Breakdown.
Ever have those times of startling clarity? Like, when suddenly the camera fish-eye lenses in a weird truck-out/zoom-in, creating a warped vertigo that cuts to a shot of your face, alive with complete and total panic?
I had one today.
So, I left Digital Tools early. I just couldn't do it. I sat there, I listened to him, I even tried to catch up, but I just couldn't do it. So I left, and headed over to an animation room to try and get some of my animal walk animation done. I had all my references out, my peg bar in the slot, the paper ready to go, pencil in hand. And I just stared at the page. I sat that way for probably a good ten minutes before realizing, and then it hit me:
I'm so screwed. My life is completely fucked up.
And then I sat there and listed off the reasons why my life is so fucked up, which only made everything worse of course.
My (extended) family is at a breaking point, there's this ridiculously huge feud going on and because of it, everyone's tensions are high. For the past two months it's been nothing but heated arguments at my house. And I don't mean bickering, I mean screaming and raging. Because of it, I fell behind on all of my assignments.
It's alright, I told myself, I can catch up during reading break and be back on track. Except that during reading week my grandfather fell ill with a bladder infection. He's 91. The doctors told us to expect the worst. What's worse is, because of the feud only my immediate family (my mother, father, brother and I) were able to take care of him (because he speaks no english, so someone has to stay with him at all times). I spent almost all of my week at the hospital.
One night, we recieved a phone call from the hospital. What do you expect when that happens? Well, it wasn't that, but it wasn't any better. What had happened was my father had almost been arrested. He had started to scream at the nurses because my grandfather was out in the hallway, not having the room we were told he was supposed to get. Well, the security had him at the desk, and said they wouldn't call the police if my mother came and collected him. So I went with her. 4 o' clock in the morning. When we go there, we discovered that my dad had been kicked out of the hospital. Apparently, the nurses had called the police on their own, and they had escorted him out. According to the security guard "He was last seen heading north."
My mother didn't have a car, we had taken a taxi there. It was 4am, and no one was with my grandfather who was out in the hallway. So, while she went to go look for him (heading vaguely north), I spent the next hour and a half alone with my grandfather. And it was one of the most terrifying experience of my life.
He'd move around, try to get up, try pulling out his tubes, and mutter things about people doing this and that, and it was all I could do to reassure him that he was safe, and that I was there, and he should rest. So he'd nod in comprehension, close his eyes for maybe a few minutes, and then start again. I can really barely speak Punjabi, and it's difficult enough to even communicate with my granparents. But when one is hallucinating and in pain, how could I even tell if it was real pain or something he was imagining, and that he needed to be left alone (according to nurses). It was painful enough to see my baba in that condition, but to not even be able to do anything? That night will probably be with me forever.
Thankfully, my mom found my dad, and we somehow resolved the issue, so he's allowed back at the hospital now.
And then break was over, before it even started. I had nothing to show for it. As it remains, I've handed in maybe one or two of the assignments I was supposed to do. I'm behind in all of my classes, and not even keeping up with current assingments. And the thing is, I just don't care anymore. I'm so emotionally drained, that I just have nothing left to give. I spend most of my time at school just talking or staring into space, thinking of nothing.
And then I have moments like today, when I realize just how screwed I am. I'm absolutely terrified that I'll be kicked out of the program, that I'll be out of school, without an education, having made nothing of myself.
I need to talk to my teachers, let them know whats going on. I know that I should. But a part of me just wants to give up, to curl up into a ball and let the world just keep going. Another part of me is too proud to admit to anyone that I've let myself fail to meet the challenges presented to me. And the last part just wants to cry. But the proud one won't let it. It only even begrudgingly allows me to type up my feelings into this post here, which I may just end up deleting. Who knows.
At this point, the only thing I can really do is work, and pray that I can do enough to just scrape by this year. I'll take the four month break to recollect myself, and hopefully next year will be better. Really, I can only just pray. 2008 is turning out to be one of the worst years of my life, and a part of me thinks that it can't get any worse than this.
But the other, more dominant part knows that that's bullshit. Knowing my luck, it's probably only just beginning.