Chapter 6
The feeling continues through the drive home, through cleaning my bedroom, and through dinner with Mom. Alone at night I lie on my bedroom’s carpeted floor with my head against the speakers of the record player. Cool air passes through the open window and falls across my arms and face.
It’s a new life, or I was wrong about what life really was.
I didn’t realize how much I’d been running from feeling bad.
Needing to make people laugh to help myself feel not-worthless.
The veil of anxiety is lifted and the world is here in front of me and I am within it.
It feels similar to talking with Andi. At least for a moment, nothing is wrong.
But in this case the moment continues on to the next and the next.
I want to be like this all the time, be myself all the time. And I can be, I see now. There’s nothing required. No steps to follow. There was never anything to run from. Everything is already okay. I am already okay.