pity-party

I feel like I am disappearing. Someday I might look in the mirror and not see my reflection. I am trying to avoid mirrors, just in case. I feel like my presence here doesn't matter. I am expendable, unimportant; I make no difference. My life has no differences.

My classes are on a weekly cycle, the same routine each week. My work is worse. Each phone call starts a new goal; at the cessation of each the past is wiped clean. I have no calling in church, no way to feel a part of a community I fear to join as it is. The people with whom I spend my time are as static as a John Wayne* character. I love them and they will always be the same, and we will always interact the exact same. Tonight I stayed home, just to not go to the same people.

I am plagued by the feeling that I have nothing to look forward to, no real reason to keep going through the routine. Sure, there is that vague future shiny goal of graduation, but that is no comfort. I am antsy, a feeling destructive in a situation where my future academically, socially and financially balances on the brink. My heart is not in my tasks. My heart is not in anything.

Often it comes back to my friends. I miss April, et all. I have no one to whom I can turn in good or in bad, someone with whom to share myself, and so whatever emotions, good or bad, that I feel are wasted upon unsympathetic space. Have I made my friends my horcruxes, places in which to lose my soul? Because they are gone, have I lost my outlet?

I use my writing. I have been diligent in my writing, losing track of time while I explore the emotions and interactions of the people who were born full-grown from my head. My Athenas possess me and make me take notice of them. Meanwhile I wallow in self-pity that I am going unnoticed.

I would rather lose than take a consolation prize. I will have no mocking medals to celebrate my failure to be the best. So why do I not make the effort to get friends? Why do I not ace my every class with amazing proficiency? Why do I not fly to the moon and be named Queen? Because I don't feel that I can. Because to me, these tasks, so easy for some, are difficult for me. And I fear failure, perhaps more than I hate mediocrity. Every time I fail I lose a piece of myself. I will take an unsatisfying routine, just as long as I don't lose anything else; no more friends, no more goals, no more me.

I will tick one more day off the calendar and do my life all over again tomorrow. I count 21 days since the semester started...is it really so few? I check voice mail every hour, I run to check the post every day, and I am constantly on-line to read my email. Maybe somewhere I will find proof that I exist.

*no insult meant to John Wayne, whose fan I am in the nth degree.