Late September is always tough for everyone. It's normal to feel down. Summer is over, it's the big back to school/back to work season, the air gets fresher, the sun is not as warm as it used to be and doesn't show up as much. It's normal to feel down, but it gets better eventually, you'll see. That's what Benny from accounting said.

The thing is, Benny, back in june, I already was feeling this wonderful pain in my chest that prevents me from breathing every once in a while, that weighs a tone, and sometimes, keeps me from getting up in the morning.

My friend Cora, that I have known for ages, but don’t see as much as I used to now, keeps asking me how I am. I hate saying that I'm good when I'm not, so I try to avoid the question because I don’t want to kill the mood, so I talk about something else, but then she asks the question over and over again and at some point I have no other choices than answering and saying that I feel "blaaa", and how I just feel like I don't want anything right now and I have no motivation and then I stop there because I don’t wanna be too much of a pain in the arse to her and also because I don't want her to join the "life is pointless club" with me, I think that would make me even more depressed, it's MY thing, you know? After that, she just looks at me and smiles. But not a cute or hypocrite smile. Honestly, I would've preferred either of those. No. Like the worst kind of smile you can think of. The kind of smile that says : "I feel a bit uncomfortable with you oversharing but I’m trying to give you some ounce of reassurance and support in a very clumsy way" and it's not completely filled with empathy, there's also a lot of pity in it, which makes it a tad condescending in the end. She just gives me a pat on the back and says that life is tough you know? It's ok to feel down every once in a while, you just gotta get a grip.

Well yeah, of course, silly me, I’ll just get a grip it’s as simple as that, sorry for replying honestly to a question you have asked me about a thousand times. But you have to know, Cora, that this “down” that everybody feels every once in a while, has unfortunately become too much every while for me. As in 24/7. 7 days a week.

I'm not even gonna go on about all those relatives that keeps reminding me how much of a pretty pretty life I have, and how some people are not as lucky as me, so I gotta enjoy it for them or whatever.

All jokes aside. Don't ever say that to anyone. You might as well put a rope in their hands and just say "go on, off you go" with a big smile on your face. I never got that whole "life is shit, but be happy that some people have even shittier lives so you can feel better about yourself". You might as well end it right now if that's really the only thing that gets you up in the morning. What a horrible way of going about your life.

People just don't get it. Now, I prefer to laugh about it. I already have too much to cry about anyways. Although I haven't been able to cry for months. I feel numb. I feel like, I just can't feel. Anything. All I can feel is boredom. Everything seems just so utterly plain, annoying and dull. Life is just a big pot of chicken and rice and someone's forgotten to add salt, sauce, pepper and all spices in mine. No taste, no flavour, no savour whatsoever and I refuse to have any of it. The only thing that sorts of still does it for me, is mother nature. That's why I very often take walks anywhere that doesn't involve any kind of human life form. Forests, mountains, hikes, fields etc.

I have to say, I switched it up a little bit today, because today is a special day. I can't particularly tell why. But it just is. It feels like that kind of day when everything changes. For better or for worse. Nothing will ever be the same. Something very corny and dramatic like that.

So here I am, walking along the beach with my shoes off, in this not so warm-not so cold weather. And I remember how much I've always loved the beach. The smell of the sea, the sound of the seagulls, the rumbling of the waves on the shore, people, kids, laughing in the distance.

I can hear people but I can't really see them. As a matter of fact, I can't really see much, everything feels a bit blurry, and I feel a little dizzy. I don't know if it's the wind or the smell of the sea but I feel funny. It might sounds like a weird thing to say but I haven't really been able to tell dream and reality apart lately. I just feel like I'm not really here sometimes. Or like everything around me is staged. I don't know. I think you have to experience it to feel it I guess.

So I just go for walks when I feel like that. It's just easier to deal with it when there are people around me. If I stay inside my house all alone, (there's hardly anyone ever there anyways. So I might as well) I might go mental. That is, if I am not already. I can't really tell anymore. I sort of stopped keeping track of my mental health lately.

I have had this recurring dream that curiously resembles a lot this particular walk, this particular day. That's why I went on it actually. I've had this dream so many times, I thought it had to be some kind of premonition, or guide or prophecy or something, I don't know. So I decided to go for it and see how it goes, see how it ends, because it feels like someone's sending me signs or messages through my dreams or something. I'm not sure if I believe in all this, but there has to be a reason or a meaning. I don't know.

I've been so lost in my own thoughts, I've walked a lot and I'm not on the beach anymore. It feels like I've walked for hours and ended up completely outside of town. I don't really know where I am. But I'm standing on top of a cliff and all there is around me is ocean waves and the sun is shining on my skin, the wind is blowing through my hair (which always tends to annoy me might I say), people seemed happy on the beach, the air smells delicious, and it could almost all feel like heaven. But yet, I still feel grey. Not happy nor sad, I feel a lot and nothing at the same time, and I'm just done because I'm just so tired, physically and mentally, and everyone annoys me, and I don't really wanna be here or anywhere else.

I'm walking closer to the edge and I feel the wind on my face and the sound of the waves and silence. So much silence. I used to find it to be a scary sound. But with all that noise in my head, I appreciate it every once in a while, I find it soothing now. And I kind of feel at peace, you know? Like I've done my time, did my thing, done my part and that's it. Maybe I should've written a letter and left it on my pillow or something like they do in melodramatic movies. I look far away beyond the waves and there's just nothing there but I still wonder if there's something. The earth seems round, and everything is so cinematically beautiful etc etc. What a more poetic way to end it, right?

I let myself fall, and I close my eyes and that's when I get scared. More scared than I have ever been before. The fall feels like an eternity and I realise an eternity is not long enough because I really don't want to touch the ground.

I open my eyes. Silence. Rays of sun shining through the blinds of my bedroom window. My cat's asleep at the edge of my bed. And I should feel good. I should feel safe. Or at least safer, saved. But I feel worse. I have a really bad feeling. Like I’m anxious about something. But not as in - anxiety anxiety, panic attacks, breathing problem, i think im dying, I can't ever go outside - type of anxiety. More like, something isn't right and I feel really weird. Like someone is watching me. Like someone is reading me, like I'm not real. But I am ; I just woke up.

"Am I awake?" I'm waiting for my cat to open his mouth and answer me.

He startles, turns to me, lets out a kind of unbothered miaow and goes back to sleep.

"So I am awake" I say, petting him.

In case you're a bit confused, you have to know that, when I dream, I have full on conversations with my cat. Like he talks back to me and everything. He's the Salem to my Sabrina. Although his voice is super squeaky and annoying, not at all like you'd expect an old fat cat to sound like. I thought he'd have a super deep voice and so I looked very surprised - for this reason only - the first time he spoke to me. I think he looked a bit offended, but I'm not so sure because he doesn't like to talk much about how he feels or about him at all and I'm not much of an expert on cat face reading. Actually, in my dreams he acts like he's my therapist. It was a bit disturbing at first and quickly started to annoy me but I've grown to get used to it.

Anyways don't mind any of that, you know my cat can't talk, it's all in my head.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and no one was home - as per usual - so I decided to go back on that walk. I still don't know why I keep dreaming about this, it feels like I’m obsessed with knowing what it means. I probably just go on that beach too much. Both when I'm awake and asleep. I've pictured myself jumping from that cliff a trillion times as well before dreaming of it of course. But I never actually tried to do it. Maybe I just should. At least I'll stop dreaming about this, and about my cat analysing my subconscious and I'll just forget about everything else I want to forget about.

I don't know whether I make any sense to you or not. I make no sense to me. But this all comes from the most honest place there can be.

This is simply, all brought to you by My Crippling anxiety.

I am simply a tourist, a heart explorer, a mind traveller.

I don’t belong here, nor the other side of this world, nor anywhere in particular.

I come and go, learn and grow, beyond the borders.

I navigate the earth, I sail in between rails, I ride in between tides.

Hike from hill to hill, mountain to mountain, I climb up and I fall down.

I sink deep but never drown.

I swim from river to river, sea to sea, ocean to ocean.

I try to embrace the waves, still fear them but never run.

I am carried by waters, beloved by summer, protected by rocks, toughened by winter.

I meet you and I disappear, I don’t know where I come from, how I’m still standing here.

I am continuously moving, ever changing.

I don’t know what it is but I am always looking for something.

Maybe the point here is not even knowing.

Maybe I am just running away, maybe I am just looking for some action.

Maybe I don’t want the answer, maybe you’re not asking the right question.

Maybe all of us were always destined to travel alone.

Maybe I am simply a tourist, forever in search of a home.