Anxiety is defined as being ” a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome”. I often felt like anxiety is more like a fake friend who doesn’t let you do and enjoy a lot of things. One day, I decided to write her a story. A story of goodbye.
” I knew you for years. I guess I’ve known you since I started to become more aware of my feelings, of myself. We continued to be friends over the last couple of years even though I didn’t want o. I went and faced life in a lot of ways, many of which I preferred that never happened and you at one moment saw an opportunity and decided to stay and start to build your life.
You started with a small, one-room house, but as I grew older you realized that a house can be built with lost dreams and goals I didn’t accomplish, so you took that all from me and made yourself a real mansion. Soon after, a garden began to come to life and you watered it so much sometimes, that I started crying without any reason many times.
Then, you started eating motivation for your meals, and every time I tried to meditate so I can gain my confidence back you started playing crappy music to make sure I would not concentrate.
I decided to stay at my house a lot. To be lonely, to be afraid to walk on the streets keeping my head up, to be afraid that everyone will look at me and think a lot of bad things and not a single good one. I became vulnerable. I started thinking that I will not achieve a lot of things in my life and that I should be ok with it. I bet you laughed your ass off whenever I read a self-improvement book.
So I started thinking. I didn’t give you a name over these years but I had a strange feeling that you were called “Anxiety”. You manifested in a lot of ways and some people could say that I was only being childish or not good enough at things. You made me anxious, still do, you made me not fall in love with myself because I thought that I did not deserve it, you made me be a lot of things that I hated, you made me feel like I did not belong anywhere and you made me stay aside on parties. I have asked you “why?” many times but you were too stubborn to answer.
Then, one day I’ve decided that you are not welcomed anymore.
I don’t want you to feel like you are being evicted as your house really improved and your garden has grown so much over the past years. I am just trying to replace you with a better version of yourself, of myself. A version that builds houses with achieved dreams and accomplish goals. A version that waters her garden right and that likes to grow all kinds of flowers. A version that knows when to stop the crappy music and play some good one. A version that eats right for her meals and that likes to hang out with people. With worthy ones. A version that wants to improve every day. A version that enjoys the rain and does not sleep all day when the weather is bad. A version that is true to and loves herself.
I still feel the same sometimes even after your house is almost gone and your flowers don’t grow anymore but I know that someday, your place will be truly gone and I will be happy again. “