I’ve always been a perfectionist. It’s not just that I enjoy perfect outcomes; I obsess over them, each wave of obsession longer than the last.

Every detail must meticulously conform to the idea I have set in my head. And if something goes awry? Warning signals go off in my head, signaling me to either fix it or to spend hours on end, wondering what went wrong.

I’m dangling inches from the blissful, yet somehow frightening, escape below, yet I hold on to the rope of control, painful as it may be, trying to fix something that cannot be fixed. I tell myself to breathe, to let go.

Tell that to the aching thoughts that plague me at night with reminders to take every painstaking precaution to ensure nothing goes wrong the next morning. But it’s already morning; the night has long escaped my grasp. The control, or at least the feeling of control, has not.

Maybe one day I’ll wake up and be carefree; I won’t take things seriously, and I’ll follow the advice of all those self-care blogs and “live in the present.” And maybe that’s what 2017 will bring.

—By Mahika H., 14, San Jose, California