I'm the kind of person who will definitely finish what she promises to do, even if it means staying up all night. I'm the kind of student who can spend hours writing, editing, and re-editing a single paragraph to make it perfect. I'm the kind of girl who can put on a smile and actively engage in daily activities everyday, even if life has been like hell for the past few weeks. I try to give my 150% all the time, trying to please so many people at once, yet I fail to look after myself. My strength is slipping, along with my health, and I can no longer keep up what I started from the first semester.
It's always been like this; I start out strong and enthusiastic, never doing anything half-assed because I know that if I do, I'll look upon it with regret afterwards, but eventually my energy drains from pushing it so. The truth is; I'm lost.
I'm really lost.
There are voices coming from every which direction, each telling me a different thing that I must do, and they are covering up my own frail little voice that's too scared to speak up among all these other big, authoritative Voices.
I'm a person who can't juggle; I can only hold one thing at a time. For a long, long time, as long as I can remember, this has been academics. Grades. Report cards. This is the only thing I focus on, this is the only thing I can focus on. But that voice deep inside is starting to get mad at me after being ignored for so many years, only able to spread its tiny, delicate wings sparingly. "I'm born with wings," it says, "but if you keep me confined in this little cage all the time, they will never grow, and when you are finally ready to use me, I will no longer remember how to fly."
I don't want to sound like a geek, but my most important priority at the moment is to get good grades. I can do what I like to do anytime I want, but high school I can only experience once. Ten years later, I'd rather be able to say "I did well in high school, although I didn't have much fun outside school" instead of "I had tons of fun in high school, but my grades were average." Am I being too shallow? I don't know... I feel really insecure about my future, and my grades are the only thing that I am in control of that can reassure me of my future.
Why am I so insecure? Well for one, it's a competitive world out there, and I'm not especially talented or skilled in anything significant enough to stand out among a sea of brilliant people. The only thing I pride in is my creativity and imagination; I can daydream for hours and hours, and not randomly, but with actual thoughts, usually forming creative ideas or storylines. I like to think that the voice inside of me is a fairy, providing me with such joyful ideas that seem almost magical. The problem? What use are ideas when you can't fully express them? I can't draw, music isn't really my thing, and I can write... a little. Yes, writing is probably the only means by which I can express my creativity, but I'm nowhere near a level which can properly word all the things going on in my head.
Whenever I have any free time, usually during long breaks or vacations, I tend to look at a lot of things, read lot of books, and go to a lot of places. I get inspired, start to actually write something I really enjoy, so much that I throw homework aside until the last minute, and before my creativity has finished its current project, school starts again, forcing my fairy's wings back into their cage. The story that started but never finished... is left there, neither living nor dead.
I envy people who have known the one or two things they're good at for a long time. Or even those people that aren't thoroughly educated in one thing, but they have enough knowledge of every subject to a certain degree. I can't remember a single fact in any of my history classes since grade 1 through grade 10, I can't recall or apply any mathematical formula or technique to math problems that may have been taught just months before, I don't really remember those literary terms we memorized again and again in English class, I don't remember anything. The past years are only vague shadows. Learn, test, immediate knowledge wipe out.
I didn't shut my eyes for a second last night. I've been reading a lot of dark novels lately, and I came up with some stories of my own-- so disturbing, frightening and twisted that as soon as I closed my eyes, more ideas and images sprung, impeding a peaceful rest. I haven't touched my homework one bit, except for the French project. Subconsciously, and consciously as well-- I desperately wanted to catch up, make up for the lost time in which I'd imprisoned my passion, and improve myself in what I think could eventually blossom into something meaningful. Am I doing the right thing? I'm so tired. I can't think. I can't focus. I'm so sore, something beneath my chest, something near my ribcage... it feels weird; something's withering and rotting inside me. My kidneys are probably suffering as well, as I force them to stay up the whole night with me. I can't keep up with myself.
All I want to do is let tears flow tonight, but I want to be strong again tomorrow.
I feel like a little part of the original burden I'd been trying to deal with has finally left me through the words I've written here. If you've had the patience to bear with me thus far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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