The Calm Before the Storm

Something bad is coming. I know it, it's just going to happen.

I feel like a walking disaster, a beautiful mess some would poetically put it. But I' m anything but that.

My name's Janaye. I'm the sixth in line of the Stetson's and eigth if you count in the Curtis tribe. I have parents, most of the time. I have sisters and brothers, most of the time. And I have friends, most of the time.

I feel so empty. I can feel my heart beat, but it's like it's only a rhythm now. It's almost like a habit, something you do without noticing until someone points it out.

"Oh, your alive!"

"Hm. Didn't realise it."

Kind of like that.

I just seem to move robotically. Smile here, joke here, insert laugh here. I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what I want, I don't know anything.

Hence, the calm before the storm.

You know the storm is coming. You can smell the rain and almost taste the thunder, but you don't know it's happening until the rain pitter patters against your skin and the wind is picking up and than you can fully understand the storm and that it's just going to worsen.

So what do you do? You can try to cover yourself up, try to avoid it, or just let it soak in. Just focus on breathing and not letting you become a storm yourself. Not like it's easy to do. When your head is going a million miles an hour and your body feels frozen and beaten from the wind and your heart feels as heavy as the rain that pelts against you, all you can do is breath.

So you do.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale... and when you feel like you can't take in anymore breath, you do anyway.

So I don't know whether to enjoy the calm, knowing the storm is coming just around the corner, or to just sit back and wait for it. Get out and sit on my front lawn to watch the disaster coming towards me.

I guess I'll just mask my face, smile here, joke here, insert laugh here.

Just because I'm waiting for the storm doesn't mean everyone else has to endure it too.