How do you do it?

She asked with a sort of awe in her voice.

You make it look so easy.

He said with an air of jealousy.

Somehow, you always seem to have it together.

But what if I don’t? What if I’ve been faking it this whole time?

I can feel it in my gut. The built up walls of my facade slowly crumbling in towards me.

I ask myself how much longer can I pull this off? How much longer can I live like this?

Always worrying about tomorrow, wondering where am I going to be in 10 years? What’s my next step? What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

Sure, in this moment I’m flustered, and frightened, and caught off guard, but it is nothing compared to the feelings I have when I am alone.

There’s all the times when people have left me to my thoughts, to sink down into my thoughts riddled with questions and muddled second guessing.

What is it that keeps me from sleeping, lying awake staring at nothing while I beg for sleep to relax my mind. Why is that I can not pinpoint the one thing that I crave to know and understand? What is it that I am so afraid of? What is this unknown thing?

And then I realize. I realize my fear.

The unknown.

The not knowing of what is to come in the future. The questions and possibilities that stain the future.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know what college I will attend. I don’t know if my friends will stay my friends a year from now. I don’t know if the life I live now will soon become a fond memory of the past.

I don’t know what the future holds. And that’s scary.

But that’s okay.

I could spend my whole life worrying about the pathway to the future, but all there will ever be is what’s happening now and the decisions we make in this moment.

I can’t forecast my future like the weatherman can the rain. I can only look for storm clouds as signs and let them guide to through and blue skies. So instead of cowering from the thunder, I will cast my eyes toward the summer skies of tomorrow.