Alix Joyce: Choose Your Choice

Drastic changes are obvious. Cut your hair, switch up your personality, even change your name — they are your decisions. It’s the subtle ones, the ones that pile and pile and chip and chip, the ones that carve you into the person you’re not even sure you’re supposed to be, that shake you the most. They happen right in front of your face, yet you don’t see them.

Do they make you the person who may be close to just right?

Anyone can decide on a drastic change. The choice is there, flipping a switch overnight. Yet the subtle influences of expectations, advice, rewards, and respect do more than just change you, for better or for worse. They mould you, almost creating you, and you have no idea.

Shaking at the kitchen table, eyes locked on my paper. I see myself trying. Trying to understand, trying to explain myself, trying to be smart enough. Tears falling, screams erupting. I’m tired, just tired, and there’s still spelling to come. Jumping letters, speeding through the words too fast, disappointing those around me. It’s 10/10 on those weekly spelling tests. 10/10 or nothing.

I was never smart enough. It was my fault I couldn’t be on top of it.

Running through the pitch, eyes locked on the goal. I was free. I was somebody. I wasn’t an inconvenience. I saw myself as an actual asset.

I expected more. I wanted more. Each time I got praise, that became the baseline. I needed to do more, to be seen as more. I needed to be a leader, to show people the possibilities. I hear the voices still: “Alix is willing to run herself into the ground on the pitch, take a leaf from her book.”

I couldn’t let this slip. I had to do more. More than just what was expected. I had to leave everything on the pitch. I had to burn to the ground.

Maybe then I was someone. Maybe then I had the right to feel enough.

I can feel the anger, anxiety, and emptiness still. The way it would bubble in my body, simmering, boiling, erupting. I was the problem. I had to hold it together. What I was feeling, my experience, I had to keep it under control. Put it somewhere, somewhere it couldn’t bother anyone else, somewhere it wasn’t inconvenient.

I could control it when nobody saw it. Nobody else had the control. No matter the damage, I could hold onto it. Tight. No one wants to see it, and no one wants the reason for it.

I remember the lesson: people like the version they see. No one questions what’s hidden beneath. It’s safer that way.

I feared the change. The change of the one thing that was consistent. The one thing that people praised, that people respected, that people complimented. “Do you even eat?” “You’re perfect.” “I wish I had that.”

Something about me was good enough, was worthy, was easily manipulated, and was directly tangible. So easy to control. I could not lose it. The more I heard, the more the words stuck. Something people respected about me. Something I wasn’t bashed for. Something that came naturally.

I see myself knowing exactly what I needed to do, exactly what was necessary for me to keep hearing this.

This had become a safety net. If everything else fell apart, this, this is something I could always have.

I was sinking. It’s like treading water, looking effortless on top, almost graceful, while below, your legs are thrashing, pushing your body to desperately stay afloat. Grabbing anything, anything to help stay above the water.

I see it. I grasp onto it. Long sleeves in summer, excuses crafted for sports, perfectly aligned puzzle pieces no one would question. I had it. Everything is juggling in the air, not dropping a single ball. This, this helped me create what I needed, craft what I wanted people to see: “I don’t know how you do it, how you balance it all.”

Smiling, I leave the room. My secret is hidden.

I know people see what they want to. The success, the perfection, the wins. Without any need to open up the floor and ask: how?

I’m watching now, me, standing there. Cars racing below, thoughts racing in my head. What’s the easiest way? I have found my escape. One step, one fall, is all it takes. Is that all I need to do to finally breathe? Is this a way of finally choosing myself? The car horn brings me back; the wind cuts through my sweatshirt; reality flashes back into my thoughts; this may be my way out, and yet the clouds will still hang somewhere else.

Then it came. Everything I was ever praised for, here. Every way I’d avoided the pain was tucked up into one single thing, a bow even tied around the box.

The unsettled energy is finding somewhere to go. The feeling of being someone as I crossed the line. The feeling of my body breaking, lungs screaming, legs eventually failing, replacing all other feelings. I was free, pushing my body beyond its abilities, that line going further and further each time. I could be respected, praised, and accomplished, all the while finally feeling free. The feeling of breaking myself and achieving a goal respected by others — it was euphoric.

I found my voice. I found my purpose. I found my reason. I found a place with the pressure, the achievement, the respect, the hurt, and, what was once enough, enough to satisfy the desire, enough to feel belonging, becomes less tha the joy.

It came to me then: this was my way out. This is my way out. This is everything I need.

This is everything I need, until the satisfaction is gone. The line keeps getting pushed out what was once was enough, enough to satisfy to desire, enough to feel belonging, becomes less then a safety net and more of a baseline. I needed more, faster times, better workouts, perfect nutrition, ideal sleep, wins, achievements, and accolades. All the while, the feeling of accomplishment was being pushed further and further; nothing was enough now. I needed more control, more consistency, more perfection, more respect. I had to be perfectly reliable; I had to meet my expectations, ensuring I was exceeding everyone else’s, too. More was more, I could do it all, perfect body, perfect pace, perfect tactics. The pressure, the need for control, seeped into everything, so focused on what I wanted, I failed to see I was driving myself further and further from that vision. My legs were failing me, my vision was going blurry, and the effort I once felt in workouts now felt the same when walking to and from class. The little energy I had was spent just trying to tie up my hair. And I couldn’t stop.

If there’s always more, more to push, more to satisfy my need. Is there ever a way out, if the way out keeps needing more, keeps changing the lock, keeps taking your key? Is there really a way out, if it holds you there by just asking for a little more, every time you reach a checkpoint, just sit?

So you can decide: stay behind this door, accepting this place as your home; burn the room to ash, your remains left in the remains too; or maybe find the window and walk away from the room, trying not to look back as you go.