Limbo

I have a feeling that this is going to be a post that I have already written before. 

What is becoming increasingly obvious to me is the fact that I no longer feel comfortable about my abilities (or rather, self-perceived abilities). Before grades were all that important, I got above-average results and got along with most of the people I had to get along with. When grades became important, I aced everything and skipped a grade. And all this time I had my best buddy with me, so social life was not of any concern. When she left, I still got more-than-decent grades in my IGCSEs, but needed friends I could really ‘click’ with. In some ways this is still an issue.

Anyway. I hate writing really personal stuff because it makes me feel all insecure and vulnerable and shit, so yeah. I went into bouts of depression and started thinking a lot about lots of things. I couldn’t really find someone to debate with me, so I started to debate with myself. This is healthy (well the debating and introspection at least), but only to a certain extent. Together with the depression and whatnot I created some sort of cynical, disembodied voice in my head that would offer me a “third person perspective” and lots of discouragement.

Yes I failed to cut the crap, I just write a lot mmkay just deal with it!

So. Remember when I said that I feel like I’m failing at everything? Everything being 1) academics, 2) social comfort.

1. I have the reputation of “best student”, or some shit like that because of my IGCSE grades, and one thing I have to say about the IB is that IT IS ON A WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL. My grades are shitty and average. In comparison to my past achievements, they are a failure. I can just sense the disappointment from my teachers (and it is there, also, from myself). I no longer think that I can write well (why did I ever think that anyway) and for the first time, I’m beginning to wonder if even my best efforts wouldn’t be sufficient (yes weird sentence I know, shush). And that is scary as hell, because the only confidence in myself that I used to have was that if I really, really wanted to do something and managed to put TRUE EFFORT into it, I would succeed no problem. Am rethinking that. 

2. The voice in my head is interfering with my relationships. With anyone, really. Because I unconsciously try to think about all the different ‘sides’ to situations, I also identify how I could appear really out of place or interruptive…which does no good at all to my ego and makes me want to just leave and stay in my room. In some conversations I would just notice that the group of people seemed pretty happy without my input, so why should I stay and possibly intrude? As a result of that I come off as sort of passive-aggressive to friends and family At the same time I am painfully self-conscious of what I do and say. Anything I say that could be / is stupid or incorrect in any way? I jump to point it out and to correct it. The correction isn’t usually much better and usually I just end up in a cringe-worthy cycle.

…Also that may be why I try to explain my thoughts and downplay them and insult my own ideas and all that shit. Just in case I say anything wrong or stupid or biased or ignorant or anything like that. Even on this blog, I do this.

Yeah and now to prove the point, why the hell did I name this Limbo anyway? Is this any kind of limbo? Between two failures, maybe. 

All I can really say for now is that this definitely isn’t one of them good phases of life. I think I made many wrong choices along the way and I’m in a really bad place (mentally too). I see the same problems coming up in different situations and places and it only means that the problem is within me and not a product of the environment! Now all I have to do is change it.

Easier said than done.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You 

I do not love you except because I love you;

I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it’s you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood

–Pablo Neruda

I came across this when we were supposed to look for a poem or short story to compare the book Snow Country to. 

The Unbearable Heaviness of Angst

(WARNING: Contains whininess, angst and teenage hormones.)

I don’t think I will ever be able to follow my heart. Whenever it says something, my brain jumps to analyze it. If there is no logical, morally sound and understandable justification, its voice is silenced. And that is how I spend my time: living through a vociferous battle my brain constantly wages against my heart and trying to pretend that I could someday cast off logic to embrace sentimentality.

…And that is my status on the Chinese version of Facebook. You know, they say that whenever you post something, there is always an intended recipient. I want the person to see it, but I don’t. See? This is the kind of situation I’m always in: a part of me says go for it and see what happens, but my brain goes oh fuck no are you crazy can’t you see where this is leading? It’s so easy to tell another person what the ‘right’ thing to do is when you’re giving advice, but everything changes when it’s yourself that gets stuck in the shithole.

Some people wonder what the ‘right’ thing to do is (of course, ‘right’ may vary depending on…on everything). I don’t really need to. I know what I ought to do in order to fend off possible future awkwardnesses or undesirable situations, to give certain impressions and to hide other feelings. I know what my head wants because it’s given so many people advice and it would be stupid not to heed advice that you’ve given to others for countless times. But it’s hard to carry it out, it is. Logic and sense wars against any possible inner romantic I have in myself. It shouts to me what I know already but don’t want to acknowledge.

People tell me that I’m too logical when it comes to matters of the heart. (Or is it even to do with the heart? I don’t even want to say that it’s ‘love’ or anything like that, because we’re still young and god knows we have no idea what love is). I have known people who would do anything to be with a person, people who have done seemingly stupid senseless and downright embarrassing things in the name of love. My pride and the list of consequences running through my head prevent me from doing anything rash–but they also block me from another set of possible results.

Maybe some part of me knows that in an alternate universe where I could ignore the scornful voice in my head and where I need not think about consequences, I would too do crazy things.

But that is an alternate universe and not the one I am currently living in, and so I will continue to be that girl who lives underneath a semi-shell of assholery and manliness, and who pretends that shit is cool when it isn’t because she’s too scared to say how she feels before she knows how she feels yet herself.

Ahaha, look at that word salad. But you get the gist. Now let me sit back and pretend that the universe is just playing this huge prank on me, and laugh with the skill of a thousand actors and actresses.

…I feel silly.