You wake up on a Monday or a Tuesday or a Wednesday or whatever and the first thing you think of is the dread that you felt in your half-dreams from a half-slumber in your half-blanketed bed, and how that same dread is going to be facing you, hour after minute after second after blink, blink, blink, from sunrise to sunrise.
It’s not any particular dread - go ahead and pick your fucking topic and I can guaran-fucking-tee you there’s something to worry about, okay?
Money? Don’t have enough of it. Friends? They might decide you’re not worth their time and leave you, any minute now. Work? Today’s the day you get fired, hands down. Health? You’ve got cancer and you just don’t know it yet.
You lay in bed and you think about these things and you tell yourself, it’s okay, I can handle it, one thing at a time. But it’s not one thing at a time, it’s everything, and it’s all the time. All the time.
You drag yourself out of bed and make your way to the bathroom where you look in the mirror at a person you most likely have more than a few qualms with. Look at you, you think to yourself. You missed a spot shaving yesterday. You probably looked like a fucking idiot, and you didn’t even know it, and everyone else did, and you can bet, you can bet they’re talking about it right now at breakfast. And they’re laughing, and they’re thinking about how little they respect you.
You drag yourself to the shower and stand in the just-too-hot water and you think about yesterday and all the little mistakes you made when you were talking to your boss, your colleagues, your friends, strangers on the street, the guy behind the counter at the coffee shop, you think about all the social cues you missed and all the weird little quirks that came out when you were just trying to have a normal fucking conversation, and you think about how much harder it will be to face all of these people today.
You think about the day ahead, and how easy it is to pretend to the world you’re okay: a fake smile, a light joke or two, a comment about the weather, a relatable story about waiting in line at the bank and you’re sold and gold. No questions, no concerns. They’ll see your flaws, your quirks, your social awkwardness, your weird buck tooth when you smile, but they won’t know that your insides are a twisted mess of wonder and worry and woe, they won’t know that your chest is a tight trap that won’t loosen no matter how many deep breaths you take, no matter how much you try to remember how to do those breathing exercises, no matter how slowly you take it, a second at a time, a minute at a time, an hour at a time, a day at a time, no matter what, no matter what, it’s always there.
You get out of the shower and you think about how much worrying you’ve already done today, half an hour in, barely had time to open those eyes up to a world that won’t stop scaring the shit out of you, and you think about the day ahead, and you realize it all flows from the same place, the grey matter between your ears, under your scalp, in that thick skull-cased head of yours, and it doesn’t seem to know the first thing about how to shut the fuck up and let you live.
And you think, good God, my brain is a fucking asshole.