Please Forgive My Anxiety. It’s Not Who I Want To Be Either.

Please forgive my anxiety.

Please forgive my anxiety for the way that sometimes, when I’m telling a story, I lose my words and then forget where I left off. Sometimes I continue with a giggle, and other times I pass the baton to someone else to finish because I’m humiliated.

Please forgive my anxiety that makes me at times talk too fast and much to fill in the potential “awkward silence” and, at other times, not at all out of fear of being “my awkward self.”

But it’s not who I am. It’s just a piece of me. 

Please forgive my anxiety that makes me toss and turn until it’s 4 am and leaves me exhausted almost every morning.

Please forgive my anxiety that makes me want to get things done non-stop yet makes me afraid to take risks. Fear of failure. Fear of letting people down. So many fears always holding me back.

Please forgive my anxiety for asking you to repeat yourself a couple of times when you ask me a question when we’re out in this pandemic.

Between the masks and my anxiety about how close I should be to you, and everything else in-between, I only hear your voice in muffles. 

But it’s not who I am. It’s just a piece of me.

Please forgive my anxiety when I doubt you. It always tells me I’m not good enough. That no one loves me, and I can’t help but get insecure at times.

Please forgive my anxiety for overthinking and over-analyzing everything and not being able to shut off, ever. 

And most of all, please forgive me for what anxiety makes me do.

Anxiety is not who I am. It’s just a piece of me. 

It’s a chemical imbalance in my brain.

It’s not who I want to be either.

It holds back the real me.  

So, please forgive my anxiety.