I’ve been successfully trying not to have a panic attack since Thursday. I wake up and feel the lump of it in my throat. I take deep breaths, and go to work, and go to the gym, and I feel it lingering behind me, like a demon ready to pounce if I drop my guard. I haven’t dropped my guard yet. I’ve been tense for days. My joints are begging for release. My jaw aches from grinding my teeth. It started Thursday at the gym, when I biked for five minutes as a warm up, heart soaring great heights above normal, soaking my shirt with heaving sobs. Don’t ask me what I was crying about, I don’t know. Maybe it was sensory overwhelm. Maybe it’s the week leading into my period, which frequently makes my hormones feel completely out of whack. Maybe last week was the three year anniversary of my grandmother’s death, and I’m still processing that, or trying not to process it, or thinking about it constantly, or trying not to think about it at all. Maybe it’s the busy season, and I’ve been working overtime since December, and I’m running on cookie enthusiasm and joy and the kind of exhaustion that makes me feel alive, but that doesn’t mean I’m not tired. Maybe I haven’t been okay since December and the fucking holidays in the islands of grief.1 Maybe it’s my divorce, and the pandemic, and maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe it’s easier to keep playing guessing games, intellectualizing, and trying to outsmart my feelings.

Maybe I’ve never been okay. Maybe I came into this world, kicking and screaming, constantly ready for a fight with a body that’s so often stuck in a freeze response. Maybe okay doesn’t exist. Maybe I’m exhausted because I’m still trying to cram myself into a limited social notion of what normal is, what conventional is, what I’m supposed to want, who I’m supposed to be. Maybe, at my core, I still believe that I’ll never belong, and I feel ashamed and disappointed that I’m walking further and further away from fitting in. Core beliefs take a long time to dissolve, and I’m still working on it. Maybe I’m the most mentally stable I have ever been but I keep discounting it because I still don’t trust myself.

I should be hungry to move out of my parents house. After all, I’ve been divorced for three years, have never lived on my own. I should be on a better career path. I should be more ambitious. I should be aiming for management. I should go back to school. I should quit being such a disappointment. I should go on a diet. I should lose forty pounds, and then maybe some. I should dress like an adult. I should buy another cardigan. I should read more. I should look into the eyes of toddlers and feel the pang of baby fever.2 I should invest more of my money. I should meal prep. I am trying hard to excavate my desires from the weight of everyone else’s shoulds.

I want to meet my poetry friends in person, as many of them as possible. I want to make pierogies with Yoda, and listen to Kate’s music, and dance to Taylor Swift with Catherine, and go to happy hour with Nicole and so much fucking more. I want to improve my cardio so that the forty five second dance parties in my room can go on longer without needing a breathing break. I want to paint a butterfly mural on a wall. I want to buy art supplies and actually use them. I want to play more video games.3 I want to cook elaborate meals for no reason other than it’s fun. I want to make cake just because it’s Tuesday. I want to do power cleans and carry heavy kettlebells and pick strawberries and then make a pie. I want to eat the pie, warm, with ice cream, while watching television with my parents. I want to spend more time with my people. I want the people I love to know just how much I love them. I want to stop apologizing for how hard I love. I want to host a writing workshop, and then another one. I want to marathon Gilmore Girls with Megan, and geek out over Hamilton with Diana. I want to make Sunday brunch for a man I love. I want to believe that great love is out there for me. I want sex that smells like sweat and maple syrup. I want to feel joy in my own body without shame or the desire to contort myself into someone else.