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I think it’s pretty obvious that I come from a small town. I feel it whenever I walk around this new city that I’ve been calling home, looking up at the buildings and walking down the same streets, looking at the streetlights in some sort of child-like amazement. It’s obvious that I’m a tourist wearing the mask of a local, and I’m somewhat proud of that.
It has officially been two months since I began my freshman semester at Emerson, and I still feel the same sense of wonder as when I first arrived. Walking at night in the Common with my friends, I stared up at the trees and the individual little boxes of light radiating from buildings that stood over them. I felt so small, so miniscule that absolutely nothing mattered other than the sky and those small distant squares.Â
Anyone with anxiety could tell you that your mind becomes consumed with the smallest details, that every little action seems like it stops the world from turning on its axis. For me, my world revolves around my fingernails. They’re always jagged and uneven, my cuticles get picked at consistently, and my skin around my nailbeds are always dry. Every thought, every unsettling feeling, every fear is reflected onto my hands.Â
The crazy thing? I’m the only one who really notices it.Â
Being anxious is such a funny feeling, and that’s truly the only way I could explain it. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I would be laughing with my friends, smiling and making jokes, yet feeling some sort of impending doom that everything was fake.Â
Fake. An illusion. A moment that is just a cover up for the ugly sides of life and existing.Â
I realized that during anxiety attacks, the world turns black or white. You’re either right or wrong; challenging yourself or not; working towards your goals or not moving forward quick enough. Anxiety will stare you in the face, see what you’re proud of, and tell you “you’re not doing enough.” It’s a crushing feeling to hear that, and to hear that from yourself is another kind of disappointment that you feel in your bones. My anxiety makes me the center of the world in the most negative way, like I’m an organism under a microscope being poked, and the person poking me is a version of myself that is so unrealistic.Â
That night in the Common, with my four friends walking slightly ahead and laughing with one another, the building lights shining down on me standing so much higher than any fear I could have ever visualized, I felt in my heart that I made the right choice of leaving my small town. I felt so small in the city, like my own eyes were taken off of me just for a moment, and I was able to breathe. My friends all asked me that night if I was okay, why I was trailing so far behind, looking around and being so quiet, they didn’t know that I felt so free.Â
I am grateful that I am here, and that the buildings and streets have a way of making me feel so present within myself. It’s important to remember that you are surrounded by something so much bigger than you and your thoughts, the trick is to slow down and maybe even look up.