distraction confusion.

So much of my thoughts now center around what I will do with the rest of my life, I wonder what I used to think about.

I am completely, utterly, distracted with uncertainty and confusion.

Today I tried to study for my certification exam and I stared at the wall for 2 hours. Just thinking. Trying to map out my life.

I feel like I can't even have a conversation anymore with discussing my potential lifeplans. I'm so self-centered.

Sunday Monotony

When I was in middle school and high school, I always did my weekend homework on Sunday evenings after dinner. Usually my family was watching whatever Sunday evening TV program they were into at the time. It doesn't really sound that bad. Sure, no one ever liked doing their homework, but that wasn't what bothered me. I distinctly remember a feeling of horrible monotonous misery at the thought of another week starting that was just like the last. I remember thinking "Is this all there is?". A week of school/ work, looking forward to the weekend, and then, it's over. It always disappeared during the week because I was a busy kid, but it was that Sunday night calmness that came with the dinner dishes being cleaned up and the TV flickering that really meant monotony. That's how I feel all the time now. Facing the end of the crazy undergraduate years, coming out of three summers abroad. All I can think about of a future with a 9-5 job, 2 weeks off a year, spending Sunday nights preparing for another week- is that all there is?

Last Sunday I cried. Really cried. Any kind of crying is uncharacteristic for me, but this cry was incredibly rare. I was standing in my bedroom, no one home at my house, preparing for Monday when it just ripped through me. No warning. I felt the wave of emotion sweep through my body and had to sit down on my bed before it knocked me over. And then it happened. loud sobs. tears. snot. My sinuses felt like they were going to explode. My lungs started burning for air. I felt like my stomach was coming up my throat. I actually grabbed for my garbage can at one point because I thought I was going to vomit. It stopped almost as quickly as it began and I was left wondering, exactly, why it began.

Except, I think I really do know. I don't want the life I'm leading right now, or the one I feel I'm being pushed in to and I'm not sure if I have the courage to live the life I dream of.

negativity isn't becoming.

I was horribly unproductive today. I'm supposed to be clocking 8 hours/ day on this lit. review for ACS. Can't. Focus. I need to hand a final copy to my boss on Monday morning. I cannot pull an all nighter before my first day on the job. Must do work tomorrow.

I'm a miserable person right now. Faking excitement.

I keep staring into the future and it's pretty cloudy. Undefined. I don't have a plan. To quote Friends, I don't even have a pla.

The only definite feeling I have is that I must not end up living at home. What if I never leave again? Hometowns suck you in like that.

Too many thoughts to sort out. All pretty negative.

School Supplies

Tonight I sat at my desk. Staring at my computer. Picturing a blank Word document with a blinking cursor inside my head. Get up. Move. Do something productive. I didn't. My temples aching, nausea beginning. Of course. It is, afterall, me, the same girl who always shuts down under the stress of a new environment. I begin every new endeavor with the gusto of a kid on the first day of school. New school supplies equal new beginnings in my mind. I wonder if it's bad luck to be starting this "semester" with half used notebooks and three ring binders that pop open if you turn too many pages at once. But, it's not really school. It's a quasi-job under the mask of university credit that is leaving me hanging in limbo between undergraduate and real world person. Does that require a new notebook?

Did you ever feel like new school supplies seemed old and wrinkled more quickly than they should? I did. Maybe because I was the kid who couldn't keep my desk clean for more than an hour after the weekly, mandatory, clean out your desk days. I was always finding the weirdest stuff in there. That's how I feel about my new space in this new city. It was so perfectly set up a day ago. I already have a stay coffee mug on my desk, running shoes on my rug, and jeans that I took off and left where they fell. A personal trademark. When I still lived at home, my mom used to say it looked like my pants were going to walk off without me. Trying to be really clean stresses me out, but then again, so does a big mess. That is such a typical thing for me to say. I panic in all new environments, immediately wanting to get back to the last place I was. The funny thing is, the utopia I crave I was once resisiting. Right now I want to be in London circling free entertainment in the Time Out magazine, using the glorious public transportation and wandering aimlessly, absorbing the energy of a fantastic city. Even more, I'd love to be back at TASIS collecting attendance forms, making 15 year old girls turn out their lights, going for pints at the Red Lion. I miss it so much now, you never would've guessed that I spent my first days there feeling miserably out of place, wishing I had never accepted the job. Actually, you probably could guess it. I can rewind through all the different stages of the past 4 years and see the pattern. Hell turns to heaven. Misery to glee. Enemies to friends. If I can see that it always happnens, why can't I stop my worry now? Because, I'm sure this is going to be the time it doesn't work out. This time, it actually sucks. Thought that every other time too.

This time is a little different I guess. Usually, I know where the next phase is taking place. That predeterminded ending of the semester or departure date is always the begining of a new block of time that I have already planned. The end of the semester means a holiday season at home or a summer abroad. The departure date means I head for class. Of course, with a class schedule that I meticulously mapped out the year before, avoiding Friday classes and early mornings. Now, this last planned out block of time isn't really the beginning of anything definite. Mid-December marks the end of my internship, the end of college, and the beginning of....the rest of my life?

Now my head really hurts.