For four years I walked from the Lasalle Blue Line station to Jones College Prep. It was a fairly mundane walk – sometimes I was freezing, sometimes my vision was impaired by rain, sometimes I was in a rush, sometimes I saw someone I knew and hoped they didn’t see me. Regardless of what high school nonsense or commuting struggles I was up against, I was always hyper-aware of the experience. I would look up to the tops of the tall buildings as I was passing them as a tourist might. I would think to myself this is high school. This is my life. I had the same experience last year walking from the Frick Fine Arts Building to Tower B. This is my freshman year of college, I would think. I do the same thing this year as I walk through the streets of South Oakland. This is my sophomore year of college. I wonder what might cross my mind a year from now… 

When I have a this is now moment at 19, I think about the ones I had at 18, 17, 16, and on and on. It’s almost like Inception (2010). The younger versions of myself exist within me the way Leonardo DiCaprio exists in dreams within dreams. The only difference is I’m not a 49-year-old man who stops dating women when they turn 25. In all seriousness, it trips me up to know every stage of my life has built on itself to place me where I am now. This feels unsustainable in a way – like as I get older and things keep multiplying I might just explode. I am constantly fighting to figure it all out, and my brain refuses to give me a minute of rest. 

There is merit to being a thoughtful person. It allows me to be truly present in every moment – observing and analyzing life. I hope this awareness keeps life from passing me by. However, it is exhausting to feel it all the time. When the overwhelming weight of feeling everything all the time is especially burdensome, I crave an ‘ignorance is bliss’ outlook. I find myself moving through my own house in a calculated way and I wish I were on autopilot. I can’t walk down the street without clocking everything and everyone in sight. While this can be entertaining on a stroll to class, it prevents me from just being in my own little world. 

This overthinking will never leave me, it’s how I’m wired. I wish I could experience one day in someone else's brain to compare it to mine. Anyone with anxiety has been told that it will always be a part of them, and it’s just a matter of figuring out how to work with it. While true, this is the worst thing to think about. I love that I think deeply about the moments I’m in. It’s so cool that everything I’ve experienced is analyzed and broken into subcategories and run through my mind machine over and over again to figure out what it means. It’s so great, yet I want to rip my brain out of my skull. I want a break from myself. I want to turn it off!!! Then, maybe, I can turn it on when it serves me and have it both ways. Freakish girls like me want to have the best of both worlds all the time. Is that so wrong? 

Edited by Briana Malik & Elisabeth Kay