How it happened is worth more than what it might mean.

My jeans had been drying on the line after a wash, and I pulled them on expectantly this morning. I love these pants. They make me feel like my body is perfect as it is, they hug and hang – the most fashionable thing I own, and yet the most comfortable.

They were rough and stiff from hang drying. I mused at the contrast between this and their usual softness while sliding them up over my hips and ass and buttoning them. I stretched a bit, trying to make them feel like pants and not cardboard cutouts, bent a little at the knees.

At this, the jeans despaired.

It is as though after a short but passionate life of holding in my flesh, the pants succumbed to exhaustion. They tore high up along my left inner thigh, and under my bum – not along a seam, because that would be an easy fix. No. Perhaps the jeans were channeling the numerous pairs of Levis I sanded and bleached as a teen, because when I stretched this morning, as I do whenever I put on jeans fresh from drying, the fabric simply gave out.

They were expensive, yes. And J_ bought them for me.

I’m fighting back the urge to figure out that metaphor.

Another urge I am forcefully suppressing is panic at my financial situation. I know that I just have to be calm, wait it out, spend wisely, look for new ways to bring in money, finish up or abandon old projects that have paid out or aren’t going to. All these things, little steps. It makes sense, and it is not in itself all that frightening.

Still, when I let my mind rest on these matters, it starts to spin wildly in wide-eyed terror. If my brain had hands, they would be clawing at the inside of my skull, looking for the exit.

Let us take a moment to be thankful that our brains do not have appendages. Or claws.

Still, it’s a special brand of terrifying to have this panic raging internally with no overt external influences or implications. I am not stuck in this situation. I am not incapable of movement. It’s just that my rational mind knows that there is no need to run – and nowhere worth running to. It has the same effect.

Worn through, worn out. I’m feeling a little transparent, a little stiff, a little rougher than I usually am.

My grandmother has a cat that’s never been outside without a leash. Despite the fact that I’m certain this particular cat is Satan incarnate, he suffers from a similar paralysis. He bolts for the door like his life depended on it at every opportunity, only to hunker down against the ground a few feet out, breathing heavy, waiting to be picked back up or tethered.

It appears that I’ve got to toughen up. I’ve learned how to take care of other people, but what about myself? The time has come to learn to walk the wires without a safety net. The first step requires that you convince yourself that you think you can.

We’re supposed to want freedom, right?