The Rough Draft of Life

I've been tossing and turning all night, kept awake by the suffocating feeling of scaly skin slithering up my neck, squirming there, compressing my chest, making it hard to breathe.

And for what?

As the hours ticked by, all I wanted to do was cry. But the tears were hot, heavy words unformed, trapped in a tight ball at the back of my throat.

I sat down to write. Perhaps if I let the letters form on a page, the secret would be revealed:

“What am I so anxious about?”

I breathed, acknowledging the question and the answer that came: writhing uneasiness, weariness disguised, roiling bile in my stomach, pushing up against my collar bones, my chin, pressing higher still until it remained welled up behind the balls of my eyes, stirring, burning, oozing until I could no longer see.

And yet I saw.

Right there.

It stood looking back at me. The mirror image of a year racing by, months passing like minutes and fading away into the beginning of the next and the end of the one after. Again and again. Here, then gone. Here, then gone. Again and again.

As I watched the blur of the past, a figure formed. She sat at a desk, huddled in blankets, pen in hand, looking out at the empty, dreary, wide-open outside, terrified of taking a step into that unfriendly world for fear of being swallowed up and lost.

I remembered being her.

Tomorrow.

The word shaped itself on the page; its swoops and swirls formed a path for my thoughts and memories. A year of days, each one ever so slightly different, a tilt in the planets, the gentleness of the moon peaking through leaves, the momentary blink at the beginning of realization.

As I watched, the figure looked up, and in her vision was reflected another, a year younger, curled in a faded armchair, trying to see the letters she was typing into a glaring phone through wet lashes, her packed bags strewn around her, alone and empty in the company of others.

When she looked up, her phone screen reflected the portrait of the one a year younger still, numb from the constant weight of smothered dreams crushing from every side, pinned in place by expectations and fear, paralyzed from pain, sick, dying, dead inside.

As my eyes adjusted to the sight, I saw another. And another. My pen obediently scratches letters across the page, recording:

The spectres all rise uninvited, they say their name is Time.

Their forms are beautiful to behold, their voices are tinkling chimes.

Gossamer strands of the moon frame their ghostly face s

Their eyes, the death of glittering stars, see with unending graces.

They reach for me and their fingertips are bathed in a golden glow

And in all their reflections, can be seen the destiny of...

I sat back so hard that the breath hitched in my chest.

One by one, I saw them again, but this time, their eyes bored into me, the days of their years held in the gleam of their gaze.

One by one they held up hands and their sheets and their screens. And as I bent to look at their offerings, I could see, by the gossamer strands of the moon and the glow of glittering stars, one word:

Tomorrow.

I knew then that I dare not change the rough draft of my life.

"Thank you," I whispered first to me, then to each of them in turn. "Thank you for the things you felt and the things you said and did and couldn't do."

The fist around my heart began to crack as though it had been made of ceramic all along, and out leaked heavy tears.

"Thank you for waking one more day and writing one more word, and taking one more step. Thank you for letting go and holding on and for the circle of life that moves ever forward."

"Thank you for my tomorrow."

--

Dear friends, have you ever been crippled by anxiety? What do you do when you feel this way?

Whenever it strikes me, it feels as though it's the first terrifying time. Sometimes it helps to remember how far I've come. Today is one of those days. I hope that in this piece, you find reflected a celebration and acknowledgment of how far you've come too.

Much love and always in your corner,

R. J. Rani