Limbo

So I wrote this for a sketch journal during the end of February at 11:30 the night before it was due. For the prompt, we were given a phrase to use as a title and jumping off point.


Being Here

Being here is harder than it should be. It’s more discouraging than I expected, more painful to see the blank page than it has been before. Not knowing what will happen in the space that links one sentence to the next is a little bit like being underwater in the dark or falling asleep in the daytime.

The sources of my worry have become endless. I am tired and I need to sleep, but there is too much to be done before tomorrow and the day after that. I don’t know where I am going to college. I don’t know what I will study in college. I don’t know what I will do after college, how I will make money, where I will find work, whether or not I will be able to make a living and succeed—I don’t have a definition for success or failure, either.

I don’t have a definition for a lot of things.

There is too much I don’t understand, like politics and art. It all seems far too complex to wrap my mind around, especially since I’ve started feeling tired and unfocused all of the time. It makes me nervous and terrified, in a sense. There are just too many things to fill my days, too many places I need to get to. There are so many books I need to read, so many stories I think I want to tell, but I can never figure out what they are about (if I could do this, everything might be easier).

Being here reminds me that I need to sleep but also that I have too many things I have to do before that. I’m feeling apprehensive, and my throat keeps drying out every five minutes, and the clock just keeps moving me forward. Being here is a funny thing, and I always prefer writing in the present, maybe just because it’s easy.

-

It's interesting for me to look at what has changed since I wrote this. I finally do know where I am going to college, but I am no less apprehensive about it and what will happen during and after it. If anything, making the decision has only made the reality of going away next year more real. I'm no doubt still in denial, just like I'm in denial that school is over and that I have to move on (though I'm not really done--I still have a final tomorrow, along with a make-up AP French exam).

This means that is the work is just about over, and that means summer. I am both incredibly excited and nervous for this summer. I worry that I will waste it, that I won't do enough, that I won't do anything new or take any risks. I never take risks. I worry too much about trying to figure people out that I reduce everything to a constant game of waiting. I've been complaining a lot recently about my irrational fears because they are truly ridiculous and make things a whole lot more difficult than they need to be. It makes me want to rip out my hair and sometimes my teeth. I have already done the bang-my-head-against-my-locker thing. I am sometimes a mess.

Anway, today I was watching Will & Grace (HAHAHAHAHAHA), and it was the last episode of the last season. It made me really sad because in the end, it moved into the futures of the main characters. Seeing them older somehow made the reality of aging more real than it has ever been. I am worried that I will waste not only my summer, but my entire life. I could see myself waiting it away. While watching the episode, I imagined myself never getting off of my couch, never doing anything, never accomplishing anything. It was pretty devastating. I'm nervous and worried and stressed out, and I thought it was supposed to be summer.

I really don't know what to do. I feel torn. I feel like I am stuck in limbo (like the tooth fairy in Toothless). I don't know whether I should be realistic at this point or do something risky, something semi-illogical. But is it illogical? I seem like a logical person, but really I don't have any sense of logic. I can rarely figure things out. I keep telling myself, "You will regret being static. You will regret sitting on your ass and not putting yourself out there." I can hear myself saying this, but sometimes I open my mouth and decide to wait.