Be Dazzled

by Ryan La Sala

I worked hard. I always work hard. So how come I never feel like I’m working hard enough?

Luca’s face is full of fear that I know I’ve put there. It makes me hate myself even more, knowing that when he sees me, he sees me with my dagger raised and ready. He fears my temper. I fear my tongue. It’s why I keep him blocked. Luca ruined us once, but I’ve been so busy being hurt that I knew if we talked before I was ready, I’d ruin us forever.

All those feelings—I forced them into my work, my craft, my dream, into shaping my future. But now, with that future going up in flames, the prison I built around those feelings is gone. They’re free to surge forth, and they do so with the full intensity of the day they were hatched from my breaking heart.

Wasting time is the one thing that makes my anxiety go through the roof,

I feel like I am constantly chasing after time to work, choosing everything else and then getting mad at myself.

“Have you ever considered that you can’t be prepared for every future, but all the work you’ve ever done has prepared you for whatever happens in the present?”

I’m forced to consider that word: enough. Is it enough? Am I?

And nothing but winning will be enough for me. All that I do is measured against the person I am trying to become, and his standards are the highest of all. He is strong and unshakeable and kind and joyful. If I can become him, become that, I know the rest will fall into place. But I’m not him yet. I’m me. Anxious, emotional, weak-ass me.

I’m crying because of her, but also because of this kind act from these craft store employees, who are so much more supportive of me than my own mom. And I don’t even know their names.

A familiar compulsion captures my attention. When I get this frayed, I have to make lists.

These bad thoughts are trademark Tired Raffy. They’re not what I want to think or who I want to be.

We work like our history isn’t sitting between us. Or we work like only history sits between us,

I’m speechless. I craft because I love to create. Inaya crafts because she loves to achieve. I tried to be like that, and it made me miserable. Clearly, she feels differently.

No. I’m not choosing, because there is no choice to make. I can do my best and I can let myself feel what I feel.

I can’t decide on anything. Can’t commit to anything. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I make the right choice but don’t have time to execute it because I’ve spent so long sitting here worrying?

I bedazzle like my life depends on it.

I feel the past and present collide in me.

I used to think I always knew what came next. I used to think that my plans were as good as destiny, but that’s never been true. I’ve just always been determined, and lucky, and determined to be lucky. But you can’t design a future and expect it to just happen. Like art, you can only start with intent. Your hands build the rest.

My anger fades beneath startling relief, and I realize that once again, my anxiety has been showing me a lowlight reel of what the future could be. Anxiety is awful like that; it shows you only the worst, and all at once.

Right now, we stand here in the glory of a second chance that we were brave enough to take.

“That sounds good,” I say to Evie. “Listen, I have to go. Luca’s family invited me over for dinner.” Evie doesn’t immediately hang up. I sense her waiting for something else, so I say, “If that’s okay with you?” “Why wouldn’t it be okay? Are they cannibals?” “We’re Italian,” Luca blurts before May gets a hand over his mouth.

I can handle my heart, knowing now how much stronger it is after I put it back together.

I’m not worried about handling anything right now. I’m just happy.