Heartbeats...

Every morning when Lacy woke up, she would put her hand on her heart. She’d count the beats. Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub. She’d follow her heartbeat for ten beats. Then she’d breathe deeply four counts in. Pause for four seconds. Four seconds out. She did this four times in a row. Centering herself before she ever put her feet on the ground.

It was something she had learned from her mother. She wasn’t sure when it started, it could have been from birth. With her mother’s hand over hers counting the heartbeats. Lub dub one, lub dub two, lub dub three… And then following her mother’s breathing pattern. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.

Her mother had suffered from anxiety. Though they didn’t call it that back when she was younger. They just said she was the nervous type. She had taught herself how to remain calm when her brain would start to race. Had taught herself centering tricks. Grounding exercises. Things people spent hundreds to learn from professional therapists.

When her mother was out in public and started to get “that feeling” the one she described as the graying. When the world would start to tunnel in on her. And the static buzz would start in her head she had learned to touch something solid. A wall, a desk, a tree, Lacy's father. She would reach her hand out, palm as flat as she could make it and feel the solid firmness. Then she would breathe. In and out slowly. Staring at her hand. At what she was touching. Focusing only on the connection between the two. She was here. It was fine. Everything was fine.

And the buzzing would recede. And the gray would retreat. And then her mother would continue with her day.

When the world was busy, and she felt like she was getting lost in the shuffle she’d take a day to herself. Go to a museum. Go to a bookstore. Take a bath. Get a massage. Just quiet things for herself. Long before people even knew what a mental health day was, her mother was taking them.

She learned how to navigate a frantic world without becoming frantic herself. Even if she was the nervous type.

And she taught her daughter all of her tricks.

But Lacy had never been the nervous type. Maybe it was because her mother had taught her how to ride the waves instead of being drowned under them. Maybe it was because she had taken after her father and become the solid thing you could count on when the graying started. Maybe it was because she started every day with her hand on her heart counting the beats. Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub. But she had never been one to get anxious.

Until yesterday morning when she put her hand on her heart and counted to zero.