I know terror. Terror is my roommate. He sits on my chest day and night. I walk for the narrow pathways of my home from one room to the next. My small apartment. My prison. And Terror is always there. He reminds me of my disintegration. He tells me daily that I am losing. Losing what? Losing everything. Every little thread of hope that I have is frayed and falling apart. Terror is there to remind me that hope is disappearing. It's hard to explain. But terror is my past. Terror is the mistakes I've made. Terror is the harm I've done to others and the selfish way I have lived my life up to this point. Terror is me and I am afraid. I am afraid for myself and I am afraid of myself. I'm afraid of the past me that made the decisions that left me weak and hopeless. There is no one else. It is only me. I keep myself alive and I keep the terror close. I have no choice. The terror is my twin. He is the weakness of me. He is the witness of my crimes. He is the willing participant who watched me slice myself up into pieces that no longer look like a woman. He is in my hands. He is my fingers. He fills my calves down to my toes. He is the weight I gain and the hair I lose. He is the disappointing shower. He is the disappearing sleep. He is my fellow. Where once I could calm him and soothe him and bring hope, I can no longer comfort him in any way. He is the rug worn bare and the bedsprings that are in deep decline. He is the sun that shines too brightly for me to find the words I need. I have no more words. The only words I had are gone. He is my only brother. He is my father and my mother. He is the loss of everything and the emptiness of nothing. Because I am nothing. I have nothing. And he reminds me that fear is the only thing that's keeping me here. He is fear. He is my captor and my saint and my holy relic. He is my son that I will betray. Although I am childless, he is my child. He is coming to the world hungry and crying and now waiting to be fed. And he cannot be denied. He will not be denied. He is ruthless and relentless. He regrets nothing. And yet here I am, regretting every minute that I let him grow inside of me. He is my fault. He is me.

Finally, I tried the blue sponge with its rough side.  A lightweight eraser didn’t work and neither did a wet cloth.  No.  But the sponge (and some elbow grease) finally did the trick, and I wiped away all of my values.  The ink had been there so long that it refused to go.  It took effort to erase them all.  The white board was just a bit banged up with a few dots where the magic surface had been nicked and damaged, but after a few minutes of scrubbing, the ink was gone.  “Courage” and “Patience” and “Forgiveness” and “Loyalty” were all erased. There were a dozen words living on that board so long that somehow the ink had dug its claws into the surface and made quite a fight.  I took a picture of my values before I started to clean them from the shiny surface.  The board is about 10 inches x 20.  Its magnet sticks to the refrigerator door so that the values were a reminder to me.  They stared back at me as I stood in the kitchen with my phone blaring some YouTube channel of talkers, talking and talking.  The board was unblinking and somewhat ruthless in its presentation of the truth.  It never got old or tired, and I discovered just how resilient those values are.

I want a change.  I want a daily reminder of promises I make to myself.  “Write.”  “The Bathroom”  “Groceries.”  “The cart.”  I knew what each meant.  They were tasks for me as a way to keep my summer organized and purposeful.  Without the routine of school, I could easily slip into darkness, especially in this apartment.  If I actually open my eyes, I see it all. Evidence of my disorder.  There are so many corners of my home where I have swept away the rot.  Things are no longer new or shiny, but I can’t seem to get this place back.  It gave itself up to my anxiety last year, and now I am breathing in its destruction every second I spend here.  I am trapped, but I need to escape.  I can’t simply leave.  I left for school each day to drive to my job, but even driving was once a prisoner here.  It took six days in a hospital and a month of intensive outpatient therapy to loosen terror’s grip on me.  I went back to work last May, and I just finished a full year.  I snuck out of the hole into which I had fallen or been pushed.  Who knows? But now my apartment reminds me almost hour by hour that I was once a prisoner here.  Decay set in, and I barely escape it every day.  Barely, but I did.

Now I am back in its talons.  That’s an apt metaphor as I watch the small birds scurry about my patio, gobbling up the seeds I sprinkled there only an hour earlier.  They are my only visitors.  I wouldn’t know what to clean first even if I could invite someone into my home.  I have a pool and a fitness center.  These are good excuses for my friend to come visit, but I can’t have anyone in this apartment with it being such a tattered mess.  

Anxiety is a terrorist.  It came to me in the middle of a collapse and launched itself on me, without a care for my well-being.  It was muddy and spackled with the filth of the world, and when it shook its heavy mane like a wet lion, it spread its grime everywhere, and I didn't have the strength to clean it. Every corner is dirty.