Dear Anxiety,
it has been a while since you've
decided to be by my side in my journey through life, I thought it was about time
that I actually talked to you. It's not like I haven't acknowledged your presence
before...But I definitely have never spoken directly to you.
Anyway, here we are...so
'Hello'
You know you I am, I suppose and I
know who you are (kind of). So I think I'll start off with our
relationship. You've always been in my life, you're in everyone life, but at
the beginning, you were just your normal self...you were the butterflies in my
stomach when I saw a cute guy, the void in my belly before an important test or
exam, the excitement and fear before stepping on stage or the sleepless night
before a new trip. You were the look on my parents' faces when I disappointed
them, the worry I felt when I knew I had done something wrong. You were there
when I had too many things to do and too little time or when I felt that I was losing control over things.
Back then, however, you were just a
moment, just a second, just a day. And then it all got better, and then I was
just me again. I was safe and happy. And everything was going to be ok. You
were a good thing, you warned me when something was important and I had to pay
attention or give my all. You were....a friend if I'm allowed to say
that.
What I didn't understand is that you
spot people. You spot people that are weak or when they are weak and you enter
into action: you get into their brains and you make them believe all sorts of
things....like the fact they'll never make it, they'll never be good enough,
they have never been good enough, it was all a lie, are they even worth loving?
should they even be alive?
I realized that you spotted me.
Alone. Crying for no reason in my room. Scared.
And you saw an opportunity. And you
grabbed it.
And it was then that I started to
have the thoughts...and I was scared, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know
how to stop them. I didn't know if they were mine or not. I didn't know if they
were true.
Since then, you've always been by my
side, always looking for the good time to strike, for the ways in which you
could make me suffer.
At the beginning I hated you. I
didn't want you to be there, I wanted you to go. I wanted things to go back to
normal.
Over time I realized that things
never will. Because you will never leave. You'll be just a whisper in the good
days, a bad thought in the back of my mind I can through away; and then you'll
be a black hole in the bad days, hugging me with your deadly arms and
swallowing me inside the darkness.
You will not go away.
So after hate and denial and running
away, it came fighting. If I couldn't make you go away, I could at least try to
fight you, defeat you, destroy you. I tried every method... yoga, meditation,
breathing, not getting into bad situations, closing myself in my room to avoid
arguments, listing what could go wrong in situations so I could be prepared for
it....
But nothing really worked. I mean it
worked at the moment, it worked for a while...but then when I couldn't control
things when something suddenly came up that I didn't foresee...I shattered into
a thousand pieces all over again.
I lost my battle, again.
It was then when I was getting
better, but I didn't quite find a way to live life and have fun without the
fear of you ruining the party, that I took a risk. I gambled.
Since I came back from the USA I
always knew I wanted to go on Erasmus (exchange program sponsored by the EU for
college students of Member States). But then you came along and everything got
complicated so I didn't know if going was the right thing...but then a friend
of mine told me 'What if this helps you? What if you get better?'
It had been a while since I thought
about the best possible scenario, instead of the worst. And those words hit me
like they really reached inside of me, the arrived where even you will never
get...into my heart.
This is how the best four months of
my life started, this past Semester has been amazing, and it looked like I
finally got rid of you. I was finally able to dream and move on, and think about
the future, instead of concentrating on how to get out of bed in the
morning.
Then bad things happened, not bad
bad things, just unexpected things. And….here we go again: you were there
stronger than ever, more powerful than ever. And it was then that I realized
what the Erasmus really taught me. What the exchange in the USA had tried to
teach me, but I was not ready to learn it.
You will not go away.
Even in the perfect
life of perfectly happy and normal people, you’re always there. And you will
strike when people are weak and lonely and when they need help. You will crash
them, destroy them, you will tell them exactly all the things you know will
hurt them.
And you will be able to do this
because you feed on their fears, their insecurities, their worries. You feed on
mine too.
This is why in Erasmus it was better because I always did something
in my day: I cooked for my self, I went to class, I met new amazing and
inspiring people from all over the world, I explored a new part of the city and
I learned a new word in Hungarian. And on the weekends? I traveled, I have
been to 4 countries while here…it has been an amazing journey.
And my life will be too.
Yes, you’ll
be there, every step of the way, but I’ll be there too: the silly, interesting,
caring, generous person I know I am. I will be there. And I will do my best to outnumber
you. And I will do my best to be there also in the calm, quiet and relaxing
days, the days in which I don’t feel like doing much, the days in which you
tell me I am not ‘useful’. I’ll do my best to be there in the bad days when something
goes wrong or there is an emergency and I have to step in and do my best to
survive through the day.
I will have bad days, you’ll make
sure of it. But, I promise you, I will always have amazingly great days too.
And this, this is what you will never be able to take away from me.
I hope my letter finds you well and
I wish you a very good day and I know you’ve been busy during the holidays, so If
you want to take a vacation you can go, we’ll be fine here.
We’ll be just fine.
Sincerely,
Ari
