Jennifer Kurack

For the first time in my life, I am choosing now over the promises of the future.

Becoming present with anxiety feels like letting the sun in. It feels like opening the curtains on the first day of spring and feeling the rays of the sun on your face, savoring it.

For those of us with anxiety, it can be hard to open up, because we feel like our anxiety is a burden or that people will label us as “too much” or “too sensitive.” Be too much. Be too sensitive.

Air fills my lungs. Light fills my eyes.

I don’t want to readjust my puzzle board. I am not ready to let go of the idea that people are born good and that they want to be good.

I will remember. Always. 

You aren’t early and you aren’t late.

He was captivated by her light, like a moth and a dancing flame in the darkness of a quiet night.

She was the wind, ruffling the autumn oak leaves until they fell, leaving behind flashes of oranges, reds, and browns along clear blue sky.

You are the peace I think I don’t need.

My experience with COVID-19 was a wakeup call, both to myself and the people around me. It made the disease personal; it doesn’t just infect the elderly or at-risk populations.

Real body positivity is giving yourself a break.

Would they tell of the shakiness of my fingers grasping into bark as you pushed me up against the oak the first time we kissed? 

What am I going to say when she asks the hard questions? The questions about this world we are living in. What am I going to say when she asks the same questions that bring me to my knees and leave tears rolling down my cheeks? 

When you asked if you could come in to talk. Closing that door was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

The worst part of living in your head is feeling like you are trapped there forever, alone.

I can’t seem to forget that time still flies. I feel like I am paralyzed without you.

I am sorry that the idea of who I wanted you to be created an unrealistic expectation that I should have never depended on you to fill.