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.