Fog
This is the most down on myself as I have been since late winter 2017. Things are different now: I am no longer recovering from an abusive relationship (in the immediate sense) and I am not being gaslighted by myself or anyone else. I have a whole-ass college degree and I have been released from the (sometimes) insular hell that was Bryn Mawr. I am fundamentally different in my thinking and in my place in life, but like that winter, I feel a fog hanging over me. It's the first time I've really spent the summer in one of those fogs. I made huge strides in recovery by spring of 2017 and finished sophomore year with a lot of optimism. It was amazing, actually. Recovery. In February and March, I would walk the half mile to therapy in the grey afternoon, through banks of snow, and look at the world around me. I felt both conspicuous and private, as though the cars passing by were both aware of and oblivious to my mental illness. I remember when spring was coming and I took a picture of the dilapidated house I thought was so beautiful. I would go to therapy and when she asked how I was, I wouldn't immediately cry. I had a sense of being able to care for myself during this time. I was making good choices for me. In June I went to China for summer study abroad. I wanted to be as far away as possible from my abuser and another man who had recently broken my heart. I was still having frequent moments of panic when I found out information about my abuser or saw photos of him, but I felt safe being far from home and college, with new people who were removed from the Bi-Co and had different perspectives on being.
I feel a fog hanging over me. It is palpable to me in moments: when I first arrive at work, when I get my first message from my long distance boyfriend in the morning, when I think about my life after August (when I think about the empty weekends). I am not depressed. I have Sertraline for that, and it does its job with the enthusiasm I haven't been able to muster for mine. There is room in inaction for the fog and it takes that space greedily. I only feel good when I am making budgets or cleaning or walking to some distant place. It is easy to take postgraduate advice to enjoy this time, before things in my life are set and the world is open to me. It is easy to say that if you are not making $900/month, living with strangers, and feeling alone in a vast world in which even your hometown is no longer yours. It is easy to talk about cobbling together a number of part-time jobs when you are gainfully employed with benefits and you have some idea of where your life is going.
I have said before and I will say again that having the next sixty years of my life before me is one of the most daunting and unpleasant thoughts I have had lately. I can't imagine what I will do with the next year, and if the next sixty years are anything like the past two months have been, I certainly hope I do not live to the age of my ancestors. In March, a psychic told me I'd live to be 89-90, or older. She also told me to throw away my perfume and that I would see success later in life. I wanted to ask her about now, but she did not seem focused on that. It is hard for people to focus on the now, talking endlessly about the possibilities of the future. But I am living in now, unhappy. I am spending seven hours a day describing the letters of a racist old lady from 1890. While sometimes amusing, it is mostly incomprehensible. Furthermore, it is politically complicated.
I am deeply, incredibly privileged. My unhappiness in this moment does not compromise my acknowledgment of that--there are no structures that have caused me this misfortune. I am trying to fight very hard against my belief that I have caused it, but that is no easy battle.
I feel a fog hanging over me. It is palpable to me in moments: when I first arrive at work, when I get my first message from my long distance boyfriend in the morning, when I think about my life after August (when I think about the empty weekends). I am not depressed. I have Sertraline for that, and it does its job with the enthusiasm I haven't been able to muster for mine. There is room in inaction for the fog and it takes that space greedily. I only feel good when I am making budgets or cleaning or walking to some distant place. It is easy to take postgraduate advice to enjoy this time, before things in my life are set and the world is open to me. It is easy to say that if you are not making $900/month, living with strangers, and feeling alone in a vast world in which even your hometown is no longer yours. It is easy to talk about cobbling together a number of part-time jobs when you are gainfully employed with benefits and you have some idea of where your life is going.
I have said before and I will say again that having the next sixty years of my life before me is one of the most daunting and unpleasant thoughts I have had lately. I can't imagine what I will do with the next year, and if the next sixty years are anything like the past two months have been, I certainly hope I do not live to the age of my ancestors. In March, a psychic told me I'd live to be 89-90, or older. She also told me to throw away my perfume and that I would see success later in life. I wanted to ask her about now, but she did not seem focused on that. It is hard for people to focus on the now, talking endlessly about the possibilities of the future. But I am living in now, unhappy. I am spending seven hours a day describing the letters of a racist old lady from 1890. While sometimes amusing, it is mostly incomprehensible. Furthermore, it is politically complicated.
I am deeply, incredibly privileged. My unhappiness in this moment does not compromise my acknowledgment of that--there are no structures that have caused me this misfortune. I am trying to fight very hard against my belief that I have caused it, but that is no easy battle.