Breathe.

Just breathe. There is lots of air.

Quite often, it doesn’t feel like there is enough air. I take deep breath after deep breath and still don’t feel right. It’s just part of the anxiety, I know, and there really is enough air, I know that too, but knowing it doesn’t make it more comfortable or make me feel like I am getting enough oxygen.

It’s a year, now, since I woke up realizing that I couldn’t go to work because I was too much of a basket case to be productive. It’s a year, now, since I started trying to unravel the coping strategies that got me through the chaos and then continued on long afterwards as ingrained habits that generated more problems than they solved. It’s been a year of resting, knitting, writing, crying, breathing, panicking, sleeping, not sleeping, thinking, remembering, running, collapsing, and healing.

I am getting better, I can tell.

I still have a long way to go. I can tell that too.

Ah well, life is the journey, they say.

I think I’ll see if I can finish this shawl design. Maybe accomplishing something, even something so minor as writing up a very simple, almost mindless shawl pattern, maybe getting something done will bring the air back into my lungs.