Finding my Anxiety

I don’t know when my anxiety started, but if I had to guess it was the day I lost my charm bracelet.

It was bothering me during a middle-school test, and I shoved it into my pocket. Days later, my mother asked where it was; why wasn’t I wearing something she gave me, that I was supposed to treasure and cherish and never take off no matter how much it was bothering me?

We tore apart my room, searching through my sheets and my shirts and my shit, and we could not find it. No sight of the bracelet my mother deemed I should hold dear. It turned up a few days later, out of the wash in the very pocket I had shoved it into.

The silver (nickel?) coating was destroyed and I was in big trouble, missy.

I now have to check my jewelry several times a day, even though I haven’t lost a piece in years. It’s fine. The jolt of panic I feel when I realized I haven’t checked where my ring or my bracelet or my earrings are in the last 30 minutes is totally fine and normal.

It’s okay to know you’re not okay. It’s okay if I feel like I’m losing my marbles if I literally lose my marbles.

It’s okay to cry and mourn and move on from a lost piece from the past. And it’s okay to let go of a bracelet that went through the wash when you were eleven. So why is it still tucked in my drawer?

Wait, is it? Yes. It’s still there. Whew.