Slacking Breaks

I think one of the elements of allowing myself to relax is the realisation of exactly how exhausted and tired I am. I don’t think I ever properly realise my own exhaustion during my time at university. I don’t have time for such frivolities, I have more pressing concerns to attend to, namely studying and doing important things for my own education that cannot be put off for longer than absolutely necessary. And I justify it to myself by saying that I am at university to study and study I must do without slacking. Everything I do is in a bid to not slack and call to question the use and legitimacy of being at university. I am there with a purpose to learn and I shall work myself and apply myself to that process, and when I fail in that purpose, like I have done a lot this semester, it takes a toll on me because I cannot bear the thought of being like that.

But I have been really sleepy the whole day today, my head is aching right now as I type and I want nothing more than to collapse on my bed and sleep until the end of eternity. I am also worried because half the semester has gone by so fast and in another half, I shall have my finals and I am absolutely not confident about it at all. Part of it is probably my own insecurities coming into play about my own estimate of my intelligence (which is not very high, to be honest, because I have allowed myself no reason to believe otherwise). But that being said, I think this break has allowed me a time when I could properly take time out for myself, to be with people who love me and who I love back. Of course, I also miss university and the people there with a strong passion, but I am going back there and I also most definitely needed and wanted this. This breath of home and grandparents, of one of the very few things that have been quite stable so far in my life. Surely the quest for this was worth the general slacking I have been doing this break?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Friendship Fears

I am extremely tired to write this post but I have to. I actually ended up sleeping through the whole night and it is 7:45am now and I cannot believe that I did this. I would have normally woken up in the middle of the night, remembering that I had to write. But this time, it seems like I completely collapsed and slept, out of control. But I only have myself to blame, I have put off some very clear warning signs by my body in favour of getting some work done. It is only expected that my body would pull a rebellion and shut down. But this sleep felt quite great, I was plagued by dreams (which I don’t remember much of), but it was a long, sustained sleep. My only horror was I had left my laptop open here and I hadn’t finished the post. But I guess I will just post this at a different time than right now. But I just wanted to mention that I screwed up, a bit.

The day was pretty great and there were many moments when I was filled with a deep appreciation for my friends. Especially one of my closest friends, because of the amount of nice things he did for me that day. It is quite funny, he is as ruthless as a sibling, never holds back from the snark and sarcasm, is genuinely excited by gossip and knowing about my crush and what’s happening, is extremely annoyed and makes it known when I skip meals or behave as a general bad child. He reminds me of my mother sometimes, especially today, because my mother has this way of scolding me but still saving my pathetic derriere, because that is of prime importance. Anyway, he got me breakfast (because I nearly skipped it), cleared my desk space up because he thought it was too cluttered (and it is actually so neat right now!), came to see if I was having dinner because I had messaged him about feeling slightly sick and he gave me such a look when I said I probably might not go for dinner and he actually managed to convince me to have dinner and dragged me along. How will I survive university without him now, that is the question.

And it is not just him who is this wholesome, it is about all of my friends. I cannot believe that I have created for myself this circle of friends who are all lovely creatures, who seem to care for me and help me at multiple points in life. I have people to hug, to cherish, to love, and it is a wonderful feeling, I love them all from all of my heart. It is times like these that the pain of an unread snap or an ignored message does not pinch as much. There will be more people in the future, hopefully. It doesn’t do for me to forget what I have already in the pursuit of something that may never be. And it hurts to come to terms with this, this idea of finality, almost. Maybe there was a small corner of my heart which had hoped its wish will come true (read, quite a big corner of my heart, actually). I think the hardest part to deal with was the fact that communication still kinda happens between us and I invest myself in it a lot more than he seems to do. But once again, it is friends to the rescue, they keep me away from my maudlin moods, most of the time at least. Head pats, hugs, calm, soothing and kind words, and sometimes, just the pleasure of company that exists for its own sake, that’s what I have come to get from these friendships. Is that true friendship? Why should I/Why do I even want to qualify something that I find absolutely beautiful?

Now, here’s the fear, the end of these friendships when they realise that I probably may not be a deserving recipient of their love. This fear is legitimate, it is scary, because it runs from a deep insecurity about my own worthlessness in this world. It also affects the way I look at romance, it drives home a narrative that I shall never be worthy of love, no one is obviously going to like me. So, when someone seems to show no interest, I am not surprised, I was expecting it. Maybe this colours my perception in other places, where someone might actually show an interest in me, I would very well just brush it off (as of now, no one, but maybe in the future?) Anyway, it is a fear I have held for the longest time, that there is nothing great about me that will hold my friends to me. So I have to prove my worth at every junction, so that all will be fine and dandy. Also, now that I have proudly proclaimed my friends and how nice they are, I am also afraid I shall jinx it. Why are there so many issues that I build up around everything?

And that’s my memory for the day.

The Battle of Beauty

Today, a friend of mine told me to my face that I was not gorgeous. Maybe I should provide some context of where it came. We had been talking about the Freshers’ party and how the freshmen were supposed to ask seniors out for the party. I was telling her that no one had asked me and she had been telling me that maybe that was because I had a “motherly” look to me. Well, I was not really making much of what she said, much less equating being “motherly” to not being “gorgeous.” It was at this point that my roommate and her friend entered the room and my friend asked them if they were going to the Freshers’ party. When they replied that they weren’t, she asked them “how come gorgeous women like yourselves are not going and didn’t get asked out?” At this point, I felt the need to interject and say, “Hey! You’ve never said that about me!” And she told me, “but you’re not gorgeous”, while we all just looked horrified at her.

I need to clarify that this was not a friend who would generally tease me. I have friends like that who I also regularly tease, like a friend of mine who I tease about going bald. This friend just made a very nasty comment (and here, I feel it is important to say that I won’t say it is untrue because different people find different things beautiful) and it really shook me. It brought back memories of insecurities when I would sit and wish I were prettier. I have always been the “fat kid,” the one who was chubby but not in the cute kind. I was not the person people would say, “but you have a pretty face” (like that discounts their general fat-shaming, nasty attitude). But anyway, I had always considered myself to be pretty average in the looks department. I would never be called gorgeous and it took me a lot of time to come to terms with my own ‘beauty.’ Of course, I still struggle with it, a fact that is brought into sharp focus by my very apparent shock over the hurtful comment made by the girl.

But nevertheless, this got me thinking more about what it implies, her statement. That no one asked you out because well, you are not pretty enough. How toxic is that idea? Even though I realised that, I was subconsciously applying it to my life at the moment, especially with that guy I have a crush on. Who is to say that he finds me pretty? I am not conventionally ‘beautiful,’ I doubt I ever will be, while he is conventionally quite handsome. Going down that road, there are probably much more pretty girls he could potentially be interested in (and maybe guys too) and well, here was someone who had clearly told me what she thought of my looks, a thought I necessarily did not disagree with. Do you see the number of problems I had with myself and the way I was thinking through this, but also how easy it was to think all of that?

We are all fed these narratives of what and who is pretty and desirable, we are told that this is who we should like and trust (and when I say this, I don’t necessarily mean that we are explicitly told anything), we are told so many things, so many ideologies, so many biases and so much hatred. It is crazy, the amount of hatred that you can breed in your own farm, let alone in someone else’s farm. And this hatred, in the name of protecting your farm, shall burn and destroy the very institutions that hold your farm together. It is insidious, scary and downright manipulative. And well, someone told me to my face that they thought something of me. Not everyone does that. How much are we harbouring in secret that accidental confessions have the capability to shake the very foundations of our being? And well, she tried immediately, after realising what she’d said, to try and make half-baked justifications, none of them convincing and well, none of them refuting her previous statement. It hurt me, of course it did, but maybe I should stop caring this much about this because she doesn’t know that there are battles to be fought within myself?

And that’s my memory for the day.