Promotion
I can't breathe. My pores are oozing anxiety. My head is spinning with possibilities. Will I make it? Will I survive freshman year again? There is a celebration when you are finally a sophomore in high school. You are used to the school's bullshit. You are used to the upperclassmen jeering and the teachers being idiots and life just being life. Everything has steadied. But, once you're comfortable, it strikes again. Everything is different though. You have no fall back. You can't run home to Mommy and Daddy. You're eighteen, not fourteen. You have to suck it up and be an adult. So, take a deep breath and try again.
But I have had all summer to breathe. Now, my bubble of security is closing in and suffocating me. The thoughts in my head run to the safety of my memories. The safety of familiarity. Every staged bad college experience roams free like a pack of lions. They are hunting the happiness and gnawing away. A new roommate? Hope she isn't like that obsessed girl in that one movie. Frat parties? Yikes, you could end up getting raped like on all of those cop shows. Boyfriend? Hope he doesn't cheat. Teachers? I hope they don't push you off a cliff like in that drumming movie. The pack corners its prey and pounces.
I remember tipping my chair back to be cool, and always having that one day where the chair leans back a little too far and your lungs jump into your throat. I've always wondered if that is how the gazelle who couldn't run fast enough feels when the leopard grabs its throat. What are its last thoughts? Man, I wish I had gone to see Lisa. She had a nice tail. That's a nice patch of grass over there? Why don't the cheetah sever trip? Can a guy get a break! The blood is draining; the air is waning. College has me by the throat now. There is no going back. I just hope that wherever I go after this is better than high school.
“I’m Okay, and you?”
It's the simple standard answer, but it took me some time to be able to say this. Typical answers like 'okay', 'fine' didn't belong to me. Most times, I'd be far from okay, I'd be a 'no' or a 'terrible'. Defining myself was like trying to untangle my favorite pair of earphones. The more I used them, the more often it'd get tangled. The songs I listened to with these earphones spouted nonsense like 'it's okay not to be okay'. Lies. It's never okay to not be okay. You should never be fine with the feelings that steal precious moments of your life, that leave you wrecked and disfigured. Get help, whether it's from friends, family, art, books, or even the internet. The dark times of my life were spent with me isolating the world and trying to solve everything by myself. But it doesn't work that way. The only reason I can say I'm doing fine now and start paying attention to the others around me is because someone was there asking me if I was okay. So thank you. I'm doing okay now. How about you? Are you okay?
