The Existence Of Amy

by Lana Grace Riva

Waiting time equates to thinking time and I need less of both if I am to be successful.

Any notion of resting and relief will not be entertained or tolerated.

I take off my coat and place my bag on the floor in an exact location where I have previously assessed and deemed acceptable for it to reside.

I have fear of being subjected to merely sitting in a plane with no control over my surroundings.

Knowing I always have an out provides some small feeling of control I guess.

The feeling where you know something is wrong even when you are not specifically thinking about it.

You hand over a lot of control of your life when you board.

Yes, I am aware I need more personal space than the average person,

Manically searching for some form of control over my environment.

I've come to be pretty good at the pretending skill for many aspects of life. It's kind of a necessity if I want to avoid making the weird attract the spotlight.

And I would be severely missing out without books.

It doesn't often stay tricked for long though sadly. More often than not it will abruptly realise what's happening and interject the story with – hold on, remember you are meant to be worrying about that thing that happened earlier?

I start to get angry with myself for not realising this beforehand and being prepared.

Still, I can't seem to stop the annoyance. It is almost as though I am in some state of delusion, believing there is one high up level of annoyance that if I reach, I will be popped back in time to correct my error.

I can barely understand it myself, therefore, trying to translate it to someone else seems a somewhat impossible task.

The 'Did I' questions are numerous and tedious but I am powerless to stop engaging with them.

but now everyone who knows me, knows I am not a hugger.

My waking hours generally exist in a state of perpetual tiredness which I imagine is attributed to the amount of brain energy constantly in use.

But pretending is proving increasingly difficult.

I clearly can't fix this by myself. I have no idea what is even really going on in my brain so how can I make any realistic attempt at fixing it?

I don't want to cause anyone pain. But the magnitude of pain I feel within myself is so overwhelming.