A Little Rant (if you will)

Should I be quite happy with my behaviour the last two days? I probably should not and I most definitely am not. One of the reasons why I did not post yesterday was because it was an extremely taxing day for me in terms of the mental stress I took on (not like today was any better). I had the pleasure of having two panic attacks, or at least that’s what a google search and trusty websites (NHS) tells me. I have never experienced anything similar to that ever in my life before. I am quite prone to stress and anxiety, I worry a lot, but never has it ever taken the form of what it did yesterday. And the worst part was that I was utterly alone at the time and never have I ever felt lonelier than I did at that moment.

I had not slept properly the previous night and I had a presentation today and I was under a lot of stress. I had eaten only one meal in that whole day and nothing else, not even a snack and so I collapse-slept. But I could not sleep properly because there was a weird sensation where my brain was buzzing and it was working and I cannot for the life of me figure out what work that was. I slept but it was not restful and when I woke up, I woke up shivering and trembling, cold, even though I had not been cold when I slept, on the contrary, I had been quite warm. I spoke to a friend who had called and I saw a missed call and then suddenly, out of the blue, I started getting out of breath. I started panting heavily, unable to breathe and get it under control, I was struggling to breathe and my breaths were the only thing I could hear. I felt completely helpless and out of control, my brain was buzzing and it was a good five minutes of that before I calmed down a little. My friend came to my room at that moment but I was slowly feeling better and I forgot that almost.

Later that night, I was working on my presentation and I was absolutely terrified of it. I was alone once again, it was late at night and there was no one in the common room either. This was the time when, for a horrible moment, I felt like everything was done and that I was done. The loneliness came back once again, stronger than before and I could do nothing but let my panic solve itself and it took its own time–it was half an hour of wasted time. And given the situation I was in, wasted time does not help matters, it did not make me feel better. I tried reaching out to people but it was a useless exercise. I think it was the last two days that have come to teach me an important lesson, a lesson on learning to be there for myself during times like these. The punchline was, I might actually be quite bad at being there for myself, even though I can ultimately move on from these incidents. I am still debating if maybe I need to get help from the counsellors on campus. I had mailed them a couple of days back but they never replied (another case of a reaching out failure).

I think what is most important in this whole event was a revaluation of myself and my relationships with people. An understanding of how people are different, how people might not understand, how there can be resentment and a strong push for isolation and withdrawal, how people can be quite clueless and ignorant or ignoring too (and I am trying my best to simply state these things without passing any judgement on them). There is never going to be a permanent system of support, quite unfortunately so, and yes, that means that even my self is never going to be a permanent support. In fact, if anything, my self has been one of the more unreliable supports in my life (a condition that arose over quite a long period of time). It felt simultaneously nice to have my self finally step up and try to keep me upright, as much as it took a toll on me.

The constant feeling of feeling illegitimate never fails to leave. Why was I stressing so much over this presentation? What was at stake at the presentation? I think, more than anything, it was a sense of self-esteem that was at stake. A question of proving that my existence in that class was more than just a passive nodding object. Was it “enough of a concern” for me to literally lose my sleep over, to panic about so much? I don’t know and it is quite presumptive to assume that it isn’t a question I asked myself a thousand times again and again (and to ask it back to me once again). I don’t want to be chastised, I want to be consoled, to be comforted and told that things will be alright (and yes, asking me to shut up and pretend that I stopped feeling what I felt does not help matters). I don’t want to be reminded that what I am feeling is illegitimate and regardless of what the intentions are, the impact was that I was being told my thoughts were baseless. Good job deconstructing and exposing the underlying unstability, but unfortunately for me, it didn’t disable the system. Okay, I hate ranting because it makes me feel like a bad person (clearly, I have many issues). So I am going to pretend I never wrote this blog post and go and get some work done. I will be fine, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

 

Complicated Ordinariness and Extraordinariness

Today was probably one of the most unproductive days I have had in the recent past and that is saying a lot because my whole summer was a case study in unproductivity. But nevertheless, unproductivity is more starkly noticed when you have something to be productive about but you fail at that. I had a lot of work that I had to get done today but I did not get it done and now, I am quite obviously paying the price as I sit here, trying desperately to fight sleep (though I don’t know why I am this sleepy despite the fact that I slept a lot) and try and get something at least done. But I think that is going to fail, so I might as well just sleep after this blog post.

Which brings me to another thing that I worry about, this blog. I am afraid of how I shall maintain this blog as the semester progresses. It is just the first week, one of my professors is not even here yet so her class hasn’t started yet, and I am already drowning under the workload. I am not exactly very confident of the fact that I can do this, but I do know that I have gotten through this (if not exactly, but still a form of this) before and I have the strength within me for that. All I have to do is find it and channel it properly and pray that I become a great person as an added bonus. Sometimes I wonder if there is anything I can do to make me a great person and not generally meh. I don’t necessarily think that being ordinary or average is bad (regardless of the baggage that the terms generally come with). But I cannot help but wonder how different it would have been if I were not so, if there was something extraordinary, if you will, about me. It is not exactly a very great doubt to have because it throws my self-esteem into jeopardy almost all the time. And my self-esteem is not the greatest anyway. So you take something that was already at level -1 and send it on to level -6 or something.

That reminds me, I have still not received a reply from him and well, I don’t know how to deal with it, to be honest. I don’t want to give myself hope only for it to come crashing down, so right now, I am focussing on not thinking about these kinds of things. Because when you like someone or have a crush on someone, you do tend to become quite obsessed with them. For me, this physical distance means that I have to try and not let that obsession anywhere near me because it is pointless and shall never achieve fruition. I am just really afraid because I have never really dealt with things like this before. The one time before this, I had too much going on, too much was at stake. And well, as I had written, I moved on and maybe that’s what will happen with this one too. But right now, hope is the cheeky thing that continues to flutter here and there inside my mind and well, as pleasant as the feeling is, the after-effects is something I don’t think I want to put myself through (they do say that romance is intoxicating).

But anyway, aside from that, I have been sleeping a lot lately. I don’t even know why I sleep so much or why I feel so sleepy all the time. The last couple of days, I have not been able to sleep properly because there were too many things running on my mind. As they continue to do, even right now. There are too many thoughts that are fighting for attention, to be called to be typed out onto the screen. I am afraid of my classes, if I will be able to do good enough in them for my professors to like me and think of me as a worthy student. Does that make me ‘brown-nosed’? I don’t really know, because I would not equate wanting to be liked by professors to stupidly slaving away for them and saying a ‘yes’ to everything they say or do. I don’t think that’s how I want to be liked by them. I would much rather have them like me as a consequence of my smartness. But I am ordinary after all, so there’s that dilemma. Why is everything in life so complicated?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Shining Memory Sparks

What is it about memories that make them so irresistible? I mean, we are always looking for opportunities to make some memory or the other. We want to hold on to every waking and living moment just so that they will continue to be lived, in our mind. I started this whole blog because I wanted to remember, I wanted to document my memories. And what memories they have been! There have been bad days, horrible days, days pushing me to break down, days when peace overwhelmed me, days when I could look up at the sky and smile for no reason at all, days when some light would light the way up for me and make me feel warm, comforted, and safe. Each of these days, I have written a post every day. Each day has had countless memories, numerous quirks in each of them, that I obviously could not write down about. Many, I have probably already forgotten, it is after all the way of the brain. But the small spark that they no doubt set off in my brain will not be forgotten.

Speaking of memories and forgetting, I was looking at my father’s old laptop. It had been the second laptop of the family, we had got it some time in 2008 or 2009. It had become extremely slow and quite sad, but it had gone through a lot and had served the family faithfully for quite a long time. It had been the computer I had been obsessed by, all that I learnt with and about a computer, was from that computer. Naturally, it held a lot of my old documents, pictures, assignments, and projects. I was curious, I wanted to remember what young 9-year-old Yashasvi had been up to.

Now, as far I remembered, I used to fancy myself as a smart kid–I thought I was smart, creative, and also good in English. Well, naturally, I used to be a much more self-assured kid back then. Then puberty and high-school hit me and down the drain went everything. I think it has become quite convenient for me to blame so many things for my own dwindling self-esteem and other problems. But then, it is also the truth, they contributed immensely to my own failings. But that’s the thing right? They contributed to my failings, not someone else’s. I am reminded of something my parents say–they say, regardless of what people say about you, or whatever happens to you, you are the one who would get affected. The others are not going to go through what you will. So you better not gift yourself that punishment. Regardless of whether puberty or high school contributed to my own failings, the fact is, I have those failings, not them. I have to deal with them, I become the recipient of this horrible prize. It is quite a liberating thought if you think about it long enough.

So I opened these videos and documents in the old laptop and spent quite a long time watching and reading them. Needless to say, I was cringing and laughing through all of them. I could not remember when I had written a few things, could not recollect properly what I had been thinking when I was dancing on stage when I was three and a half years old. It was just a pleasant buzz of memories in my head, I could recollect some vague feelings and thoughts, but that was that. But I think that is the beauty, it reminds me of these lines in a poem by Henry Derozio called A Walk by Moonlight 

“Yes; there are in the backward past
Soft hours to which we turn –
Hours which, at distance, mildly shine,
Shine on, but never burn.”

Yes, the lives we have lived so far have countless memories and thoughts and emotions and ideas. Many, we forget, some, we remember with a decent level of clarity, and quite a few remain as vague buzzes, that are pleasant and shine, but they don’t burn with the same intensity. They are like the smaller stars in the night sky, those that are quite easily masked by even light clouds but continue to shine and twinkle. You can never probably locate them properly, name them like you would be able to name the pole star or some other star, or even the moon and the sun, for that matter. But you still register their presence, they light up the sky for you nonetheless. Isn’t it beautiful? That these memories are sparks that sometimes set off a destructive wildfire, sometimes also light the stove to feed and nourish everyone. But sometimes, they only light a small candle or a lamp that would provide feeble light and warmth. But regardless, the spark is still a spark. The spark I showed in my childhood may have grown feebler, but it is still a spark, still with the potential to light the stove and feed and nourish me. I think I just have to find the right place for me to strike my stones for the spark, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.