So I’ve always been rather anxious … not unlike a good majority of the rest of the world it would seem …

As a child, my one big fear was that my Mother would die, or leave, and that I would either have to live with my father (an inexplicably scary option) or my grandparents (equally scary – less inexplicable). There was no rational basis for this fear – but I still remember being a 6-year-old very sure that one of those two futures would eventuate.

As an adult, my one big fear is that I will end my life without having been loved in that all-consuming way that reaches atom-level; that I will continue to end my day with an apartment door clicking like a prison cell.

And some days, this potential future, for me, feels as real as reality ever does.  It comes with emotion and physical reactions that, for me, resemble those felt before a particularly scary amusement park ride.

The imaginary future becomes my real present.

And there is no nuance in these thoughts – they are black and white; a good life and a bad one. There is none of the grey that comes with the trials of a relationship or the benefits of a close group of friends and family.

My positive destiny is all roses and its grim alternative is dark silence.

… a measured, balanced emotional response is not one that I was built with.