"Anxiety is needless and imaginary. It's fear about fear, fear that means nothing."

-Seth Godin

It begins with a breeze. A drop in the ocean, a single crash on the highway within me- and I am falling. I put on the straight jacket as much as I wish it were a life vest- of a rapid heartbeat and I begin to breathe. Breathing is all that I can do. But can I? My breathing is labored and crushing. A forty-pound weight sits on my chest, heavily rising and falling. I grab the nearest object in the room, hoping to transfer to it some of the negative electricity surging through my bones so that whatever it may be can understand the feeling of something it doesn't deserve. When this doesn't work, my arms and my legs become impatient, and I begin to drift further off course. I pace aimlessly, trying to gain control over the sea-sickness that comes from the rocking of this boat. Nothing seems to be okay in these moments- all logic is thrown to the wind. A tear in my sail steers me further off course, and I sit. What else is one to do in a moment of complete loss of control? And so I sit, and I think, and I type, and I cry, and I feign sleep for hours just to flee from this invisible force of nature that allays the spirit within me.

But then, as quickly as it came, it is gone. All of a sudden, like a wave crashing against the shore, I am free, and I am floating. There is a leak in the floorboards, but nothing unable to be rebuilt. The storm has subsided, but I know it lives within me, waiting to be awoken by God-knows-what. It is random, and it is careless- it considers nothing but itself. But I must endure it to arrive at my next destination, for no force 's too big to oppose a persistent soul.

Perhaps the fear of entering another storm might deter one from ever traveling the seas again, but I advise against this. There is hope if you sail long enough to discover it. The storm that rages within all of us takes many different forms. We are afraid of what we do not know just as much as we are afraid of what we have seen. No force is too great to overcome our ships; we are made to withstand. The only way to know what lies on the other side is to make it there. Do not be consumed by the past, but fight towards the future. Some voyages may be stormy, and some may be clear, but through it, all, know this: the best is yet to come.