Climbing Trees

Maybe you've felt like this before. Or, I don't know you, maybe you haven't. But I do now. It's the feeling 
of swallowing the lump.
of not enough oxygen when you breathe in.
of freefalling and grasping at air.
of the walls of this carefully constructed numbness caving in.
It's the feeling of being overwhelmed. 
When I get to this place, all I can think about is art. I can't sleep because I know I have things to do but I'll stay up and still not do them. Instead, I get incredibly creative.  It's a coping mechanism and it's a curse. There's that quote about "If you judge a fish on it's ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid"... and I don't know why but I haven't been able to get that out of my head since I heard it three years ago because it is just so relevant. I am judged everyday on my ability to do science when I know that's not what I am best at. So, right when I need to study the most, in the days before the test, I turn to art to prove to myself that I still have value even if I can't climb the tree. It's just kind of sad that the fish in this case was unlucky enough to be born into a world that pays its treeclimbers far better than its swimmers. And maybe it's good for me to learn to climb the tree but it's not exactly what I was designed for and sometimes it hurts when I fall off. But it's 5:21am and I'm hungry and I really need to study...