Lately, my hands been shaking quite a bit, so I was not surprised, catching myself silently observing how porcelain cup slipped through my fingers and crashed. ‘Oh here goes the green tea‘- I thought, completely ignoring chunks of porcelain scattered through the floor.

I liked that cup. It was a gift of somebody I once deemed important. And now all that is left of that hazy memory is a couple not evenly sized shards. Just in a moment, all of what’s left will be resting in the bottom of my trash can, and by the end of the week it will be completely lost in the pile of trash in some landfill. And here, I am, brewing myself another cup of tea, leaving the mess I just made be.

‘Blood.’ ‘Needles.’ ‘Results.’ ‘It’s alarming.’ ‘ I worry about you, Ieva.’

I look at my reflection in the mirror and wonder maybe they worry because I been quite pale lately. Truly, I am tired… All I want to do is sleep… However, how one can sleep when life outside seems so welcoming. It seems welcoming.

Last time I stood in a crowd, I felt that I am only one who can’t seem to find the strength to step forward. As if I was a passenger in a train that kept moving and moving, and I could only observe fast-changing scenery never being part of it.

I have been staring into the lake for hours, barely touching its calm surface with my hand. My mother’s distant voice kept nudging me ‘Why don’t you go in?’

I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I am scared. Maybe I am afraid of the water.

She looked at me… ‘ Dear, you love swimming.‘

I know. I know. I do. Yet, bare thought of my body being submerged into the water paralyses me.

And once again, I find myself retreating. After I caught my friends gaze, words leave me on their own: ‘Could you take me to the middle of the lake and leave me there?’

‘Are you sure?’- she asks me quietly.

I nod. I have to. I have to swim. I need to know what I can swim to the shore. Now more than ever. She takes me there to the middle of the lake. And I swim, and I swim and I am short of breath, but I do safely reach the bridge. And here I am sitting on the edge of that godforsaken bridge, barely catching my breath, silently relieved;- I made it. Perhaps, I can make it over there too.

I am suddenly brought back to the time I was 16, when the women with kind eyes explained why emotions are so foreign to me.

I am calm. I smile at her. I know now. I know now why I was so different from that boy who pushed me from the swings in primary school and why I blankly stared at him without shedding a tear. The moment he saw my bruised knees – he cried, perhaps out of guilt or perhaps he got scared of the sight of blood. At that given moment I stood up and embraced him – copying precisely what my mother would do when I cried. ‘It’s okay. It just a bruise’ I knew people cried when they were happy too, but in those cases corners of their lips would go upwards and I barely could hear any sobs between their breath and they eyes would glow, they wouldn’t be afraid to meet your gaze. And he was sobbing…

Diagnosis. Another label. I am lucky. I will always be lucky as long as I know what can happen and my odds. As long as I know the process and the rules. I will be fine.  I will learn. It’s easy. It’s patterned. I will be better. I can be better.

I cried just once when I fell and bruised my knees when I was growing up. When I learnt that bruises heal, and pain is momentary, crying seemed unfitting action to express the magnitude of the given situation. And I felt often, and my knees became the canvas of different sizes, shapes and colours bruises. I sometimes didn’t even notice when I added a new piece to my evergrowing collection.

‘You should…”I am afraid…”You should should should..’. Why is she looking with me with such a pity? I don’t think I like her. She has no ounce of kindness in her eyes. People like her scare me. There is nothing more I want to do when to leave her stuffy white office. She does an awful job helping me breathe. No answers. She can’t give me the answers. She doesn’t know. Her interest and understanding fit into a couple of books, what beyond those books, it’s not part who she is. She doesn’t care. It is not a job she is willing to do. It is too difficult. She won’t have anything to do with it. I stop myself from being unreasonably difficult, with mean words that come to the tip of my tongue to easily.

‘Seoul.’ ‘Vienna.’ ‘Tokyo.’ ‘Vienna.’ ‘ Frankfurt.’ ‘Geneva.’ ‘Seoul.’ I don’t even know in which time zone I exist anymore. Soon. Soon I will know where I will be spending a couple of months of my life. It is my choice. It is my choice. But why it feels it is not choice at all? It is an adventure. I must go.  At least I was given a map and a compass. Even if that map is in a language, I can’t read.

But it’s okay. Those kinds of people, ones with white surgical coats will help. They should it’s their job. It’s their job to help. Well, when they can… When odds allows them. I know my odds, I know how to maximise them. I am lucky. So lucky.  My odds are average.

I am not sure anymore of anything. And that is fair. I have people to call. I am not worried. But every time the line beeps, I find my heart sinking. I am afraid. But I am not worried. How odd. I look down. Oh, I bruised my knees again.