Hello everybody! My post today is going to be a lot different than what it normally is, so apologies to the people who were looking forward to picture updates.
I am really sick right now. This is the second time around that I have been visited by the sickness dubbed the “freshman flu”, however I think it’s much more than that.
Throughout my whole life, stress has been with me, a quiet pressure to succeed following close behind and urging me forward as I chose my paths in life. Stress has led me to make bad decisions for me and my body. Stress has kept me an honor roll student.
Today stress made me come apart in front of my friends.
It wasn’t a breakdown of anything but my physical self, causing me to burn up and curl up in Tyler’s arms, all over a game of Magic the Gathering.
For context, I am not a very good player, however during this game I was playing well and had a chance to win. Soon the game got complicated, and keeping up with triggers became difficult. I couldn’t figure out why I was so flustered, why I was panicking over an insignificant game.
It because I wanted to be good, I wanted to win and make the people around me proud. I wanted to be congratulated on my strategy, but no matter what I did I couldn’t find one, I felt trapped and caged.
I realized I can apply this to the rest of my life. My constant checking of canvas, or hours spent studying and doing homework in advance while I could have been enjoying the time I had with my friends.
There is a well known saying that goes “pressure makes diamonds” and I’ve adhered to that motto through most of my life, but I realize now that it is genuinely no way to live. I’m not a machine, I have limits, I need rest.
If you asked me who I was pushing myself for I would have no good answer. If I’m doing it for me, then why is it breaking me apart? But to say that I’m doing it for my people would be a lie. Because the people I love and that love me would never want to see me the way they did tonight, shaking and miserable over card games and homework assignments, losing sleep and struggling to breathe under the weight of my own expectations, my own fears.
I could not tell my people out loud that I did not get the JP Morgan tour. It means nothing, and gives me nothing but blisters from my smart pumps and classwork to make up from missed classes. But I still feel shame. I feel shame that I didn’t want it enough to be the first person to sign up, despite the fact that all the slots filled up within the first minute, despite the fact that I had waited in front of my laptop for the sign up sheet, despite the seven alarms I set to remind myself. When I didn’t get the email, I stressed myself over something that isn’t a requirement for my future. I don’t even want to go into finance.
But still, the stress of all of this, the pressures of everyday life -the appointments I neglect to make, the people I forget to reach out to, the places I should be but don’t have the time to make it to- it’s enough to weaken my soul to the point where I can’t even heal from a cold, to the point where I am currently in bed, writing, struggling to breathe with a stupid upper respiratory infection because I choose repetition over rest.
I think that it’s time for me to chose myself over the academic pressures, to trust myself enough, to trust my intelligence enough to succeed in life. After all, it’s a lot easier to achieve your goals when you aren’t fighting off the plague every week.
And for all of my worried family, Tyler and our wonderful friends are making sure that I don’t even leave my dorm until I’m completely healed.
Thank you all for reading, and I’ll see you on the next post 🙂
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