Mom
How’s the application coming?
Me
Working on it now!
Dad
Wow, look at you getting ahead of the game.
Mom
Don’t forget to sign up for the entrance exam.
Me
What entrance exam?
Mom
ASHLIE JANIECE
Me
Kidding! Don’t call me. I already signed up.
Setting my phone down,I roll my eyes at the intrusive group text from my parents. Their insistence that I start graduate school gets more intense the closer it gets to the spring deadline. I tell them I’m working on the application when, really, I’m sitting here in my living room, staring at the blank form on my laptop as I try to even out my shaky breathing. I’m sweating buckets while I avoid it, increasingly aware that the looming date is still on my don’t-want-to-do list. Basically, I’m lying to get them off my case.
Recalling some tools from my handful of therapy sessions, I take deep breaths and try to name five details I can see around the room:My comfort NetVids series on the TV, the sunflower painting against the millennial gray wall above it, a burned-out bulb in the kitchen, the contents of my purse spilled across the small wooden table in my entryway, the grad school application taunting me on my laptop.
Oh God.
I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing deeply through my nose, which does nothing but sound the siren for the beginning stages of this panic attack. I know I haven’t called my therapist in a while, butdamn. Maybe I need to, since that didn’t work at all. Another text from Mom pops up on my phone, and I flip it over on the coffee table. I can’t deal with her right now.
Being the child of two strict educators, I always did what they expected of me. I couldn’t disappoint them and wouldn’t ever entertain doing so. Enter my teaching career, where carefree living quickly fell into overstimulation and daily panic attacks. Being in charge of twenty-five six-year-olds was hard enough. Add the intense scrutiny of their parents and my overbearing administrators, and it was the perfect recipe for disaster. I stopped swimming, stopped eating, stoppedcaring. Why have hobbies when I could burn the candle at both ends every day?
When I burned out last year, the only thing that got my parents off my back was a promise to apply for graduate school. I gave them the guarantee of starting a Master of Education to placate them while I took the year off. But honestly, I don’t want to go back to school in any capacity—as a teacher or a student. My parents expect me to desire more for myself, and it’s easier to let them think I do than it is to stand up to them. I’ll tell them eventually, but only when I absolutely have to.
Reaching for my Fit4U tumbler, I take a long sip, hoping the cool water will slow my racing heart. Working there is good for me right now—low stakes and low pressure. I know I don’t want to stay there forever, and I’m getting closer to feeling like my old self, but a year just hasn’t been enough time. I need more of this slow pace to work through building up my confidence again, more time to gain some courage and reintroduce myself to things I actually enjoy.
Like swimming.
I shake the thought from my head as soon as it comes. As much as I love it, I haven’t been in a pool in years. It started feeling like a selfish endeavor when I was struggling so badly at work. With grad school approaching, it still feels selfish.Istill feel selfish.Ugh, don’t cry.
Blinking rapidly, I refocus on my computer, my fingers tingling on the keyboard as my pulse pounds in my ears.I just need to type my name. It’s the easiest thing on the form, but my mind blanks like the blinking cursor wiped the common sense right out of it. Sweat prickles under my arms as I reread the submission requirements—words I could probably recite in my sleep by now. My breathing surges, eyes darting around the words on the application.
GRE.Deadline.Transcripts.Submission.Submission.Submission.
I rub the center of my chest, trying to loosen the tightness gripping me. The walls of my apartment slowly close in as I desperately strain to pull air into my shrinking lungs.You can’t even type your name.
Disappointment.Selfish.Failure.
Right when I’m about to tuck my head between my knees, my phone buzzes. The loud skittering makes me jump, jolting me out of my panic.
Hunter
You make it home from work, honey bear?
