When is it enough?

When is it suitable to stop giving 100% of yourself to every sector of the world, and peacefully give up? Because with every additional building block being added to my tower, I feel my base get weaker and weaker. I feel the slow, and steady rock from the ground up, cautioning me that soon I will fall.

With each building block added to my staggering tower I hold my breath, and pray my tower will not collapse. Each time a building block gets added to my wobbling tower my nerves skyrocket, and I feel my heart slowly rise to my throat.

Sometimes I preoccupy myself with games.

I silently count each of the colorful blocks sitting idly on the floor in my head, assuring myself that if I can just hold it together for three more blocks I will be fine.

I tell myself this everyday.

I promise myself that the small quakes shaking my foundation do not matter.

But with each small, colorful block added those shakes begin to consume my thoughts. Instability. Uncertainty. Anxiety. They crowd my mind games, and pummel my tower. And I just want to breathe, I just want to tell myself that

three

more

blocks

and I will be fine. I am lost in my tower of blocks, unsure whether to fix the bottom or stop adding to the top…so I stand silently and wait for it to fall. I become a bystander to the victimization of myself. I wait for each colorful block to slowly chip, and then all at once I watch them collapse.

I sit silently as blocks tear through the sky, violently crashing to the floor.

I sit silently until there is nothing left, until I feel numb.

And then there is just the foundation.

The poor, crumbled layer of blocks lay before me, their weak, cracked surfaces looking too tired to hold themselves up. I look at these blocks sympathetically as I reach down to the floor and pick up a block from the ground. Just one more.

Placing the block on top of the first layer I tell myself never again. As I turn away I look down to the rest of the fallen blocks and run my hand against their uneven surface. Cradling two more in my palms I face the layer of blocks and set them down next to the first one. I reassure myself that it’s

only

two

blocks.