the thing I almost didn't say, the really ugly part, is that sometimes a piece of me still WANTS to grab onto the old tight knot in my stomach, the frantic buzz in my skull that used to tell me I was ALIVE, like a familiar ache you almost crave when everything else is so… expansive now, like my chest keeps trying to expand further than my skin will allow. it's not a longing for the actual mess, no, not that, but just that INTENSITY, that hyper-awareness, because even now my spine still gets that little twitch sometimes, a quick jolt just under the skin, seeing something that isn't even there, a phantom limb of dread. it’s a weird kind of nostalgia for the feeling of being broken, of always having something to fix, when really the bigger challenge is just learning to float without needing to constantly paddle against some invisible current, even the dust motes dancing above the floorboards seem to understand gravity better than my old self did, just letting go, just being carried.