anxious in the city

I guess I just didn’t expect that chasing your dreams would come with panic attacks.

They come pretty frequently, almost daily, and I’ve learned to live with them, to breathe through them, to recognize that anxiety doesn’t mean I’m weak or incapable, but that my body is responding to change, transition, and unfamiliar territory. As strange as it sounds, anxiety is my body’s way of showing kindness to myself. Anxiety is my body’s protective instinct. It just wants me to be safe, and raises the red warnings flags when it can’t see anything familiar. Anxiety is my body speaking, my flesh, my animal instincts, and they are just doing what they were made to do.

The rational part of my brain knows that I am okay: that I have enough money (for now), that I live with a safe family, that I haven’t passed out in over a year, that I’m not in any more danger here than anywhere else in the world. But my gut sees this new and unfamiliar territory, and the survival instinct kicks in.

“Find food, find water, find shelter, find comfort and familiarity.”

And if these aren’t immediately present—panic.

In short, this season of transition has been one giant fight between my body and my brain. My body says, “turn back, it’s not safe” and my mind says, “it’s okay, keep moving forward.” Sometimes I don’t know who to be loyal to—my gut instincts or my rational thinking. Both have valid points to make. And I think I may walk this tightrope my whole life, mediating conflict with myself. All the time. About everything.

It’s frustrating. Exhausting. Infuriating. But I’m learning to be kind to all the parts of myself, even my gut instinct who tells me to flee and find safety. After all, my gut is only trying to protect me. So I’m listening to that inner-protector, giving it a voice, speaking kindly back to it: “I hear you. You’re right. All of this is unfamiliar. It’s new and even scary sometimes. But it’s okay to be scared. Keep moving forward.”

This is a conversation I have with myself multiple times a day, and I’m finally accepting this inner conflict as normal.

Chasing my dreams is wonderful and worth it, but when I get to the daily grind of putting one foot in front of the other to make it happen, it’s hard and it’s scary. For the first time in my life, I have nothing familiar to hold onto. I don’t know big cities, I don’t know publishing jobs, I don’t know public transportation systems, I don’t know cold weather, but suddenly I’m thrust into all of these at once. Of course it’s going to produce stress and anxiety! This is normal. All parts of the body need time to adjust. So I’m giving myself grace and permission to feel what I feel and time to settle in.

It’s hard to explain that I love New York City and wouldn’t trade this season for the world, but it’s exorbitantly harder than I ever imagined.

To anyone wanting to do the same thing—drop everything and pursue a place, a job, a dream—I say, yes, 100% do it. And also brace yourself. You’ll face a lot more resistance than you realize, most of it from within yourself. That’s okay. Keep moving forward. Push through the fear. Take one more step, and trust that they are ordered. One day at a time is all you have to do. Your life probably won’t fall apart, and even if it does, you will have tried and it will all be okay. Remember the people that love you, that are cheering you on, and that will come to your rescue if and when you fall down. Maybe what’s around the corner will be a beautiful success or an embarrassing failure; most likely it will be a combination of both wrapped up into one lovely, broken, mosaic of real life.

Just one more step. That’s all it takes. And, yes, I’m preaching to myself here, wrapped in a blanket in the middle of an upper east side apartment, unsure of where my next paycheck is coming from or where I will permanently live or really anything past today. I just don’t know yet. And that’s okay.

Do I have enough to get me through today? Yes, yes I do. And because of that, I’m thankful and I’m okay.