Caroline

“I often wonder what's wrong with me. Before I was aware of the way anxiety could grip the body and wring it dry of joy, I named my ailment "the balloon". The balloon is the extra organ inside of my chest that inflates of its own accord, plugs up my ears, and suffocates me from within. On bad days, my vision blurs. Nights when it feels like the balloon is swelling and crowding the blood and muscle, I roll onto the floor and do push-ups until it deflates. When that doesn't work, I sleep with the TV set to anything at all. It doesn't matter, so long as it keeps my thoughts from veering inward. Had Mayra ever felt the balloon? Of course she had, I sometimes thought. Other times, I wondered whether she'd run far and fast enough throughout her life that she'd avoided it altogether.”
― Nicky Gonzalez, Mayra