Music In The Morning: The Fear

I woke up this morning deep in grips of It. The anxiety, and crushing tightness around my heart. The panicky, claustrophobic, inability to breath that comes after falling asleep under a mountain of worries. It's built of self-doubts and missed deadlines, of bills that change colors faster than autumn leaves. It's mortared by the voice in the back of my head who reminds me of all that my heroes had accomplished by the time they were my age, and quietly (cruelly, knowingly) asks me if i'll ever measure up.



 In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly called it "The Mean Reds," and the singer Lily Allen calls it "The Fear" in such away that you can hear the capitalization. It's a companion that has been with me as long as i can remember. A saboteur lurking in my own heart. A fifth column speaking with my own voice. I don't know how to appease it, or make it go away. I don't have a Tiffany's to sooth me. I don't know what to say to it excepting "Maybe i'll never be great man, maybe i'll never be a good man, but i am going to try as hard as i can, every day, until the day i die."

And pray that might be enough.