i am at the point in the pandemic when i have truly rifled through all the things that have happened to me in the past and it’s hitting me like trauma. and i’m not sure how to process all of it. times that i’ve been terrible to people, times people have been terrible to me, lots of things that i wish i could redo, that make me cringe and wince. perhaps it’s a step in the journey of self-reflection but i find myself constantly replaying things. and these are with people that i consider acquaintances, enemies, friends, paramours, neighbours. like literally everyone. i genuinely think i’m going insane.

everything has led me to this moment and i want to scream. i need to find a place to scream without someone thinking there is something wrong. like a mountain? but then someone would think there’s an incoming bear or avalanche and i can’t have that. i need to find some deserted place. or maybe a busy place. like a basketball game. i don’t know… i have all this pent up…. sorrow. it’s not frustration. it is this deep sadness. it is something i am not sure if tears are the candidate for this job. why i’ve been so reflective, i’m not sure. maybe deep inside i know that a chapter of my life is ending and a new one begins and so i’m taking inventory of everything… everything that has disappointed me, and pretty much everything is on me. i shoulder the blame, i even shoulder the blame for the ways that people have taken advantage of me. i should have been stronger, i tell myself. and they are little things, not traumatic really, but little things that have maybe gnawed at me for half a decade and i’ve resorted to ignoring them because i’m not sure how else i would survive.

i want my future to be a triumph but i am absolutely terrified. it’s like i’ve put everything on the line for this. that’s how it feels… like the buzzer going off and the shot must go in and it must go in elegantly, awesomely. i am so terrified of the expectations and stress that i have put on myself. i wanted this, right? i wanted to go to grad school in a big city, i wanted to change careers. these are things that i am not doubting. i think i am doubting myself. which i can’t say is superfluous or wrong because i tend to have distinctly different perceptions of what i consider my worldview and what is the general socially-accepted one. i suppose losing so many scholarships have made me wonder if no one believes in me, in my ability to succeed. i wanted status and praise and awe and i don’t feel like i’ve earned it, that i deserve it. and in ways, i suppose i equate this to respect and then i don’t think i deserve to be respected.

i take other people’s milestones and compare them to mine. am i mediocre? i feel like there are many things stacked against me… that some might call it identity politics, but we still have to navigate around them right? it’s not like they disappear overnight. and in the end, your square is still where your square sits. in the end, if you drew the short straw, you drew the short straw. so what are you going to do about it? it feels like nothing can be done about it. it’s so easy to say “if only i had done this” or “done that”, but there were so many times that i tried to open those doors but they didn’t budge or they closed in front of me. i am hysterical…? maybe not in this moment as i type this, though i have cried, but there are other moments where i would consider myself to be extremely anxious, so so so overwhelmed with my circumstances, my mental state becomes frenetic reaching panic. and nothing will calm me down until i come up with a plan that doesn’t really work. i mean, you can’t really produce $20 grand overnight. i joke that all i want is a dub. just one win. just one thing to make me feel better and i feel like they never come. i get these quick little wins that count for very little in the broad scheme of things. yay, i sold my childhood dolls from my basement. i’m up $5. still, the stress of affording school and living in an expensive city looms.

all day today i thought i saw you. i saw you pushing the stroller, walking the dog, strolling with a woman. they weren’t you but maybe one day it will be. time… that fucker. with time, you’re getting older. you said you wanted a big family. and i suppose as i biked and stared too long at some of these men, i never yearned to see if it were me that walked with you, pushed the stroller with you, laughed with you. i never imagined myself in that scenario. i was just bracing myself for the day that i do run into you and see you with your big family. and why am i anticipating this? i think it’s this fear? fear that we can’t stay on pause forever. i think i fear the end of the pandemic because it means life resumes, life is no longer upended. for life to be upended means there’s a legitimate excuse that everyone must accept for why things aren’t working, why i haven’t hit certain milestones, why i’m not in love right now. i think i am looking for you in those men on the sidewalks because i am so used to observing you achieve your dreams while i play reluctant spectator so i fall into old patterns.

i’m leaving the city and you don’t know it yet. but i don’t feel vindicated or triumphant for it. anonymity is a rare treat these days so i savour it. i don’t want my life story to be this puzzle that you piece together on google. i think i would want you to know someday. that i left. that i changed. that i grew up. that i learned to move on, which is all that you hoped for me. that i learned to be a better person and i can tell you that i’ve been on quite the journey and it’s made me squirm. i am leaving and i don’t feel like i’m going somewhere better, i just feel like i’m going somewhere. i’m going forward and i’ve only realized now that i wanted to be so smug about looking in my rearview window as i drove away but i don’t feel that way anymore. maybe the pandemic did that. i’m quite nervous for what is in-store. i suppose losing hundreds of scholarship competitions will do that to a person. i think you would be surprised and happy for me so i clasp my hands over that thought, burrow into it underneath my covers so it warms me through the night. i don’t think our stories will intersect in any meaningful capacity, as much as i hate to say that. but it’s true. we lead very different lives and they’re both forward-looking. two ships passing in the night. what happens if no one sees them both? can’t wax poetic, can’t lament what could have been, can’t make alternative realities, universes, stories, characters.

all i wanted was closure but i didn’t realize it would be so tough and demanding of a journey. but i’m hear… out of the rut. i climbed out. this time i really did it. to our separate futures. may we find true happiness, health, clarity, and love within ourselves.

ten minute thoughts here we go

here we goOO!! i was driving today and i knew i had to write, it was bursting in me. i passed by that second floor restaurant that we had gone to, the group of us, for your farewell. you know i never had a farewell party right? i liked it that way. i get a little bit alone sometimes and i miss you again.

it was beautiful today, a little chilly, and i thought i saw you everywhere. but the feelings are different. more muddled. i’m not angry, maybe more indifferent. so much time has passed. i often think about how little i’ve changed in terms of my tastes, the things that make me tick, and then i find it hard to conceive how time has flown by. i’ve changed. i’ve had to change. people were calling me out for it. i couldn’t keep up my shtick. i talked to one of my friends from university today and i can’t help but feel we are so different but no so different that i feel like we have nothing in common. well we have little in common but we’re still friends. but i guess i look through a different lens now. i am less aloof, maybe i fear that i am less happy-go-lucky and that scares me. because i like my brand, i like what i represent even if it defies all logic. today i am at the cusp of finishing my article. i am trying to tie up loose ends, create new to-do lists. i am a bit stressed i suppose… about the future and the unknown. and also about the upcoming near future and what i have in store. i think i am going to school for better reasons than the ones that i started with. i think i am more willing to forgive myself for making the same mistakes. i have had to strip myself of the person that i want to be because i realize now that it was impossible, unattainable. i see so many of my classmates moving up the career ladder and i don’t envy their jobs but i wonder what will become of me… i don’t know what i want in that case. life is moving on and i am holding on. it’s time to stop putting my life on pause but i am terrified of hitting Go. i know that it will whip by, i know that finances will be strained, i know that i will feel very alone in a big city. and what is that if not living my life in the moment? isn’t this what i wanted? isn’t it better than what I have now, despite all its comfort and predictability, i am a shell of myself, shadow person. i am waiting to breathe life and here i hold the cup and i’m afraid to drink. you know, you messed me up but you are not at fault. i put you on a pedestal like all the other ones before but i hate, hate, hate admitting that. you are someone that i resent but only to a small degree. any bigger than i’m being emotional, irrational, and i’m not saying that out of sarcasm. it would be true.

the man from the podcast watches sunrises without me and i dream. i breathe and wonder if i will ever be there with him looking at the same sunrise. it must be beautiful there. you know, the place i’m moving. i’m excited. so scared but so excited that i fear everything. i fear how happy i could be maybe. i fear how much i could change my life because there are no guarantees and there is nothing i can fall back on in a certain way.