My mind keeps treating tomorrow like a courtroom I need to prepare for

Dear Delyara, I rehearse possible conversations, future versions of myself, things that could go wrong, explanations I may need, disappointments I should be ready for, the emotional angle from which loss might arrive so I can maybe meet it with less shock. It’s as if I believe that if I can prepare my defense well enough in advance, tomorrow will not be able to shame or wound me so deeply. But the cost is that I stop living in the day I’m actually inside. My mind becomes preoccupied with testimony for a future that hasn’t even opened its doors yet. It makes me so tired. And still, some part of me calls it being responsible.