Kiana

I’m having a hard time being a person in the world. Even now as I’m typing these words, my fingers padding across the keyboard, there’s a sense of denial and even a soul-cringe. Yikes, me.

I wrote in my daily planner three days ago that I should not be ashamed of admitting that I’m having a rough time with handling life in general. My friendships are all over the place: everyone asks me anything and I oblige without ever questioning because they are my friends and I’d be the worst one ever to question a friend or even brood or have second thoughts regarding their motives. BUT, I am a stubborn child of the sun! I still question them at the end of the day, in the darkness of my room. My grandmother lashes out at me time and again because I fail to answer to her errands because of schoolwork and my emotional lowest of lows. I’d like to think I’m just “feeling under the weather,” that this is just an episode that will pass, that I’m just being overly in touch with my “female, emotional side,” that I should “tap more into rational thinking and stop bitching around.” But nah, I know better. As stubborn as I am, I’m listening to my body, quietly: My anxiety levels have been pretty high and the tingling, crawling sensation in my arms and legs has become frequent, so much so that I experience episodes of “brain shivers,” that’s what Google told me they’re called. As much as I’d like to think I’m OK, my body tells me otherwise. I’ve been thinking about booking a physician’s or a psychiatrist’s appointment for almost four months now, but my bank account is more stubborn than my head. THX VERY MUCH, WORLD.

Books, sunlight, and my dog: these are what get me through, the ones making me keep right on. I’m reading Marguerite Duras’s The Lover and dipping back and forth into Adrienne Rich’s An Atlas of the Difficult World—both of which I find terrifying yet so comforting. To know that one is not alone, that one feels the pain, discomfort, and hurt of another. ♦