Anxiety

I've been watching a lot of Grey's Anatomy. Streaming  season after season on Netflix, as a coping mechanism. As a time filler. As "senioritis." I dream in scrubs and emergencies. Whatever the symptoms, the diagnosis, one thing is clear: Knowing the inner-workings of Dr. McDreamy does not make me a doctor myself. I don't even play one on TV (but I could ask for a scalpel, with incredibly gusto, if asked)! To open myself up, I wouldn't even know where to begin. 

Today is Purim, and in my Jewish corner of the world (in Borough Park) the bakery smells a little more like jelly and poppy seeds, and the people will come out in costume, with baskets of good fortune and stories of good faith. Growing up, I always loved playing dress up, wearing different hats and gloves: Putting on a show. I still do. But it makes me question the way we take people at face value. 

When I was moving to New York, amongst other things, my father, an avid watcher of true crime shows on television,  would put on "Snatched" or one of those nightmare-inducing forensic programs and say something haunting, about my naïvety; about how I would wind up like a person on the shows he watched. I was always very adamant that I would not…but such accusations made me question my strength--my psychology. Not that I ever knew what  that 'person' was like but that was not a predicament I was prepared to find myself in.   

Well, I have not. And (knock on wood) I don't plan to. My time in New York has taught me a lot about being too trusting. A daily lesson that leaves every student bruised and covered in smog. 

I'm in the process of planning out my life. Parsing out the things I can't bare to lose and extra baggage. Preparing for a Spring Cleaning like never before and the first of many turns into the unknown. These mornings, I wake up with Meredith Grey's voice in my head: The monologue at the beginning of my episode. Somehow this narrative gets me where I need to be but it also starts my brain on something meta. It's difficult to imagine going forward or backward these days. Hilary Duff doesn't believe that people are meant to be together forever. If Lizzie McGuire doesn't believe in lifelong love, what are the rest of us supposed to do? I'll start by asking the girl in my head and hope that she's happy in the end.