future anxiety

“They won’t tell you about the losing. They won’t tell you about these days, how you’re thinking that you’ve lost weeks, months, years to bliding heaviness. They won’t tell you about the missed laughter, about the friendships you could have had or the drunk feeling of experiencing an unforgetable moment. They won’t tell you about the heaviness of now. How you sometimes avoid to look in the mirror when you’re washing your hands. How you undress in the dark. They won’t tell you how you shift and fumble in every conversation, in ever little interaction in your life thinking you’re not beautiful enough to be looked at; thinking these are not the right words to say. They won’t tell you how your voice is laced with sarcasm when you open your mouth but inside of you is a candle flickering, flickering, still, asking for someone to close the window.”

“Stop cringing — at your future, at your failure, at yourself in the mirror — and stand up and look directly at who you are. Not who you should’ve been, but who you are now. Let that person in. Let her be as mediocre and wrong and shameful and sad and miserable and brilliant and hilarious as she wants to be, because she knows exactly what you need to feel good. She has plans for you. She wants to show you what comes next. She wants to take you into the future you’re dreading and say, “See? You never would’ve imagined this.”