Anxiety- a feeling of wanting to do something very much.
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I never considered myself an anxious person when I was younger, but then I grew and self-awareness sprung on me.
You know how you used to pass the mirror every day with a smile and then one day you stop right in front of the mirror and you recognize the acne,your hair basically everything both good and bad.
Then you question everything, but you keep it to yourself because you don't want to bother anyone else.
I remember that moment, then my self-confidence dropped, and nothing was the same after that. Being called 'beautiful' made me think others were just mocking me and instead of faking a 'thank you' I would just smile as sincerely as I could. I tell people I was bullied when in truth and in fact I bullied myself because everyone alienated me I was only included if the situation helped both them and me, mostly them.
This alienation caused me to either demand attention or just accept the fact that I was nobody to anyone. Then I wished I was someone else, begging my parents who could barely afford it for everything everyone else had, I begged them to spoil me when they could barely afford the necessary stuff. I was a chubby, black girl with untamable natural hair, then my mother put relaxer in my hair and it changed into "white people hair" as I had called it. I was eight and just realized I could change who I was by use of chemicals.
From them I found solace in wishing I would wake up white and skinny, I had sleepless nights hating my self. I am 16 now and I still have times where I wish I could change naturally, but I can't so I decided to search within myself to find my true happiness so I am going back natural. When people ask me why I have never said this but I NEVER LEARNED TO LOVE ME AS I AM I LEARNED TO LOVE MY WHITE SKINNY COUNTERPART. This book is almost like my way of sharing myself so I can learn to accept my self.
This is where anxiety kicked in, I am scared to introduce myself to people because they might just see me as a fat, black, ugly girl who is too truthful for her own good, not the kind, selfless, honest, vulnerable, full of life girl that happens to be overweight. I hate to show people who I am because they see the surface no one thinks to look.
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Emeline awoke from her sleep to see her enemy as she sat up. Herself. The mirror stood opposite her bed and adjacent the her all white Victorian style closet.
Sigh,another day, another physcological adventure.
Why did I even decide to join this conundrum.
Emeline had promised Maya,a very close friend, that she would join her "class" (of sorts).
The idea was that they would write and read out loud a paragraph a day for 26 days talking about their thoughts or feelings toward a certain word.
After a nice long shower and some delicious cereal, Emeline decided to check her phone for anything important.
Maya: Anxiety.Meeting at 3. Miami Beach.
Maya always had a very straightforward factor to her. Concise,never dwindling away from absolute importance.
Emeline: Ok.
Anxiety....
What could I write about that.
Maya: Remember write truth.
Truth. Ok.
It took Emeline about 1 hour to write the paragraph,just as she was about to re-read and fact check everything she remembered that Maya had told her that the one rule they had was that you were not allowed to re-read whatever you had written which scared Emeline because she was a very private person and removing her brain-to-mouth filter was rare.
Emeline decided a light lunch was a good idea, so she had a nice chicken curry sandwich and lemonade while watching Scooby-Doo (her favorite TV show). Checking the time she realizes that it was 2 pm, so she got up,washed the dishes and went to get ready. She decided that since the meeting was at the beach and it was a wonderful day in the tropics that she would wear a pair of jeans shorts and a crocheted top with her floral two piece underneath. She then grabbed her essentials and headed out, she happened to arrive 10 minutes early.
She found Maya a few seconds later and was helping Maya set up the seats and refreshments. At three on the dot Maya commenced the day's activity with her own short paragraph on anxiety. When everyone came they had to pull numbers, Emeline's was 2, the first guy took about 10 minutes to talk and then it was her turn.
She shyly walked to the top and stared at the 30 people intently, brushing her eyes over them trying to figure out their problems.
"Anxiety, it is resembled by the color yellow, and it haunts. It creeps through the cracks of your thoughts trying to undermine your shaky decisions. It has fucked with all of us but we need to let this yellow goop that it is not welcome here. Everything it slides through a crack we must put another wall, and by the end of the thought trail we are assured or reassured of our plans.
Anxiety is a trail of what if's.
That we need to kill with I will's.
Or try me's."
Emeline got a soft applause,as her keen brown eyes searched through everyone as they shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. But as she sat in her front row seat she felt eyes search the back of her head with intrigue, she turned her head and she was searching through his forestry as he looked through her shit or dirt. They both gave up on the staring contest simultaneously and sank back into their respective seats.
At 4 the meeting adjourned and Emeline laid out a towel close to the shore,shed her clothes and dove into the cerulean waters confidently. Emeline swam for half of an hour straight,then decided the head home after enjoying the beautiful tropical sunset.
Her sleep that night was wonderful and dream less just how she liked them.
