I just want to close my eyes and breathe. I want to kick off my shoes, shrug out of my clothes, fall back into my bed and watch the sun flicker through the blinds on my ceiling. I want to turn off my phone. I want to silence the air around me and hear the planes, the laughter of children, the neighbor’s dog barking outside. I don’t want to think about the next project, next deadline, next bill to pay. I don’t want to think about the man whose lips I long to kiss, and wonder whether he’s thinking of me, too. I don’t want to ache for my family, for my friends. I don’t want to obsess over future plans, or think about an unpaved road I’ll one day walk on, destination unknown. I want to simply release the tension of the day, of the week, of the month, of this life that so often settles on my shoulders. For once, I just want to be absent. A minor character in my own life. I don’t want to have to answer the text messages blinking on my screen, or wakeup to the sound of an alarm when the sky’s still dark. I don’t want to chase after unobtainable goals, even if I do push myself to finally reach them. Right now, I just want to be. I want to empty my mind of everything – all the fear and anxiety, all the confusion and doubt, all the emotions I can’t even place but still feel, both light and heavy in my chest. I want to stop thinking I must know, must do, must answer the questions in my head. I want to simply sit and daydream of nothing but the way the sunset fades and the moon rises, and no matter what I do, the days will draw into one another, slowly, beautifully, and endlessly until I am no more.

It’s not that I’m sad. It’s not that I wish it would all end. It’s just that sometimes existing in itself is hard. Sometimes the monotony, the quickness, the quiet, the rush, the way we are human and fighting through an imperfect existence is far too difficult. Sometimes, it’s beautiful to simply be nothing at all but a person in this place. Here. Breathing. Remembering. Forgetting. And the more I think about our lives, the more I feel like we’re all floating. We’re all wandering around, bumping into one another, releasing energy and passion and fear and absorbing all that back into ourselves from the people we meet. And honestly, I just want to slow it all down. I want to forget what it’s like to know that time is running out, and that we’re forever going to be moving, searching, becoming. I just want to stretch the minutes so that I can exist, in this place, with no commitments or destinations, no expectations or places I must go. I want to slow down and remember that I am nothing but a collection of cells, moving in harmony and dissonance with the universe.