Okay, so I don’t turn into some kind of super calm yogi overnight who has no problems or nerves whatsoever. Letting go and enjoying the day doesn’t mean anxiety is gone forever.
It also doesn’t mean the day moves forward.
I stopped keeping track, but this Monday has been repeating for months. Five months? Six? Somewhere around there. It’s a relatively small blip of time, but it may as well be an eternity.
But even though it feels like I’m living in a time without end, I am happier most days. Lighter. Freer.
Everyone has some anxiety. And it’s not all a bad thing. Like feeling jittery before a performance or a job interview. Getting shaky talking to a crowd, or butterflies before a first kiss. That’s normal. That’s healthy. That’s your body understanding that you’re doing something important.
When the acidic taste of panic rises in my throat for no good reason, I do my best. I know it won’t last forever. I allow myself to feel it, recognize it for what it is, understand that it isn’t the helpful kind of anxiety, and do my best to push through it. Just my best. Not perfection. It helps. I tell my brain the truth. There are no tigers hiding here. I’m not going to die. My body is overreacting to something that’s not even real.
The difference is, I’m choosing not to dwell. I’m choosing not to let it take hold of me and limit my life. It’s okay to feel it and then move on. I still get nervous and anxious, but it’s not as much, and I’m getting better at fighting my way through it.
My days settle into something normal. As normal as it can be when you’ve been living the same day over and over (and over) again.
I still spend time with Hugo. Sometimes I hang out with Presley. And sometimes I go to Alex’s show to support him. We still have the best conversations. Sometimes he asks me out and I get his kisses, sometimes I don’t, and that’s okay.
Sometimes when Eloise shows up, I bring her with me to drinks with the queens and she loves them as much as I do.
And most importantly, I stop overthinking and focus on what I can actually do to help Hugo.
I can’t get him to not cry, and that’s not on me. Maybe stopping the crying completely shouldn’t have been the goal in the first place.
Instead, when the crying starts, I stop thinking of Hugo as a problem to be solved, get out of bed, and go over and knock.
The door swings open. He’s in the red dress, no wig, black lines of watery mascara trailing down his cheeks. My heart aches for him.
“Can I offer you solutions or comfort? Or do you want me to leave you alone?”
He blinks and then considers for a moment before responding. “Will you sit with me?”
“Of course.”
I follow him to the couch, his large frame dwarfing the love seat. I drop down next to him and wait.
It’s quiet, maybe a little awkward, but it’s okay. The silence isn’t making me too twitchy. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time with Hugo, or maybe it’s because I know he’s upset and he asked me to sit with him, and I’m doing what he wants.
He’s still crying, his tears now silent.
After a minute, he leans into me, our shoulders touching.
And we sit, together.
I can’t fix him. But I can be here for him. That’s the only thing I have to offer, and so I give what I can and let the rest go.
One morning after getting fired—again—I treat myself to a nice brunch at MKT Restaurant inside the Four Seasons, with extra mimosas, because, why not?
On my way home to take a nap before meeting Hugo, I’m gazing out the window of the cab, only a few blocks from home, when we pass the sign.
“It’s back.” The words explode from my mouth in a near yell.
“What?” Startled, the cab driver glares at me in the rearview.
“Can you pull over here, please?”
He parks. I pay him and jump out of the car, racing back down the block to the Druid’s Stone.
I push on the door and it swings open.
“You’re back!” I exclaim to . . . no one. Nothing’s changed. Same old giant cash register, same cluttered shelves, same cuckoo clock in the corner.
Same teenage girl just waiting to pop up when I least expect it, I’m sure.
I meander around for a minute, but she doesn’t appear.
I yawn. The mimosas made me sleepy. There’s nowhere to sit in here, so I head down the hallway to the garden in the back.
Still no sign of my psychic friend, so I sit on the bench and lean back, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
It’s nice and quiet, just the soothing tumble of water through the fountain in the corner.
I open my eyes and am unsurprised that someone is sitting next to me, sitting way too close, even though I didn’t hear her sit down.
“Hello,” I say.
She smiles. “I love this garden.”
“Me too. It’s peaceful.”
She nods and we sit together, unmoving, unspeaking for long minutes. Time passes. I’m not sure how long, but it doesn’t really matter.
“The only way through is to love, Jane.”
I lift my brows, surprised she spoke first. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned that.”
She nods.
My mind wanders. I gaze at the fountain, watching the water fall into the pond.
The only way through is to love. That’s what she said the first time I came here. No. She said, the only way through is to love, Jane.
The same thing she said just now.
Kind of weird she said it again—and it doesn’t work, by the way, I mean I love Alex, and yet I’m still here and maybe I should mention to her that she is way off. But—
Wait.
Something in my chest twists and wrenches. I suck in a sharp breath.
No. No. I was wrong. I heard it wrong.
She isn’t telling me the only way through is for me to love someone, or something, else.
That’s what I heard, but it’s not what she said.
Time is outside. Happiness is inside.
Bee said something similar. It has to come from in here. In me.
What she said was the only way through is to love Jane.
There’s no comma.
I put the comma there.
Lightheaded, I slump on the bench, the realization washing over me in a wave, the truth of it sinking into my bones and settling with the rightness of it.
She didn’t say, Jane, the only way through is to love, she said I need to love Jane.
Me. I need to love myself. Accept myself, exactly as I am, warts and all.
I blink back tears. Holy hell, that’s deep.
Giddiness pulses through me. I want to hoot at the sky, but at the same time I’m struck silent, immobile, reeling with emotions. Happiness that I know what I need to work on next, satisfaction that I figured it out, and fear that I won’t be able to do something so simple and yet so essential. Why is it so hard to love myself?
“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” my teenage best friend says. Her head tilts back, eyes shut, a small smile on her face.
I grin up at the desolate fog. “It sure as shit is.”