Right in this very moment, I smell like a week-old plate of french fries. Which is interesting, because I’ve been on a strict no-diabetes-in-a-red-box-of-sin diet.

Deeper than that, stronger than this stench sticking to me like a second-skin, I am thumbing through my journal. It’s a leather-bound notebook, designed by Patricia Nash and gifted to me by my dear friend.

Through out the day, it remains tucked inside my computer bag, loyally waiting for my pencil-powered ramblings.

I have a problem with anxiety. Sometimes, I’m fine. I’m fine for days and weeks, and sometimes, when I don’t notice, I’m fine for an entire month. But sometimes, it climbs up my chest, curls around my neck, grasps and squeezes until I can’t breathe.

Sometimes, it’s like a complete stranger resides in my body. And for the majority of my life, I think I have plenty of room for her. I invite her to dinner, and I suggest titles for a movie night with her boyfriend, and maybe we even trade snapchats and harass each other through out the day.

Unfortunately, sometimes she’s mean. Sometimes, this anxiety trapped inside me really just tries to ruin my day.

You know what I do when I am in paralyzing fear?

I write it down.

With every emotion I’ve ever known, I have to eternalize it in a paper prison.

Once, when I was nine, I wrote hate-mail all across my own notebook, and the next day, I proudly showed those in question my scrawled opinion of them. This was far from my finest hour, and perhaps, the cruelest thing fetus!sydney ever thought to commit.

Now, since I’m an adult, and I have to learn how to function in every day life, I find myself with my journal. I open it to the first blank page, and I write.

It quickly turns into a manifestation of my self-possessed thoughts. It turns into mantras of “You can do it!” to “This I believe, this is true.” It’s like it doesn’t make sense until it’s spelled out right in front of me.

These words, unlike most of my others, are meant solely for me.

They are stubborn little scribbles of blue ink that demand I move forward.

So I do.