Waiting on a letter, fearing that once again it will not appear

It's taken me almost two years of appointments and calls and giving up and trying again and being ignored and forgotten and trying again and calling and writing and being rejected and giving up and then making one last push...

...and the consultant finally has my referral letter. Has my request for assessment. I hope. I hope it arrived.

I was hoping I'd have heard something by now. I'm so close, so very close.

I had a big, careful plan for how I was going to go out but I'm losing my grip. I feel this tightening around me all the time, every day. When I sit on the bus. When I lie in my bed. When I stand at the copier at the office. I feel that pressure. Crushing me further into myself. Squeezing me.

I find myself thinking of the parts of my plan that I could skip. Things that I can do without. It's not quite that I feel like I can't wait any longer. It's more that I don't know if I want to wait any longer.

The colours of the world feel flatter and dimmer, day by day, and I am less and less sad to leave it. I am less and less of anything.

What if he did not get my letter? What if I cannot get my shit together enough to write another? What if I send another and then he won't see me anyway? Days and weeks and months. Too many days. Too many weeks.

Sometimes I feel so anxious I could vomit and in the next moment I can't bring myself to care or to feel anything at all.

I prefer not feeling anything at all. It's so tempting.