Secret Letters: My Age of Anxiety is Ending

The end of anxiety is a "gradual accumulation of eliminations." (I think.)

Welcome to Secret Letters, a paid subscriber perk of Letters from the Homestead. These monthly letters are exactly what you think: secret dispatches that feel a little too vulnerable to put in a free newsletter.

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My Age of Anxiety is Ending (I hope?)

I remember my first anxiety attack. I was in the fifth grade, and I had a dream that I’d been tasked with counting every single penny in a giant mountain of coins. (I can still see the mountain.) When I awoke, I understood that it would be better to be dead than to feel this sort of anxiety, even though I had no language for “anxiety” at the time. When I made it downstairs to my parents’ bedside, I couldn’t explain why the dream was so terrifying, couldn’t explain my incomprehensible fear. The episode dissipated in its explanation, lost to the dreaming world from whence it came. (Hi, mom and dad, I’m fine!)

It was my first taste of real anxiousness. I’ve never forgotten it.