My Cocoon Bed
Wrestling with anxiety in the morning
There’s a meme that has circled the Internet. It is of Steve Carell sitting on a swing, and on a park bench with his head in hands. The caption reads, “When you realize you should have bought a house in 2008 instead of being in 9th grade.”
In 2008, I was 14, so I hadn’t reached high school yet, but this meme still resonates with me. And it makes me smile, in a bitter sort of way.
Every morning, when my alarm goes off, I turn it off, and curl myself up tight in the covers. I close my eyes. Perhaps I fall asleep again. Maybe I don’t. But no matter what, the comfortable hold of the warm covers sends me off to a calm, dreamlike state. My mind wanders off to the future, drifts back to the past, and fumbles around the present.
I think about having an apartment, one that is all mine and really cozy. I think about how beautiful I could make that place, and how lovely it would be to live a simple life, in a blossoming area, in a place that feels like home. To be settled, what beautiful dream that would be? But then I get really sad and discouraged. I roll over in my bed and think about the current predicament I’m in. Sometimes when I think about it tears start to well up.
Nearly 30-years-old, living with my parents after two not-well-planned-attempts to live on my…