The Only Way Out Is Through It All

I noticed it

I can't even remember when exactly my routine shifted. From constant pain and emotional walls to daydreaming about her.

That's the strange thing about change: you never feel the moment it happens. It just does. You only feel the space it leaves behind.

At first, everything felt like it always had. Grey, boring. Predictable, numb, in that weird way middle-school days tend to be. Bells ringing, chairs scraping across the floor, students chatting and laughing. Nothing good, nothing bad. Just noise and headaches.

But then she's there. Not suddenly.
In fact, we had always been there. All these nine years. Walking down the same hallways, going into the same classrooms, writing the exact same stuff on the board.
But I started to feel different about it. It started to feel different. As if she had stepped into focus and everything around blurred. Vanished.

It started subtly. With those little details only you observe when someone starts occupying your mind a little more then usual. More then necessary.

Like the way she sat whilst talking to others, slightly leaned backwards since she's so tall.
The way she walks, hips swaying like she owns the place.
Or the way she holds her coffee cup, tapping her nails against it while speaking in her soft voice.
How she pauses for a fraction before speaking, drawing omw breath as if she wants her words to land softly.
How she walks into the room with relaxed shoulders, this contagious calmness escaping her body. Almost medicinal.

It wasn't attraction.
Wasn't idealization.
Not even affection yet.

Just recognition.
Like my mind said "Pay attention. This matters. And she will matter soon enough too."

And so I did.

Before her, my mornings were heavy. I'd drag myself out of bed, completely unmotivated, dragged to school barely councious, counting the minutes until I'm finally back home. But around that time, the time where the flicker began to grow into something steadier. I noticed how I was waking with less dread. Feeling like I have a reason.

Something to look forward to.
A class.
A moment.
A hallway passing.
A glance.
A presence. Her presence.

Even if we didn't even speak I started marking my day with her presence. Everything was background noise by now. She was the main interest of the day. The only thing that didn't drain me. That didn't slowly take the life out of me. She made the day feel less sharp.

I started spending more time on the hallways to see her.
Going to her classes earlier.
"Not to spend more time with her" I lied to myself.
But because the class felt different without her there. Like it was holding it's breath.
And when she walked in? The air steadied itself.

There are small, insignificant moments that lodged themselves into my mind. Into my memory. For absolutely no logical reason.

The way she gently closed the door behind her.
The click of her bracelets when she placed her hands on the table.
The way her rings clicked against each other when she played with her har.
The way her fingers flexed against her cup.

I now realize the attachment didn't come from something she gave me.
It came from what I lacked. Not her affection or her approval. I just needed someone who doesn't feel like a threat to my nervous system.

She was the first adult who didn't evoke tension in me. Or pression.
The first person who didn't trigger my anxiety.
The first one to make me feel like I don't have to shrink myself to be tolerable.

And that was just the spark.
The beginning.

I didn't see it coming. Didn't notice the way my day bent around her, the way my emotions synchronized with her presence, and how my routine wrapped itself around the hours she existed in.

Somehow, I was rearranging my heart around her.
Not romantically, not obsessively.

Like she'd become the axis of a system I didn't even knew I built.

There was a moment. A small one. On a random Wednesday when she walked in a little later in class. I saw in the classroom with that familiar hollow feeling in my chest, the omw that always settled it before the day even began.

But the second she stepped through that door, the tension in my ribs had somehow loosened. So quietly I barely even noticed. And that scared me more than anything ever had in a long while,

Why did her presence calm me so fast?
Why did this one specific adult carry the weight of my whole nervous system?????

I sat there, pretending to pay attention and take notes, but truth be told, I never did any of those. I sat. I sat there quietly, trying to make sense of what had happened. Of why I felt that way. There was always something new to notice.

I spend the whole period thinking. And all I did was make it worse. I had created so many fake scenarios in my head, so many reasons for what could've made me react like that. And most of them didn't even make any sense.

At some point I began to recognize her footsteps before she even turned the corner. Her walk had its own rhythm.
Soft, fluid, natural and unhurried.

Unlike most teachers who either stomped, clicked or hurried. The rhythm becamw something I listened without meaning to.

And the more I noticed, the more I depended on noticing.
Not obsession.
Not admiration.
Not longing.
Just orientation.

She gave shape to my day, have my mind something to focus on. Gave it an anchor in that whirlwind of emotions.
She didn't even know it. She never will know it, but her presence built a pattern I still hold onto.