I sit in my room and the tree outside my window sways in the wind.

Studying late into the night, convincing myself that this work, doing this pointless work will persuade me to love what I am doing. Staring at the formulas and the rules, I attempt to piece together some joy in the subjects I no longer greed for.

Sitting in my room the tree outside my window still sways, but I do not notice. The water that has been bubbling up in my chest, causing this immense pressure, starts to leak from my eyes. What am I doing? Why had I put myself in this hole? I couldn’t change things now, I had already dedicated too much time and energy of myself to these formulas and laws. Wouldn’t giving up now be giving up on myself?

I sit at the desk in my room and hear my mom’s voice on the other end of the receiver.

“Why do you keep breathing like that?” I’m fine, I’m just tired.

“Are you sure? Have you been taking your medication?” Yes, I just have a test.

“Why are you breathing like that? What are you so wound up about?” Everything is fine.

I hang up, consoling the woman who knows I am lying through my teeth. I breathe a heavy breath, as heavy as the wind that is still swaying that tree outside my window.

The year ends and I spend my summer days and evenings dreading the moment I will return. The one place I had come to love so dearly, now tainted by my own self-denials and anxieties. The tree outside my bedroom window sways in the cool evening while everyone slumbers, but I can not see it. I am wrapped in my blanket, letting that water leak from my eyes, reducing the pressure in my chest ever so slightly.

I walk around my room, busying my hands. Straightening knick-knacks, organizing my school supplies. My breathing heavies with the weight of the year to come. Will I find that missing spark of clarity and inspiration I had been searching for in those formulas and laws? I open a drawer kept closed since my departure to college. Inside I see my hardcover journals and stories packed away gingerly, pieces of my past ambitions. I open them and begin to read.

The water in my chest evaporates, my heavy breaths lightens their load. My curtains rustle and I turn to see the trees outside my window sway in the breeze.

How long it has been since I have noticed a tree sway in the breeze.

I begin the year by organizing my desk, though this time the shelves are filled with gusts of life: novels, memoirs, and tales of adventure. I look to the window and see a new tree. I open the window to feel the tingling of a breeze about to swell.

The tree begins to sway, and I with it.