This week I had a choice between two topics, what makes me happy, and what makes me afraid. I don’t think I can answer one without the other, and so I’m not going to. If you don’t like that, then well hey excuse me for being quirky. My entire life has been built on the concept of growing up, I am the youngest of 3 siblings, both of whom are now lawyers now while I still am completing college. They have 5 and 7 years on me and I have always been the runt of the litter. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t loved, they loved me and I loved them, but it’s hard when you’re 17 to relate to your 10 year old little brother, so my connections to them were definitely weak when I was aging.

So what makes me happy? Winning, being acknowledged, having the spotlight. Growing up and finding something that let me express myself to them and to the world. All these things sparked a lot of joy in my heart, I loved it. When I found Smash I found an outlet that separated me from my brothers, and something that I knew they found cool and exciting. It made me happy to finally have my thing, to be living life and doing it in a unique way. Every tournament I go to, every time I speak to people who know who I am just from looking at me, I feel so much happiness that I found a way to finally separate and become my own person.

…and one day it will end

I fear death, not cause of pain, or suffering, but because it’s an ending. It’s a finite end-point that exists for all of us. We can’t cheat it, we can’t avoid it, and it’s slowly coming to zap our brain electricity out of our head. But death isn’t what I’m not afraid of, it’s the ending. I’m afraid of what happens when my Smash career ends, I’m afraid of what happens when my relationships end, I’m afraid of what happens when my time in New Jersey ends. I’m afraid, plain and simple, of when I can’t fix or achieve anymore, because the sand in the hourglass has dropped through the hole.

So this is my problem, I’m a high functionating anxious person, afraid of what happens when they no longer have the ability to act on something. This is part of the reason why so many of my assignments get done at 11:59, why so many projects are started last minute, and why my life feels like a race against the clock. I don’t value the time I have because I’m too afraid of missing it when it goes. It’s something I have to work on, and if I do get better at it, i’ll let y’all know. But for those who struggle with this too, just know you’re not alone. We’re all struggling together, in this messed up world which never gives us enough time to do everything, and even when it does we’re too afraid of it ending to notice.