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I had a nightmare last night that I woke up at noon and somehow slept right through a final. I was scrambling around looking for my backpack, asking my little brother to help me, somehow unable to keep my eyes open long enough to look for it, my feet dragging more and more as the dream went on and I came close to waking.

Thing is, I was so anxious because it was an English final. At my university. Which, upon waking, I remembered was two hundred miles away. Not to mention the fact that I've not taken an English course at that school yet, thanks to AP tests.

The nightmare was horrendous and anxious and tearful while I was in it, but as soon as I awoke I realized how utterly ridiculous it all was. It's always that way. Things seem terrifying when you're right in the middle of them, but once outside it's preposterous.

Even if all the logistics of the dream had matched up, even if it was still early December and I had an English final and was commuting to school, sleeping through one, while pretty bad, is not going to make my world spin off its axis entirely.

For one thing, considering my English grades all through highschool, I could pretty much skip every final and still pass, probably with a B.

I still find nights where I'm awake with anxious little boogeymen tumbling around in my head. I still see that vision of myself at seventy, in a trailer park, with a cat (which makes no sense, since I'm allergic to them), utterly alone and wondering how the hell my life went so wrong. I still see myself unkissed at thirty-seven, unable to pay someone to talk to me.

But you know what? There is no way my life will ever be derailed that much. I'm on a track that, while it may branch off into less savory parts of existence, will never utterly break down and throw me into my worst fears. They're as illogical as the nightmare.

I mean, Briana had just about the worst thing possible happen to her. She was in a car accident that rearranged her life entirely, taking her sister and her feet and completely screwing over her dreams. This girl was a third-degree blackbelt. She was in the dance squad at her school. But she found new dreams. She is still going to college, she is still strong, she is still making it. She won't ever be a fourth-degree blackbelt, but she will still have friends and goals and she will be okay. As I will.

Why do we get so scared anyway? I'd have to drop out of college, give up personal hygiene for a couple years, and cut off my hands and tongue to end my chances. There are too many ways I could go. And while I might have anxiety over what path to choose (singing? writing? teaching? acting?), I will never need to worry about all of them closing off to me.

Hear me, Lala? Heather? We don't have to be afraid. We're going to make it.

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