i told you to be balanced and i told you to be kind
31.08.13 | 2:22 pm
this time last year, i was moving back home from louisville. i was meant to start graduate school at uofl, go $40,000 in debt, and continue (i suppose) working at panera bread while i did it. but at the very last second, that number: 40,000, it scared me into dropping out. i couldn't do. i couldn't place that much value on the degree.
so for six weeks i lived in louisville, worked at panera bread, and considered myself, for lack of a better word, a complete and utter failure.
my parents sensed how upset i was (i think, really, it was impossible not to) and encouraged me to come back home. to work as a substitute teacher. to get a puppy.
and so that's what i did. and i got emma, which was the best decision i've made in the past year.
but the listlessness didn't go away. the dissatisfaction with my place in life was still there.
so, i picked up another job: family video. a job that i actually really, really enjoyed, because i worked with great people and it was a very chill environment. it was something that i needed. a place where i felt needed.
all the while i was getting used to feeling isolated from everyone. matt and erin were still in louisville, kayley in illinois, sue and becca in bowling green, kari and sarah and courtney in murray. no one was closer than an hour's drive away from me.
i began to develop my odd friendship with matt.
i struggled with applying to murray's TESOL program or western's TESL program. mostly, i wanted out. away. and quickly. and i knew i'd be accepted to either program.
for a sense of change, i went for western's.
i was lucky enough to be accepted as a graduate assistant, but that also meant that i was essentially homeless for the first month of school. i lived on cortney and steven's couch and went back home on the weekends. it was, obviously, stressful.
but sometimes good things fall into your lap and sue and jason and i moved into this house.
the next month my brother went to rehab. this had a very, very big effect on me. maybe more than was necessary.
for the entire month of march, i felt crazy. i felt as though i couldn't talk to anyone. becca, for instance, literally ignored me for a week once she found out about it. kayley refused to talk to me about it and would just leave the conversation.
this was when i began to severely depend on matt. his dad was going through rehab again at the same time, and so we clung to each other. at least for that month.
that began to get worse for me.
and then he decided to move to colorado.
all of these things, coupled with the stress of three graduate literature classes (reading three novels a week), adjusting to my first semester of grad school, began to break me down little by little.
my sleeping patterns got worse. i was constantly exhausted. and somehow i felt very, very alone.
but i got through the semester. i made two A's and one B. my jobs i had lined up fell through, and i wound up working at walmart.
i had to adjust going from talking to matt multiple times a day every day to much less often. this was (pathetically) a lot harder on me than it should've been. after all, at this point, i considered him to be the one person who understood me. what a terrible title for anyone, because it can never be fulfilled.
eric sent me a message apologizing and all it did was bring up things i'd pushed away for a long time.
i slept with bryant. i subsequently felt terrible about myself, freaked out about it for weeks, and was then embarrassed about it for weeks. that part is still lingering. i wrestled with the fact that i was just there: i did not mean anything.
matt said something to me that really hurt my feelings and still does and changed the way that i think about him and most of the people around me. although things and people are incredibly important to me, it doesn't mean that is reciprocated. it just doesn't.
my back started hurting at the beginning of august. i got those rashes that still aren't gone.
and then becca moved out.
and proved to me that just because i find someone incredibly important, it doesn't mean that it's reciprocated. it just doesn't. i had not felt as though someone cared that little about me in a long time.
not only did it wreck that, but it made me have a financial freak out, along with the fact that the university didn't let me sign up for a necessary class until after i finalized my loan.
school started this week and i have literally no motivation.
for the past summer one of the things i think a lot is "i just want to die." and it's not that i want to die, because i don't. i just seem to think it's the only thing to get my point across.
that i'm sad.
that i've been sad for an entire year.
that i don't know what to do about it.
last night reminded me that even if people love me they still think of me in a highly negative light when i'm not around. this is something i've always been aware of around certain people. but at murray? i never felt that. i just felt like the people i was around loved me. and they found important the things i find important. (most of the time.)
my linguistics class on tuesday is the only thing in the past week that got me excited about the semester at all.
i still feel lost.
and i know it's just one of those things that doesn't ever really go away. but i want to feel at peace. something.
this entire entry just seems pathetic. most of these things wouldn't affect people as severely as they affected me.
it's been a rough year. that's okay.
i'm trying to change my outlook but that's so much harder than it sounds.
another year and a half until i finish my degree.
matthew and erin are about to move to dc. kayley is probably moving to chicago. kari went to ohio. matt is in colorado. sofi went to florida.
when is it my turn?