The Wandering Mind

My wandering mind never lets me go.

It’s as if the only consistent thing in my life has been this fight for control — one version of who I think I am against the other. At times I don’t even know which one is me, or if there even is a “me” up there.

For the longest time, my wandering mind helped me when I was stuck and had no ability to run. But now I can go wherever I want; I have the freedom to do anything — yet no matter where I am, I wander. The habit of wanting to be somewhere else has handicapped me. I am doing the things I had imagined I wanted to do, but I can’t even appreciate them for what they are or give them the attention they deserve.

And when I sit with that long enough, the question becomes darker — not just where my mind is going, but why it keeps running in the first place.

The fear underneath all of this isn’t chaos — it’s the creeping suspicion that I’m a fraud. That the validation I need will never quite arrive, and that someone, eventually, will notice.

So I do what I always do when the thinking gets too loud.

I wake up early — so early I can’t think — and go for a run until my mind goes numb. I move quickly through the day, filling every gap before the silence can get in. It keeps the chaos at bay, but only just.

Because the wandering mind isn’t solving anything real — it’s manufacturing fear out of nothing, swallowing me in guilt for what I’ve done and dread for what I might do.

This is the part I can’t explain to anyone. It isn’t dramatic. It’s just — consuming.

And then, suddenly, it isn’t.

I find a single spot in the shower — a drop of water, a crack in the tile — and I hold it. I tell myself this is normal. This is what life is.

And for a moment, it is.