I learned about anxiety this week.

Right now, I’m taking deep breaths to get through every sentence, because I’m not sure what’s going to be said here, and I’m also not sure this is me prioritizing properly. I’ve just discovered that an assignment I was about to submit was missing many, many requirements, and it means a few hours of work that I thought I didn’t have in my future this week. My eyes are already closing because I slept badly last night. It was one of those nights in which it feels like you’re constantly looking at your phone to see the time, and somehow time is passing but it’s also going so slowly.

I put caffeinated coffee in my cup this morning, something I don’t usually do, because I’m reckless and I drink coffee for the flavor, not for the buzz, because man, do I buzz when I drink caffeine. But I drank it, because I could barely lift my head up from my pillow this morning.

Anyway, that caffeine has long left my veins, and my eyes are shutting, and I need, need, need to work on that assignment, but I also need to write a blog post, and I’m not sure that this is what I should be doing, but here I am, with my heart going thump, thump, thump, my stomach churning a little because I’m honestly not sure this assignment is going to get a good grade anymore, and my grades are really important to me. They never were, not in high school. I didn’t really care much for grades ever, but now, when every dollar is going towards this education, I feel this unending duty to learn the material more than I have ever learned anything before, to sear it to my brain, to do really well in every class.

I’m not going to waste this opportunity.

And I guess this pit of anxiety in my stomach, that I’m ignoring with all my heart, is begging me to re-prioritize, to STOP WRITING A BLOG POST and get to work on this assignment. It’ll never go anywhere but my professors grade book, but it’s about mental health, so it’s important. It’s teaching me things that are going to help me in ten years when I’m faced with a client.

Right?

This is all worth it?

This weekly pulse racing, panic, race to the finish line as I close my laptop before Shabbat begins, hoping and praying I didn’t miss anything, that I read every line I was meant to, that I thought the right thoughts.

Being in school is a privilege, one I don’t take lightly, but it’s also so very contradictory to what my real life is. I’ve been teaching writing for three years, and to be totally honest, I’ve been doing that by trial and error. I’ve made mistakes while teaching and those are some of my worst moments. But I always learn from them, and I get back up stronger, and those lessons become a part of me, and I rarely make the same mistake twice.

School makes me slow it all down in a different way. It asks me to think more, to prepare in a way that I’ve never prepared for anything in my life so that I don’t make mistakes. And it’s hard. I’d much rather learn by experience, to jump into the deep end, and somehow come out kicking. But for my specific line of work, that isn’t a possibility, and to be able to heal other peoples hearts, I need to be as prepared, and educated, as I possibly could be.

So I know, that’s why I’m here, that’s why my heart is thump, thump, thumping, because I’ve never cared more about school than I do right now. And although I know I’ll complete the assignments before the weekend is up, because I always do, it doesn’t calm my nerves. In fact, I’m pretty sure all that nervous energy is what brings me to the finish line, each and every week.

And now, just like that, I’ve written a blog post.

It’s not all that great, but for this week, we’re going to suffice with just okay, because I’ve got a whole lot more words to write tonight before I call it quits.

23/52.