I’m 16 years old, nearly a year into living in a new community, surrounded by friends I adore. It’s been a good year, and I’m looking forward to more.
One day, close to the end of the school year, I find out we’re moving.
No more late nights talking at the flower-free botanical garden next door. No more study groups spread out around my room. No more friends jumping the fence to hang out in our backyard after basketball practice. No more overpowering cologne at parties.
Well. That last one might transcend borders.
It has been a fantastic year. My favorite one that I remember. So I’m sad.
But soon, I’m not.
Soon, I’m noticing details that frustrate me. How people act, how things work (or don’t), everything that isn’t going well, that I wish would end. I’m annoyed. I’m ready to leave.
Or maybe I’m getting ready to leave.
Because I’m only 16, but I’ve figured something out, subconsciously. If something in our lives is about to change in a way we don’t like, we can do a little trick. We can make ourselves believe we’ll be ready for the change. We can limit the fallout by looking for the good in the change, or, perhaps more easily, perhaps because of the human tendency toward negativity bias, by looking for the bad in the status quo.
This works in reverse, too: if we’re overstretched in any way, we may subdue our feelings until it’s safe to feel them. Like the sudden need for a break that you feel just as a scheduled break arrives. The travel itch, just as you become available to travel again. The exhaustion that sets in a mile before you finish a run, whether you set out to do three miles or a six. Or your readiness to go home right about when a trip is ending anyway, no matter how long it’s been since you arrived.
But when we feel this sense of being done, this readiness, this itch, I wonder: Are we releasing suppressed emotions now that we feel safe enough to let them out? Or is this feeling the result of a self-protection spell, because it’s easier to handle change when we believe that we want it to happen?
Sometimes, it’s not so easy to tell.
If you measure distance in kilometers, does exhaustion set in a little bit closer to the end of your run?
This Glass Has Water 