The panic starts in the chest. It does not have a name yet. Racing heart, something off, and then the search is on. What is causing this. How do I fix it.
For a long time I thought that sequence was problem-solving. As if maybe this time I was going to solve this for good. It was not. It is just the feeling looking for a story to attach to. It can attach to anything. It isn't about the thing.
Wisdom came the way it usually does. Pain first, understanding later. I collected enough of these to see the pattern. The feeling arrived. I searched for the cause. I found something. I fixed it or I didn't. The feeling passed. I thought I had finally done it. I solved for the feeling.
What I know now, when it comes, is this: nothing is wrong. Nothing real enough to fix.
What I am noticing is the gap. Between what my body is doing and what I can do about it. Between what I feel and what is actually happening. My body wants certainty. My mind wants certainty. Something deeper than both of them wants to know that I am okay, that it is going to be okay.
That certainty is not available. It never was. It never will be.
The question is not how to close the gap. I have stopped believing that is possible. The question is whether I can live there, in the not-knowing, and still be okay. Can I never be certain and still enjoy it. Being present helps, making it about now not the future seems to help.
Not resolved. Not fixed. Helpful.
Just okay.
I do not have that answer yet. But I have stopped waiting for it before I move.