I find a lot of comfort in patterns.

Whenever I’m anxious, I really like listening to repetitive instrumentals with the same beats and musical swells. 

I like to tap on my hands and cool surfaces in sequences until I feel less overwhelmed and the static in my ears dies out.

Tracing my hands over textures that are familiar to me, like a jacket I’ve worn a million times, or the dips and swirls in a plate I’m scrubbing, or the edges of a table I knock my hip against by accident every day.

The familiarity brings me comfort—everyone feels better when they’re surrounded by things that they know.

I think that that’s why the transition into every new stage of your life is so jarring. How can I be comfortable when the carpet beneath my feet won’t feel the same in a new house? When I’m missing the curve of a door handle that always threatens to slip off?

I know everyone relaxes into their surroundings and yearns for their comfort, but it feels like this goes a level deeper. From tangy tap water to what texture ice gets made in the fridge’s ice maker.

Even people in my life have patterns. How they act, phrases they say, the way they walk. I have a tagging system of sorts, and all these little mannerisms contribute to how I perceive them, through colors, animals, shapes, scents, etc.

Whenever there’s a drastic change in someone’s behavior, it leaves me feeling like when the floor feels different beneath my feet in a new environment. Unsettled. Colors start to shift in hue in my system, and it overwhelms me even more.

I don’t know why these patterns are so integral in my life, but they keep me functioning in a way that stress balls can’t.

I just sometimes wonder what will happen when everything has changed too much for me to find any patterns.