Water drips down my bathroom ceiling. The American white alabaster covering is loosely held together by cardboard and silver duct tape. There is a gaping hole in the middle of my ceiling, which was broken into the previous day to fix a bastardly pipe-leak. The pipes in this building, like many other’s in New York, are over half a century old. Our superintendent assures me that all will be fixed, as it always is in the city. It breaks down, and then it is all fixed, cyclically. My mind flashes to a time when our basement was flooded in India, and we frantically got buckets to collect all of the rainwater. I am alive, I remind myself, things could always be much worse.
Years ago, I was sitting in a glass building, feeling out of place, and my first social work supervisor told me, you must live despite the anxiety. I am still learning that lesson. Still learning to not personalize the things that have nothing to do with me. Still learning to not lose my sanity in the chaos that often surrounds me. Still learning to count my blessings every single day. Still learning that my life comes from me and not at me. I am still learning, and so I am alive.
Each day when I push myself to go to the gym, when each cell in my body is tired, I am teaching myself that I choose my destiny. Each day when I return from the gym, rejuvenated and refreshed, I am proven right. Each day when I ignore my muscle memory’s desire to scroll into my troubled past, I become stronger. I am so much more than the worst inclinations that I have.
I have recently become devoted to my own self. Devotion in the sense that I am redefining what discipline means to me. Re-parenting. Re-directing. Re-birthing. I feel stronger in the throes of my anxiety, because I now know that I can overcome it. In devoting to myself, I access my self-love.
My therapist recently told me that she sees the change in me, even if I don’t. She reminded me that change often looks like making different choices, more intentional ones. Change does not always show up directly, but over time, her effects are loudly felt.
I am spending more money on myself, my well-being and my health than I ever have before, and somehow I am saving more too. I don’t know the science behind it, but something is working. I think I have woken up from a deep sleep. Everything is bright and vibrant, the beautiful and the ugly. The ugly serves a purpose too. It teaches me patience.
I am falling in love again and I am being taught to temper my instincts. I am being taught safety. I am being taught reliance. I am being taught that real joy does not come from escaping, but instead, from facing the things that I am most afraid of facing. I am feeling deep gratitude even on the days that everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. Because I don’t have to do it alone. And in that, I see love.
I am letting myself be loved. By my friends, my partner, my family. I am expressing my vulnerabilities and no longer pretending to be strong when I do not have to be. I am crying more freely. I am letting myself be held. I think I always needed to but never felt safe enough to before.
I do not know what comes next, but I am dedicated to living right now. My challenges feel like disguised blessings. I know intuitively that I am being prepared for a greatness that only I can wield.
I continue to live, despite it all.
