It’s been a bad week for anxiety. Just now it got so bad that I left the house and wandered barefoot on the road while dissociating. It just stormed at the lake, so it was just the still, dripping quiet. The tapping of rain on leaves and the wet slap of the soles of my feet the only tethers to the material world.
Yesterday on the drive here, Mom and I talked about chance. The chance of existing at all, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time when you die. A freak rockfall, an errant deer, entire lives lost in the slot of a 30-second choice. I remember feeling somehow protected, some odd preternatural sense of assurance, and also an odd sense of ominous foreboding, like the conversation was some kind of harbinger. Two hours later, a deer jumped in front of my car. We lived. But it felt like an odd sign. I’ve felt a weird sense of those lately. Like the universe is whispering something I can’t hear in a language I don’t understand.
Today I watched the storm roll over the lake before the heavens opened up. I faced down the storm, watched it barreling toward me, the silver mists limning the distant trees, and knew there was no way to stop the imminent rain. And still I stood there. Feet rooted. I thought about the inevitability of suffering, of challenge and difficulty. I felt so at peace, and still anxiety won’t unfasten its claws from my body. It trails me from the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep. I thought being home would help with the panic, but it’s followed me from Omaha like a malevolent spirit, or a bad smell.
What else can I even do but keep staying conscious?
microcosmic 