Within just a short period of time, my anxiety has skyrocketed from inconvenient to borderline unbearable.

With more responsibilities balanced on my carefully curated shoulders, threatening to crack with horrific posture, my perfectionism has hit me like a brick.

With even more on my plate than before, I’ve come to find that it isn’t just external pressure that I struggle with: I am harder on myself than anyone else ever will be.

While it’s true that there’s always something expected of me, my expectations are usually the highest.

I’m at my academic zenith: the rightfully named ‘Hardest Year Of High School.’

So naturally, being a nervous wreck, I’m stressed to the bone. 

As we speak, I’m thinking about a hundred things: color guard choreography, my dual credit homework, helping code a website, etcetera. I haven’t found it in me to just let go.

Soon I’ll find it in me to relieve myself of the internal pressure to be perfect in the same way I’m trying to dismiss judgment from outsiders.

But until then, I’ll take it one (insanely stressful) day at a time.