I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm a 100% an anxious mess

Five things.

My counselor tells me to focus on five things I can control when I feel overwhelmed, which is really often lately. Five things. Five senses. Five seconds.

Okay.

I smell my housemate’s soup in the kitchen.

I see the corner of my living room rug curled up ever so slightly. I watch the breeze from the fan dog-ear the calendar page on July, as if trying to tug it down permanently—to keep it here a little longer than it needs to.

I taste the fifth fruit cup I just ate.

I feel my fingers tapping on my keyboard.

I hear the quiet hums of the air conditioner. Lulling me to sleep and keeping me awake all at once.

It’s stabilizing for a minute, grounding myself to my senses and surfacing from my brain. I wish it lasted longer than it does.

It is such a weird time to be alive right now. I’m here in Chattanooga for two more weeks, and I haven’t allowed myself to feel anything I need to feel. I’ve called this place home for the last five years. I’ve met so many people I absolutely adore here. I fell in love here and made plans here. I also came to embrace so much of myself here. I hate to think about leaving it.

I was so hesitant to make a home here. I am not great with change in the slightest, and I knew this when I hauled my life here at 17-years-old, ready to pursue a writing career. I hated my first year here. I felt unstable and untethered, displaced and isolated. I spent way too much time in my room, and I had no desire to participate in normal daily routines. I’ve never been great at dealing with the pain and awkwardness that comes with change, and I spend way too much time trying to avoid it instead of embracing it and allowing it to grow me. Avoiding it has only made the transition more painful. I know this now.

I still struggle with this currently, as so many things in my life are up in the air. I feel myself struggling to keep everything in place, lashing out when things are slightly out of the norm or out of the routine I need them to follow. I have to learn to be better about practicing openness, to try to trust that God is going to take care of things and if I feel overly stressed, it means I’m trying to control too much. I’ve never been well-versed in letting go.

As much as I’ve kept my feelings in a chokehold, it also means they follow me everywhere. They climb into bed with me at 3 a.m.; they fall out of my pockets and spill onto anything I serve; they keep me up at ungodly hours, begging to be acknowledged and processed.

So I’m switching up my routine for today. Five things. Five things I’m anxious about and need to release control of:

1) Phillip is off to Spain for a semester and after that, we aren’t sure when we’ll permanently close the distance between us. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, but damn, screw that. I’m already fond.

2) I have a potential job opportunity I’m incredibly grateful for, but I’m so scared to start over alone in a new city, without any of the people who’ve become my pillars for the past years.

3) For the second time, I am leaving a place I’ve called home and it’s going to be so painful.

4) What if I’m not okay? What if I spiral? I know God’s going to take care of me, but will He take care of me?

5) I don’t want to lose the ounce of inner peace and confidence I’ve worked so hard to gain in this process.

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Wow. It’s cathartic to allow myself to feel, five things at a time.