Curled up in a blanket near my window, waiting for the sun to rise. This blanket is filled with memories; laying on the grass and watching fireworks on the fourth of July, Sunday nights wrapped up watching The X-Files, late nights of being sick and sleepy, perfect warmth and thick comfort.
My chest is tightening as if someone had laced a rough string around my ribs... and now they are bracing their feet on my hips, leaning back, pulling with all their strength until my bones nearly crack from the pressure.
I'm panicking. I recognize it for what it is... I know what it feels like, this closing in, this bracing my arms out in front of me, useless twigs, to ward it off.
It slams over me like a black wave, smashing me against the shore and leaving me breathless and battered.
What am I doing, exactly?
I am spending twenty-three thousand dollars to go to a private institution... to learn about something I don't care about. I am trying desperately to crush myself into my classes, my scrubs, my stethoscope around my neck... but it isn't working.
Breathe.
I will be in debt for years, dragging my parents along with me. I will be working in a job I dislike, that I'm not cut out for, that I never wanted in the first place.
Breathe.
I am a writer. I am an actress. I am a book-lover, a poetess, an aesthetic enthusiast. I live in a fantasy world, a world of words and images and stretching for beauty.
I sit in a classroom, day in and day out, staring pure ugliness in its fiery eyes and trying to ignore the gnawing pain in my breast.
Breathe.
I've got to be Something. Isn't being unhappy better than being Nothing?
But if being Something makes you unhappy... aren't you better off to be Nothing and love who you are, than to lose yourself in something you aren't?
Oh, Father, I think quietly to myself. What am I doing here? Help me understand myself, help me to know which path to take before I burst. You made me a writer, made me an actress, made me what I am, gave me what I love. Do You really, truly want me to follow the path I am on and forfeit my talents, my sanctuaries, my true fulfillment? Help me use them, Father. Help me use them to be beneficial, to feed my family, to make me worth something to the world, to lift people's spirits, to make people learn and think and search. Help me, please, to know who I am, what I am, what I'm meant to be to the world, to my family, to my friends, to myself.
And in that moment, in my heart, I suddenly knew... that I am not where I am meant to be.