Dear Anxiety, Please {Get Lost}

My heart is racing. Hands, trembling. My mind is whirring and I already know I won’t fall asleep for another two hours. Anxiety, you cruel, cruel mistress. Mistress isn’t the right word, because mistress conjures up excitement, mystery, temptation.

This? This is not any of those things. This is fear, loneliness, emptiness, being misunderstood. This is worry. So, so, so, much worry that it pounds from my head to my heart to the ever-growing pit in my stomach and all the way down to my toes, whose nails I picked off earlier in round one of this daily boxing match.

I don’t know why anxiety found me tonight.

I was doing so well. I was meditating. I was planning. I was avoiding alcohol—sweet, tantalizing alcohol—to keep this feeling at bay.

I feel the tears springing up in the corner of my eyes. I wish it would go away. I wish it would escape my body, float out the window inches above my head, and never return. So I could feel normal. And happy. And calm. And content, like so many others. So many others seem content.

It wasn’t my material. I performed well. The audience enjoyed it.

But I was on autopilot. My face knew what to do. Eyes: twinkle. Cheeks: smile. Lips: flash those pearly whites. I feigned eye contact with multiple audience members, making them believe I was truly connecting with them. I was so far out of my body.

I didn’t fit in with the others. And that’s okay. It’s just not where I belong.

But then where? Where do I fit in? Who will accept me? And more importantly, when they do, will I ever be able to believe they truly enjoy my presence?

Will I ever be able to walk away from a social interaction without wondering if I made that person’s day worse?

That I overdid it in one way or the other? That I was too much? Do I always expect too much?

The trembling has gotten worse. The tears have made it to my jaw line. I don’t think I ever described my own jaw line. Do women have jaw lines? My breath is shallow and if I make the wrong move, this could get out of control fast.

What scares me is this: this feeling, this ever-exhausting, terrifying feeling, that’s so out-of-control and chaotic that the idea to ever have it fully under control, seems implausible. And it’s this: this demon that will be my downfall. This fucking goddamn paralyzing, perplexing, undeniable, permanent anxiety will prevent me from getting me to where I want to be.

It won’t be my ideas; I have infinite ideas. It won’t be my work ethic; my parents gave me a good one. It won’t be my passion; my notebooks can prove it. And it won’t be my talent; I’ve finally accepted that I have some.

But it will be this. This thump, thump, thump, of my heart, the rapid inhale-exhale of my breath, this whirrrr-ever-whirrring of my brain that will drag me down into a deep, deep, cavern of doubt so incredibly deep that I won’t be able to climb back out. I don’t have the upper body strength. I used to have upper body strength.

It must disappear. I must find a way for it to disappear.