I like data

I started a count up on my phone December 15, 2022. I sat in the Rotunda of the Capitol, the day before my last. I have a lot of countdowns on my phone. Dates are important to me. From the day I started freshman year of college, the day I graduated. The day I got my first job & one from my from the day I met someone I loved. From the day we broke up, from the day we last saw eachother. Some of them at 852 days, some of them just nine months.

I set the timer that day because I wanted to remember that moment, the prayers that I uttered. I was starting a new career, moving to a new but familiar place, losing people I loved. I didn’t know who I was going to be in six months & for the first time in my life - I leaned in. Lack of control used to terrify me but recently I have learned to love it. I was excited, because I was pretty sure I was going to be a better person in six months.

I like timelines. I think that comes from my interest in history and data. I like seeing how much time changes the heart. I like to wonder when I should have known the love was lost. As if I could learn how to protect myself. I am just beginning to accept that I change everyday & so do other people. I can’t collect data on love.

Snippets of data inform me of how far I have come. For most of my college experience, I never took my Apple Watch off. It wasn’t to track steps or calories. It was always interesting to see the places on campus that my heart raced, so fast my phone alerted me that it was abnormal. There was one class my heart beat would hit 126 before, after walking only one floor down in the student center. If I couldn’t get to the bathroom, I would show up dripping in sweat. This was my sophomore year. By junior year, I was a senior & couldn’t tell you what my favorite song was anymore.

At this time I didn’t have social media, so I scrolled in other ways. I overconsumed & online shopped. I watched hundreds of car crash compilations & told myself I was preparing myself for any driving simulation. I don’t think that was true.

I was numb, I locked myself in my room. Just being in the kitchen made my stomach turn and my fight or flight activated. It was easier to be miserable. I had habits that I believed were numbing the thoughts, but in reality they just started a reaction with my anxiety and created toxic fumes. If a chemist could have analyzed my body comp during this time, it would have been 70% anxiety, 25% depression, 5% me.

Something I’ve always been good at is reinventing myself. I read a book when I was in 6th grade, a time when I read 30 books a week and maxed out two library cards. It was about a girl who moved towns every few months and changed her name and her personality. I decided the perception of names were important to me and I wanted to be Alex, not Alexis. The second ‘x’ started as me crossing off the ‘is’ and it stuck after enough people commented on my name tags.

At that age, I would think all day, quietly inside of my head. My favorite thing to do was think, then to catch a thought & trace that thought back to the beginning. When I was younger, I really knew myself. I sat with her, listened to her. I let her exist.

I’ve gotten stuck a few times along my way to now. It’s really been a cycle of depression and darkness followed by the rebirth. I’ve always loved to blame the place that I’m at, the people around. The truth is I just didn’t like myself & that’s hard to admit. Each time I stopped writing, stopped walking, stopped the things that allowed me to feel and be.

Now I am finally learning how to be me. Not again, just me.