Fluctuating Butterfly
All we seem to do is fluctuate between depression and sanity. I have dipped my toes in despair, and I have hit my head against the wall of that grey partition that stops me from accessing my thoughts.I am tired. I am exhausted. I am stressed. Unmotivated. Depressed.
I am also, honestly ready to do work. But because of the above, I cannot.
What happens when we cannot? When we know that goal is reachable, but we fall into those depths of despair? What happens when we stand at the edge of that abyss and we feel our feet slide on the rocky precipice without us even realising? Sometimes, we seem to do it involuntarily. Othertimes we fling ourselves out there and hope that the darkness will take over. Envelop us in its indifferent embrace, and let us forget for a while about the reality that we must eventually face. And when we hit the bottom, we can sit surrounded by darkness, curled up, wracking ourselves with painful memories and thoughts. We let them play and replay in our minds, and willing hit the 'slow motion play' on our internal remote controllers. We put ourselves voluntarily through all the pain and misery. And we revel in it.
This morning was such a moment. A few days ago, I realised all my procrastination was simply done out of acts of fear. I did not want to face the future and what all my actions would bring. I did not want to face the consequences, or the fruits that my irresponsible behaviour would bear in a few short months.
Today I have also realised something. Perhaps one of the reasons why i have been so troubled over this thesis for so long is simply because i have been so overwhelmed. Even though i went about this a piece at a time, sometimes the chunks still seemed like they were too big to chew. And whenever i thought about the entire cake, or even about how large that piece was that i was eating, or how important it was for me to eat it then and now, even though i was still a little full from my earlier snack, the cake would into ashes in my mouth. I'd spit it all out, and throw myself back into the abyss. The cake is such a pretty thing too. Not necessarily the best, not necessarily my favourite, but still very edible. I wouldn't have picked it out of the bakery store if it wasn't. And i hunker down and wonder what possessed me to pick this particular cake in the first place.
Sometimes though, sometimes the cake isn't so bad. If i know where i want to go, and what i want to do, i can attack it granule by granule. But most of the time I lose myself. I get lost in the whole thing, and I have no strategy.
And so i fluctuate. I stand at that precipice contemplating the sweet embrace of darkness. Forgetfulness. Diabolical madness. To hide from the hardships that my life has to offer. I am not a depressing person. I can choose to step away. It isn't so hard. My family supports me so much. I feel their love radiate off them like one of those auras that you see on an episode in Stargate. Despite that though, I sometimes still feel so lonely. I can't explain it. I feel so ungrateful saying that. So many people aren't as lucky as me.
Maybe i'm just putting too much pressure on myself. I know i can be a hard and demanding taskmaster. At the same time, I can be so easy on myself. It's just that even though everyone tells me that whatever i do will be fine, I know they would love it if i could do so much better. And i can't help but want to meet those desires. I want to meet those expectations. I want, I want, I want...
I don't want to disappoint them. Everyone tells me how much potential I have. And i know that I haven't worked as hard as i should have, or could have. I have myself to blame. I can sit there and justify it all out to myself. At the same time, I ... sometimes, I just look out there, and I see this big expanse. All that the year had to offer. I spent the first six months dealing with my ex and his departure of sorts, or my own departure. however you want to see or put it. And then, this current one... I was so consumed by him. I suddenly realised what it really meant to love someone. it was an entirely different feeling. so hard to explain. So different, yet so familiar. And although he may have cared about me the same way, I think that he is too insular to ever tell me. And i am not patient enough to wait it out, to hear him break out his soul and show me that we are one and the same. I gave up so much of myself. And i didn't care. He could've taken anything, and I would've given it to him freely. Yet, each time he did, sometimes without even asking, I would come away feeling a little lost. And at the end of the day, when he chose the 'right' path (at my insistence to know the truth mind you), I suddenly fell apart.
Perhaps i have been disillusioned. Perhaps i constantly throw myself into that abyss in an attempt to relive certain moments of my life that I have never had time to grieve over. Maybe i'm just some textbook case of psychobabble. I don't know. All i know is that i have a tendency to personally take a hand in destroying things in my life. The irony is that most of those times when i revert into myself and do certain things - they probably all could have come out for the better. Maybe I'm just confused. I'm too young to understand what's really going on. And when there are chances for me to grow and mature, I shrink back. forget about all that. Just be young and childish and immature and make things worse, because i'm too afraid to face up to failure. true failure. I'd rather just try and sweep it up under the rug, put a nice little label on it and leave it at that.
"considering the circumstances, I don't think I could've told them the truth anyway. It was their fault. They were too blunt with me, and i couldn't face the criticism"
"you've hurt me too much and I probably didn't show you my true self anyway. Not to mention I jumped into the deep end when you needed to ease into it. I was too impatient and impulsive"
"I needed direction before i could proceed. the procrastination was necessary so that it could give me time to think"
they're all just excuses. Excuses for me to face up to the 'real' state of things.
It's funny how in those depths of despair, in the darkness of that abyss we can also find ourselves mentally shaking off those shackles that we ourselves put on not long before. And how we climb back up and walk back out on the other side. I have so many different mental images of what that abyss looks like. Sometimes it's like a standing on the edge of the grand canyon at night. The only difference is, there's no fence, and no stars. It's like, you're on the edge of that cliff, and there's this visible line between darkness and light. and you stand on that rocky edge, willing yourself to jump over. Other times, it's like i'm a butterfly floating above it. Flitting here and there. Sometimes carried there by the winds, other times, choosing to fly over and wanting to get a little lost in the darkness. And other times i fly back over. And sometimes all you have to do is stand there. and the weather changes around me. One minute that darkness falls across me like the shade of a tree falls across me in the afternoon.
We all fluctuate between the inner darkness and the desire to save ourselves from too much introspection and unhappiness. I think that sometimes we choose to do it for reasons such as mine (fear of failure or wanting to face the truth), and sometimes things happen that get us into that state without even realising.
I just wish this thesis wasn't such a drain on me. I see that pretty cake, and I so want to consume it all. I can do it piece by piece eventually, but there's no time left. I've got 5 days to do it. 5 days to finish off a cake that I'm so scared I can't finish.
Day in, Day out, that's what my life has become about. Chewing cake.
*sigh*
posted by Enigmatic Butterfly @ 2:58 pm
2 Comments:
There is really this thin line of sanity that we all tread and most of us are as like you mentioned fluctuating in life.
Sometimes when we look at it, perhaps we are burdened by the heavy expectations put about by others and mostly our own self. Every thing we do, we want to do our best because it just feels so hard to disappoint the trust others put onto you.
i like the analogy with the cake. But imagining that i am the one eating those big slices, sounds almost like one of those stunts in the show Fear Factor. A delicacy becomes so unappetizing.
i can almost sense your immense fatigue but try to hang in there. Like a runner with just one lap to the finish line, win or lose it does not matter anymore, the main thing is to finish it.
Haha, yes... I agree, upon thinking about it, it does sound like something straight out of fear factor, although you can understand then, why suddenly when you mentally take a step back and look at it, why it all turns to dust in your mouth.
Thank you for the encouragement. I will write, and I will try as hard as I can, but after last night, I wonder what it will actually show. I hate that I've gotten myself into this situation, and that I'm the only one to blame. And it just seems like I could have done so much better, and I hate that for once, I truly am responsible for everything. lol. Childish, i know. But, it's a fact. *rueful smile*
4 more days... yikes!
Thanks again, your encouragement means a lot =)
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