Last night I had a breakdown and cried all over my cat. My cat, Petunia, is so understanding. What would I do without her? Everything I’ve been reading lately seems to send the same message: You have fears, grief, and depression that you’ve bottled up and stuffed away. But I always disagree, because I don’t feel it. Then I realize I don’t feel anything.

In anticipation of the race on Thursday, I’ve been getting this tight feeling in my chest. I always get nervous around crowds, and there won’t be anyone I know there, but now I realize this is different somehow. I expect it to go badly. I have to convince myself that I’ll be fine. But when I think back to all the choices I’ve made in the past, and the roads I’ve taken, I realize that part of me craves the chaos I grew up with. Without it, I don’t know what to do with myself.

The more I think about it, the more I see that everything about me is a contradiction, a cauldron of simmering emotions that I don’t address. It’s one thing to know this on an intellectual level, but I’m having difficulty facing it on an emotional level. I’m not sure how to reconcile the two parts of myself– the me that everyone else sees, and the me that I’ve buried somewhere inside myself.

I’ve only attended two ACA meetings so far, but I’m convinced these revelations are due to my recent examination of myself, as I write my childhood memoir, pen my dreams, and give myself time to think every day on what it is I’ve been hiding from myself and how I can heal.

My whole life, I add a pinch of chaos for flavor. As if life would be bland without it. But in my heart, I know that’s not true. I just want to get to the point where I realize that in my soul.