The idea of anxiety never used to be a bad thing. When I was little, ‘anxious’ described the way a little boy shook as he held onto paper-wrapped boxes on his birthday. Or the way his lips quivered when his parents lit the multicolored candle on his mango cake. Or the trembling of his legs as he ran ‘round corners as fast as he could while another boy counted to thirty. In those days, anxiety was a word for mirth.
Nowadays, when the word is uttered, the clouds roll in. They hover, dark and dreary, hanging their thunderheads in sullen slouches. Anxiety strikes lightning in painful pulses across nervous systems, electrical surges that send tremors into wobbly legs. These quakes cause towers to crumble, cracks where water drips down my face the same way it did when I ran to hide. The only difference now is the water singes skin as it pours out in lava streams onto lined paper. But it still feels better than the razor blade rain that falls on the dark, weary nights when love goes unrequited, the needles that fall in midnight gloom. I relish the rain, more nights than I’d like to admit. The needles have become so familiar, so ingrained in my skin. I know them by heart.
I walk with weary hands pressed against one another. At least together their shakes shiver away. Lightning runs in my veins, but I always ground it. Some days, the future looms in the horizon bringing nothing but more storm clouds, pregnant with problems that pour down on grassy fields. They flood the flora that flourishes there, and once the storm is over, I find the land brown and barren, requiring re-population. Other days, professors overcharge my lithium heart with piles of papers. Still others, when locked in lover’s arms, I want to use the electricity to burn the memory of everything that came before me, even though I know I can’t. Memories don’t evaporate like water.
Even as the lightning surges, I am lucky enough not to be one of the countless other me’s who have held blades to their hearts, who place guns to their lips and drink the elixir of eternal life. I have watched others plant roses on their wrists; I saw myself in them, the same desperation, the same blindness. They could not see the beauty of their arms, so I tied ribbons around their roots, a tourniquet for the bouquet that bloomed there. Some days the ribbon, tied twice into a bow, is the noose from which even I wish to hang, but I breathe...and find myself clinging to balloon strings that bring me back to the party, where others cheer as they hand me paper-wrapped boxes and slices of mango cake. My mother lights the candle again, and the song chimes in my ear, melting away the thunder as I blow out the fire. The water trailing down my cheeks returns to sweat as I run ‘round cobblestone corners. The party lives in my veins, just as the lightning does. And sometimes all it takes to change between them...is a breath.
