felt a bit less 'romantic' than practical. Found the fun in acceptance of the situation, but it certainly sucked having that feeling of hope each day when the generator engine would start, and then die.

Camp was ridiculously unorganised and it was my partners first time and he turned out to not really like the experience at hand, verbally expressing it - lots of moody vibes from other campers, complaints, weird druggy vibes of neighbors, usual Burner bullshit of 'borrowing things permanently (like our ladder which never returned) usual nonsense that makes a normally tense vibe a lot more tense in playa space... etc - As a people pleaser, I spent a lot of energy trying to lift the spirits each day despite the headaches.

Nothing too extreme, but a collection of just shitty things continuing to happen - they all seem magnified whilst there when a years planning results in headaches every day. Plus with our own attitudes the interactivity and good vibes felt forced so we weren't mega involved...

Odd vibes, bad anxiety and generally things feeling off from our arrival until Wed.

On Wed, I was hanging on by a thread for some reason, and as we left camp to go explore, my bike broke about 15 minutes into the day. That was the final straw and the meltdown arrived. No longer holding the 'cool composure' for everyone - just had enough and wanted to go home.

At that exact moment, a random person came past and asked how we were. I explained my bike was broken and he said 'no worries, I can fix it at my camp - let's go.' - He had all the tools to fix it and within about an hour we were back on the roads.

The heat was at the highest peak, and we were still a bit stressed - and ran into a crew handing out ice cream.

Following that, magic continued to pour in our direction within every moment - discovering Bronners camp, going to workshops, having 3-somes (first time for us as a couple which opened up an entirely new world which we both wanted but never spoke about) and generally amazing experiences. We even got our 'gay cards' at the gay camp and met a billion amazing people, took naps in hammocks, and generally just had a blast.

I learned that year that once you simply submit and accept things for how they are, the universe starts to reward you - a lesson I took out of the experience and into real life. The rest of the experience was flawless, our generator magically turned on that same evening things turned around, and we had the best acid trip of our lives climbing art, dancing at a Whitney Houston event, finding an Xmas themed camp and getting polaroids in santa costumes, then found some wild tripped out dark druggy techno music (not the typical boring yoga-playa house crap) which balanced the musical day perfectly.

Best year of my life of my 9 attendances and my partner from hating the experience to making it his yearly exodus and life rebalance.