I’ve been sitting here silently for awhile now, just staring off into space. I can’t honestly believe that I’m here. It feels like something went horribly wrong in my past that resulted in me becoming the impossible: a healthy, successful university student. Why do I feel this way? Why would I call literal miracles of God “horrible”? Why do I still believe that the life I’m living today is “impossible”?

Despite years of therapy at this point, I still hold onto the prospect of an early death like a “security blanket”. Of course, I never wanted (or want) to die, especially in such a brutal and excruciating way as suffocating to death on my own mucus in the hospital. But, at least I knew- or felt like I knew- how my time on earth would end. There was a deep sense of security and peace in knowing, almost for certain, that I would kick the bucket sometime in my teens or twenties (or thirties, if I was lucky) for no reason other than my shitty genetics. 

But now… I’m still alive. At twenty-three years old (almost twenty-four), I’m as healthy as I could possibly be, sitting in the student wellness building after turning in my second Biology exam early, silently wondering, “What the fuck?” as I listen to Johnny Cash singing “Personal Jesus” and furiously type these words onto a dirty screen.

I wasn’t supposed to make it this far.