Now that I've heard back from one university, I'm getting greedy and impatient, and I want to hear back from more. I somehow get the feeling that I won't be getting an offer letter from Nottingham, the one to which I sent the wrong personal statement that mentioned classes that don't exist, or from Manchester, to which I sent the wrong application type, or from Essex, to which I sent a really horribly bad personal statement (hey man, it's been awhile since I applied to school; I'm out of practice), but the others are fair game. I'm trying to be more optimistic and less self-deprecating, did you see that? I'm giving myself a fair chance. I just hope the schools do, too.
I'm definitely in a transition period in my life. I'm a bit adrift, a bit overwhelmed, and that's totally okay. I just need to put my feet on the ground and get going, though, because I can't just sit around and work on my mental health all day. I'm taking steps, though; I offered to help one of Mom's coworkers out with some paperwork and such, and of course, I'm getting ready to go back to school, and I'm going to therapy regularly, and I'm even exercising and stuff. Damn. I need to do more, though, and this isn't me being hard on myself, it's me being realistic and realizing that grad school and a part-time job is going to be pretty hard if I'm not used to getting off my ass and doing the things that I need to do. So, I have to just kick myself and get going. I mean, how can I make a life for myself if I don't work for it? I used to be very hardworking. I mean, it was during high school, and I was an AP student, so everyone was hardworking, but still. I can go back to that. Literally, my guy, how did I become so lazy? Maybe I let myself go. Yes, I did, in a lot of ways, really, so that makes sense. Are my flaws... my own fault????? Oh my gosh, is this going to be some kind of Hobbsian man-is-born-to-trouble-as-the-sparks-fly-upward moment? Because I would really rather it not be that. Actually, you know, this way of thinking, while probably deleterious to the mental health, does give me some agency. If my flaws are my own fault because I didn't work to banish them from my natural state, then presumably, I am able to banish them, and can do so with hard work. And that's how the proletariat is born, baby.
Today is the 22nd, which means that in a month and twelve days, it will be June 4th. And you know what happens on June 4th? Oh that's right, E is coming! (probably in multiple ways if we can get some alone time) I'm so unbelievably and uncharacteristically excited about this. Like, let's be real, ladies, gents, and esteemed ones, no matter how extroverted we are, don't we all value us some alone time? Don't we feel a little twitch of irritation at the thought of having to share our space with others? It makes perfect sense that I, and others like me (all of you) would be averse to the idea of having someone come and stay by my side for an entire week. Except, I don't feel any aversion to the idea at all. Instead, I'm over the moon. A whole week in person with her! It'll be like when I visited her, except longer, and with a mini vacation with friends thrown in at the end. Honestly, it seems like too much happiness. Does that mean something may go wrong? No, actually, my friends, foes, and buffoons, and most importantly, me-- in fact, that's not logical or rational thinking at all, and can be discarded! Correlation ain't causation, and that's that on that.
Okay! Now I'm going to talk about my feelings, because I learned that I'm not, in fact, an INTP as I'd thought for six years, but actually an ENFP, with feelings a-plenty. It turns out that suppressing them doesn't make them go away, who would have thought?
I felt a little sad earlier. I wasn't sure why, so I asked myself why, and then myself got all silly and pretended it hadn't happened, so now I'm going to ask myself again: why were you sad? It's such a tough question, because I'm not Supposed to be sad right now. I'm supposed to be getting better and feeling hopeful and happy and not a phone call away from being hospitalized, and all that. And I guess I am, I mean, it sort of feels like flowers are very slowly starting to bloom. Or no, not flowers. A tree. That's slower, but also, it doesn't die after a couple weeks. Like a tree, the growth in me will be able to withstand cold winters and hot summers, but also the sweetness of spring and the fresh vitality of fall. It might look different in different seasons, but it's the same me. (Nice analogy there, man, you got this real good) I feel like the growth is happening so slowly, though, and it's frustrating. I want to be there already. I've never been patient by nature, even though I force myself to act as if I am, and I hate this slow pace. But I know it's probably good for me. I have to get used to living again. If it all happened at once, it would probably be overwhelming, and I would regress. So it's good that I'm taking it slow! I know it is. But man, I want to be who I want to be already.
Who is that, though? I talked about it a little bit before, but let's really explore what I want my life to look like, and what I want myself to look like, too. Of course, I want to be that polka-dot-wearing, flower-loving, friend-smooching kitty mama, but I also want to be more concrete in my goals. After all, I can't write "I'm kind <3" on my resume. So, I have two paths in the short term here. One is linguistics. The other is psychology. And never the twain shall meet. No, just kidding-- the ultimate goal, you see, is psycholinguistics! So really, what I do for my Masters doesn't really matter, because the end goal is a PhD in linguistics, specializing in psycholinguistics, specializing in language processing, specializing in morphology. Boom. If I go the linguistics route, it'll be more comfortable. If I go the psychology route, it'll be more exciting. So either is good! It just depends on what school I go to. Once I'm there, I want to work part-time (because a tier 4 visa doesn't allow full-time work except on vacations), and of course go to school full time. And I will be able to balance it all, because I will also allow myself time to have fun.
I'm just wondering, honestly, who gave me the right to be so happy. I'm seeing the love of my life in 43 days, and we'll have an amazing week together, and then we'll go party for a weekend with my two other favorite people, and then it's just a few months before I start school. I have these wonderful things to look forward to, and in the meantime, I'm waking up happy each morning, and that's a miracle in of itself. I truly never thought I could have any of this. And you know, nobody made it happen for me (though of course they helped). I made it happen. I'm kind of getting emotional over myself, right now, oh man. I taught myself my entire elementary and middle school education, and when I realized it wasn't enough, I pushed my parents to let me go to high school (subsequently paving the way for my siblings to go). I got into OSU, and I applied to UCLA all by myself, got in all by myself, and graduated all by myself. And I asked E out because I decided to be brave, and then I applied to grad schools for the same reason. And then I took the steps to recover by myself, and of course of course people helped me, I'm not denying that, but I also don't want to deny the amount of hard work I put in to be where I am now. Talia recognized it before I did, but I think her observation has finally hit me, and I've finally realized that every good thing in my life came either because I'm privileged and it was handed to me, or because I worked to make it happen, and of the two of them, I feel so much better about the second one. It's bizarre to think that there's something in my life that I can be proud of, but actually, there's a lot. I've done a lot. So maybe I'm not the absolute lowest scum of the earth. Like, I'm not great, but I'm okay. I'm okay. I think I'm going to tear up. It's really possible, because I know that I'm average at best, and I can be my best, and I can be average. Like, normal. All I've ever, ever wanted is to be normal (there's a lot to unpack in that statement, but let's ignore that). And I can be! I can be myself, but
holy shit y'all wait for this hot take that just hit me like a fucking brick
Abuse isn't normal
It's not! Literally, the way I was raised is the definition of neglect/abuse, and I hated it and was ashamed of it for so many years without knowing why. (author's note: this is blowing my FUCKENING mind) It makes sense now. I knew on some level that it was wrong, so I was ashamed of it. And when I think about the parts I was ashamed of, the parts that I wanted to change, it was the parts that were symptomatic of the abuse. I was proud of reading classic literature as a kid; I wasn't proud of the fact that my dad insisted we all sleep in the same bed until I was ten years old. Also, what happened to my eleventh year? I suddenly can't remember it.
All right, hold on, this is getting distressing. I'm thinking about this now. I hadn't let myself think about it. Do I remember anything before eighth grade? Big events, yeah. I think I remember a lot surrounding the move to California. It's blurry instead of blank, and I have chunks of memory. And I have isolated memories throughout, like raisins in pudding. It slowly begins to get clearer as I get older. High school is where my life began, as far as I'm concerned, or at least it feels that way. Oh my gosh, and I was developmentally delayed, too, oh man. Mom always repined that I stopped playing with dolls (at twelve years old) because I went to music camp for a week. That was the first time I'd been away from home for any amount of time, and even that little window into normalcy was enough to shock me into growing up a little. Holy damn shit, man. How the fuck did I play catch-up so fast? Like, how did I overcome all of that? Although, I guess I didn't. Look at me. I'm a wreck. Like, yes, I've accomplished a lot, but I've done it while being a raging alcoholic with an eating disorder and a self-harm problem, as well as mental illnesses up the wahoo. If I was also abused in the way that I'm suspecting, too, then that would fit in like a pea in a hole. I think it was, too. Xander and Talia have apparently both had Those Dreams about Dad. I'm not saying he did anything, but he's so creepy, so the company he kept must have been creepy, too. So maybe that happened, and now I'm like this. I'm trying to get better. I really am. I think I am. And I think I can give myself a little grace for having such a hard journey.
It's okay. I'm okay. Or at least, I will be.