Anxiety is a Circus Master

Performing only one trick

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Some of my earliest childhood memories are waking up before everybody, running to my parents’ bedroom, and checking if they’re breathing.

I don’t know when I first learned about death. In my memories, it has always been there, at the forefront of my mind. I’ve never feared my own death but the possibility of losing someone I love has been paralyzing me since I was a child.

The little girl who kept checking if her parents were breathing every morning, is still urging me to check if my cat is breathing, if my partner is breathing, if my baby daughter is breathing. Stillness, deep sleep, relaxation always bring her back, whispering in my ear, “Just in case, check, just in case…” So I tiptoe, hover over my daughter’s crib, or my partner taking a nap, my eyes pierced, waiting to see the ever so slight movement of their chest, and then I step away, knowing that I am the ghost, I am the one haunting this home in this moment, and if they happen to open their eyes right now, I will be the scary thing.

This is called a wounded instinct.

It’s not rooted in any objective reality. My partner is not sick and neither is my daughter. It is highly improbable that they die in their sleep, just as it was improbable that my parents die in their sleep when I was a child. The…