the mermaid on my wall and other reasons I love to live

As many of you know, I hate to throw up.
vomit, puke, blow chunks, disorgement, barf, regurgitate, the dirty dog
Call it what you may, I despise the feeling.
Many people say they feel so relieved after throwing up that they just let it come, and don't really mind.
I am not so easily quelled. I do feel better sometimes when its over, but its not enough relief for me to forget the memory of throwing up, plus the anticipation of throwing up is often just as bad to me as puking itself.
Its just like "Oh, I'm going to wallow here right next to the toilet, anticipating my DEATH." Its awful.
But.
This post is not really about puke, believe it or not.
There's this feeling I get deep down, and its straight from Satan himself. I know it is.
I think about all the things I have to do, to get where I'm going.
"Do I really have to take Physics? CAN I even pass Physics? What if I fail?"
Even with running, something I love to do, I find myself saying,
"Can I really run EVERYDAY for the rest of my life, like I have been?"
It seems so exhausting. Its too much.
I panic. I can't do it. I can't do any of these things.
I can sit in my room, doing calculus, watch my hands start to shake, and get sweaty all over just sitting there.
I can act like the cosmic purpose of my being enrolled in calculus was to teach me that I can't do any of these things.
And then I could cry. Like I used to.
OR.
I can look at the mermaid on my wall. A piece of construction paper with a mermaid drawn in marker by my niece Macey. Its beautiful. What you don't see is on the back. Macey asked me to draw a mermaid. I can NOT draw at all but I attempted to draw Ariel. Its alright. I gave it to her and she flipped it over and started to replicate it all by herself. What resulted is the most alien looking, distorted mermaid with spiky red hair that you have ever seen. But I love it.
Because, when you look at her five years of life, how a second ago I had to stick my finger in her mouth to keep her from swallowing carpet fuzz. It would've been hard for me to think of the day when I could put a marker in that little tard's hand and watch her create something all her own.
I'm reminded that the anticipation is the worst part. It seems impossible. But you wake up everyday and think "This is never going to work." But then in a little bit of time, you start doing the impossible.
How I was dreading this semester because of calculus. But then I wake up and I'm four weeks away from it being over and I have an A in the class.
You just do it somehow.