Maximum Angst
I have just spent the past two hours crying basically about the same thing that I have cried about over the past decade. The same thing, a different iteration, a variation on the same tired thing. The same thing at its root; it's simply taken on a different form.
Why do I keep trying on clothes that don't fit? Why do I keep trying to be someone that I'm not? How much longer will I try in futility to rectify a mistake that I made 10 years ago before I realise that it's a mistake that is intractable, that I can't take it back, that there is no 'undo' button and this is really just it? That I have to accept it for what it is - a choice that my 19-year-old self made, I cannot take it back, and so just stop trying to fight it.
But I can't stop feeling so - fake, so pretend, so out of place and uncomfortable and like a major failure, that being someone who has failed at life, in the sense of failing to lead a flourishing life, in the sense of a happy one, a contented one. It is ridiculous that I should feel this way. I know that.
I know this, too: while sitting on my bed staring at my PhD books at the bottom rung of my bookshelf, trying to stop the tears from forming and overflowing like they'd done for the past hour and a half, I had a sudden flash back to something that I did 6, 7 years ago. On a particularly bad day, when I couldn't keep in all the angst caused by my job that I hated, when I felt suffocated at home because of something my parents said (I don't remember what it was), when I couldn't take it anymore - I took the MRT to Raffles Place, sat near the Fat Bird statue somewhere around UOB Plaza, facing the Singapore River, one of my favourite spots in Singapore, and cried and cried and cried.
That's how I've been feeling for the past week. I am tired of pretending to be clever, pretending to care - or trying to make myself care - about esoteric academic bullshit that doesn't matter, doesn't matter a lick. I am beginning to loathe this almost half as much as I'd loathed being a lawyer; but at least being a lawyer paid me good money. Now? I am paying Cambridge to torture myself.
What am I even doing? How did I even get here? What am I doing here? Why is it everything all or nothing, why can't things co-exist, why can't I strike a balance?
*
It is interesting, is it not, that the only thing that's capable of calming me down when I get into such a state is writing. Clearly, I should have fetched my laptop 5 minutes into my fucking stupid crying fit. I'd intended to go to Midsummer Commons to see the fireworks with Ivan but because I couldn't stop crying, I told him 30 minutes before we were due to meet that I couldn't make it anymore. At least he's going with someone else and I was just the tag along.
I am so tired - so very fucking tired - of everything about myself. I feel a strong sense of loathing everytime I look into the mirror. If I were in Singapore right now, I would have permed my fucking hair a week ago.
It's so tragic, isn't it, how I'd thought Cambridge was a dream come true. Here I am, in my college room in Cambridge - a room in a historic house - feeling as if I've done nothing all my adult life but mess it up. As if I'd spent my adult life desperately trying to be someone that I am not. Everything is intensified; I feel like I am failing at everything. I'm doing a half-arsed job for the journal; I feel useless in French class because I don't understand half of what the teacher says and I still can't remember the fucking numbers; my tennis is terrible and I have to play a match tomorrow and I really don't want to because I am tired of being a loser; and my PhD, whatever the hell it is, is a piece of shit and I don't know why I'd ever thought this would be a good idea. I don't know why.
I just want to disappear. Evaporate into oblivion. Come back as a completely new person. Someone with the conviction and courage to do what she wants. Or go to Oblivion, stay there forever. Life is a disappointment anyway.
Why do I keep trying on clothes that don't fit? Why do I keep trying to be someone that I'm not? How much longer will I try in futility to rectify a mistake that I made 10 years ago before I realise that it's a mistake that is intractable, that I can't take it back, that there is no 'undo' button and this is really just it? That I have to accept it for what it is - a choice that my 19-year-old self made, I cannot take it back, and so just stop trying to fight it.
But I can't stop feeling so - fake, so pretend, so out of place and uncomfortable and like a major failure, that being someone who has failed at life, in the sense of failing to lead a flourishing life, in the sense of a happy one, a contented one. It is ridiculous that I should feel this way. I know that.
I know this, too: while sitting on my bed staring at my PhD books at the bottom rung of my bookshelf, trying to stop the tears from forming and overflowing like they'd done for the past hour and a half, I had a sudden flash back to something that I did 6, 7 years ago. On a particularly bad day, when I couldn't keep in all the angst caused by my job that I hated, when I felt suffocated at home because of something my parents said (I don't remember what it was), when I couldn't take it anymore - I took the MRT to Raffles Place, sat near the Fat Bird statue somewhere around UOB Plaza, facing the Singapore River, one of my favourite spots in Singapore, and cried and cried and cried.
That's how I've been feeling for the past week. I am tired of pretending to be clever, pretending to care - or trying to make myself care - about esoteric academic bullshit that doesn't matter, doesn't matter a lick. I am beginning to loathe this almost half as much as I'd loathed being a lawyer; but at least being a lawyer paid me good money. Now? I am paying Cambridge to torture myself.
What am I even doing? How did I even get here? What am I doing here? Why is it everything all or nothing, why can't things co-exist, why can't I strike a balance?
*
It is interesting, is it not, that the only thing that's capable of calming me down when I get into such a state is writing. Clearly, I should have fetched my laptop 5 minutes into my fucking stupid crying fit. I'd intended to go to Midsummer Commons to see the fireworks with Ivan but because I couldn't stop crying, I told him 30 minutes before we were due to meet that I couldn't make it anymore. At least he's going with someone else and I was just the tag along.
I am so tired - so very fucking tired - of everything about myself. I feel a strong sense of loathing everytime I look into the mirror. If I were in Singapore right now, I would have permed my fucking hair a week ago.
It's so tragic, isn't it, how I'd thought Cambridge was a dream come true. Here I am, in my college room in Cambridge - a room in a historic house - feeling as if I've done nothing all my adult life but mess it up. As if I'd spent my adult life desperately trying to be someone that I am not. Everything is intensified; I feel like I am failing at everything. I'm doing a half-arsed job for the journal; I feel useless in French class because I don't understand half of what the teacher says and I still can't remember the fucking numbers; my tennis is terrible and I have to play a match tomorrow and I really don't want to because I am tired of being a loser; and my PhD, whatever the hell it is, is a piece of shit and I don't know why I'd ever thought this would be a good idea. I don't know why.
I just want to disappear. Evaporate into oblivion. Come back as a completely new person. Someone with the conviction and courage to do what she wants. Or go to Oblivion, stay there forever. Life is a disappointment anyway.