My Body Is Braced Before the Day Starts

Dear Delyara, I notice it now in tiny ways. The jaw already set before breakfast. The chest slightly tight before the first message. The body not meeting the morning neutrally, but preparing for interruption, need, cost, or emotional weather before any of it has formally arrived. That is what chronic stress has done. It has stolen neutrality. I do not wake into a blank day. I wake into readiness. And readiness, held long enough, starts to feel like the natural position of the self. It isn’t. I know that. Still, the body keeps taking its place there. That frightens me more than I say.