Panic?

1:30 AM.

I am looking in the mirror doing a routine many of us know well. Perhaps we all do it differently or not at all. I am rinsing, flossing, brushing... when suddenly it hits me.

First I freeze up. I look in the mirror and my eyes are reflecting back a look of terror. Then I realize I have stopped breathing. My chest is solidly immobile and I start to feel the room closing around me. What's happening to me? Why do I feel this way? Have I made a horrible mistake? Breathe. It's okay. Breathe. I am okay. Breathe. It's over. Breathe. Just breathe. As the oxygen starts flowing through my body again I can feel a sense of relief. The panic is over, and it only lasted a few seconds. Was it even that? It felt like time stood still, as if I had stopped the world around me for just a moment.

What brought this on? Why is it that when all I feel is a numbed and stowed version of the pain that I cause, suddenly it has the ability to lash out at me? Perhaps I am not so invulnerable after all. Through all of these past days, months, and years, I have felt little. Sure, on the surface I am happy, sometimes I even show a little frustration. When the pain that you trap inside comes flailing to the surface, gasping for air, begging to live, I only see one option. Breathe.

When you let these feelings take over, they control you. They don't just live in you, they live off of you like a parasite. It's healthy to feel things. Everyone needs to laugh, cry, even occasionally be angry, but it's so important to lead with a cool head and know that you're in control. As powerful as sorrow, anger, remorse, or 'love' may feel, I will not let them run my life.

Happiness is something I chose a long time ago. When you feel the deepest of depressions, sometimes the only way out is to fly. Just remember that if you fly too far, you may get lost, and that's okay. Sometimes we need to be lost. Sometimes we need to fly too far and lose our way, so that we can learn that the air flows through our wings differently here than it does there. Only then can we really understand life.

So just breathe. It will pass. Just breathe.

Breathe.