Centering

The time is rapidly approaching where I’m going to be doing something exciting. Terrifying too actually. It will be, in a lot of ways, a whole bunch of new crammed into a very brief amount of time. New challenges, new problems and just a whole change in how my life will be.

But no matter what the difficulties are, no matter how unbelievably raddled with anxiety I might be at the mere thought of how much work I have to do in the next couple of months, I can always get just a little bit calmer by realizing that I’m not going to be alone in any of this. Emily will be there along the way, going through the same things and already having gone through the same things that I’m about to go through.

Emily has been, for as long as I’ve known her and as long as I’ve been with her, someone who rights me, just by being there. It’s not just a matter of her calming me down when I get into one of my high-strung, manic, pacing wildly back-and-forth moods. It’s just about knowing she’s there and that makes it better.

And, even beyond that, she propels me forward and beyond what I thought I could do. This recent creative burst, this recent refocusing on my writing and trying to get my writing career started, is due, in no small way, to the constant encouragement she gives me: always reading what I’ve written, telling me what she thinks, prodding me for more. She is my best reader and she tells me what she thinks, which is the most important thing a writer can ever have.

And even further beyond that, she gets me out and about in the world: new foods, new places, new whatever. Her excitement becomes my excitement and where I was once reluctant to change, hated to change, I’ll now go out of my way to explore, to find new things to do and try, to broaden who I am.

She has, in every way that matters to me, started to make me a better person. Without pressuring me, without browbeating or berating; just because I want to be the person she deserves. And though I don’t think I’m there yet, I hope to be some day.

Dylan Charles