no past, no future
present perfect <3
this week’s Thought (singular)
reached the bridge that i said i would cross when i got to it. shocked and disappointed
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they understand exactly what is happening in class. thank you for joining us. may you not be lost and confused and scared at seeing all the things written on the board and hearing all the questions being asked. what are you guys even talking about.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
Before We Begin
The Good Side of the Internet for July just came out a couple of hours ago, so make sure to check out all the fun reads from last month.
hi
it has been a while since we last spoke. i apologise. i feel like a different person everyday, like a person that is detaching from her core more and more, and it takes me time i can’t find to gather all the separating parts of myself back to equilibrium enough to write.
july felt like a fever dream. i do not remember when it began. i barely noticed it flashing by. what i do know is that i have somehow managed to experience the entire spectrum of human emotion in the last 31 days.
i delighted in the slow but reliable process of finding people to understand and to understand you, and in the reliability and inevitability of interaction that an academic setting demands. somewhat contrarily, i also spent hours at a stretch being motivated by the sheer thought of being back in my room. the entire thing has made me appreciate solitude and company in equal measure, and pushed me to reconsider the metamorphosis of my preferences - am i really whom i thought i was? am i not too old to be discovering that i might enjoy the things that i thought i didn’t and vice-versa?
i felt the disappointment of not getting something that i really wanted in a way i had last felt only in high school, and i struggled with its handling. it seemed like a physical thing lodged in my heart that i had to maneuver out with the utmost caution for fear of falling apart without the hold. in the light of day, i tried to see it for what it was - a grimy film that i could crumple up and leave in the corner of my room. i trust that slowly, with time, it will begin to disintegrate. i try to hold it less firmly than i used to at 17-years-old, when feelings were so much bigger and i felt so much smaller.
i walked around in a haze of stress, feeling like a very heavy load had been placed on my back, for days. i sat in the darkness of my room in the middle of the night, wearing sadness like a cloak that i either didn’t want to, or couldn’t figure out how to unclasp. at the end of it all, i had to force myself to zoom out and attempt to view emotion as nothing more than an ill-fitting t-shirt at a trial room. on and off, done and dusted.
i have had a hard time reconciling my perception of myself from before i came here with this new person i seem to be becoming. the feeling of inadequacy has become a dear friend, and i have successfully gone down the miserable and tricky rabbit hole of what-is-the-point-of-putting-in-effort-when-it-doesn’t-seem-to-be-making-a-difference. it takes a haphazard and terrible effort to clamber back up the downward spiral, but i try to try.
i am beginning to cultivate habits and create schedules that serve as anchors in the middle of all this bedlam and uncertainty. i have mentally claimed a table in the dining hall that i make a bee-line towards whenever i am eating alone. i have restarted reading in bed before falling asleep, and it is a comforting return to tradition at a time when i seem to be desperately craving comfort. these mundane assurances keep me grounded, and make me feel less like i’m a tiny fish caught in a strong tide.
if the past month has been tough, and i have been assured that the next will be challenging, i would simply like to stay where i am. i am trying to not skip any seconds forwards or backwards, and to stay still on a single gliding point.
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The Good Side of the Internet
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this week’s Song
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3