I have about... six or seven weeks left of school? Honestly, I’m no longer counting down the days, because that makes me feel anxious after spring break. I feel like I have so much left to do, and like time is ticking. Some days it feels like I have time, other days it doesn’t. It moves slow and fast all at once and I don’t really understand it.
This semester has been weird. I’ve been in a very strange headspace this entire time, because I just want so badly to be done. I’m hyper-focused on school now and on the passage of time in a way I never have been before, because I’m so ready to graduate and move on with my life. I’ve been carefully tracking every single passing day, counting them and now not counting them, thinking about graduation and yet not thinking about it, vacillating between confidence in myself and weird awful anxiety that I will somehow fuck this all up at the end, here, and not graduate on time and then have to spend more time trying to get out of here.
I think, my entire college career, I’ve built up a lot of resentment, and I’ve spent every year and every semester pushing it down and working anyway, because I knew it was all for something good in the end, that I would just have to put up with it to get the degree and then I’d go from there. And I think, now that I’m so close to being done, now that I don’t have to push that resentment down again to prepare for the next semester - because, god willing, there won’t be one, not if I keep working the way I have been - it’s all coming out in waves. Resentment... resentment over a lot of things. I resent that I feel like I’ve had to put my life on hold for a demanding and draining schedule that often isn’t rewarding, and had to do so for years. I resent that I feel so isolated and lonely in my experiences, that I’m the only person I know that has had to work full time and go to school full time and balance a lot more than most people my age. I resent that I feel so familiar saying that previous sentence, I feel like I use it as an excuse, and then I get angry at myself for feeling that way, because it DOES make things difficult, it’s not an excuse, and yet it feels like one anyway, it spirals and spirals and keeps going. Resentment because I wanted my film program to be much more hands on and to actually focus on making multiple films instead of being so theory-based and doing weekly exercises that I didn’t feel like I learned or grew from or that helped in any meaningful way. I feel like I’ve only had a few classes that gave me actual concrete knowledge and experience and in a four year program, saying that only about 4 classes really prepared me for the industry is atrocious. I don’t feel like I wasted my time and I know college was a net positive for me but it’s hard to not see all the things I couldn’t do or the times I couldn’t hang out or how drained and lonely and overworked I have felt for a really long time, and how I’ve just kind of... kept going because I feel like nobody sympathizes, or if they do it’s a half-kind of sympathy, and it doesn’t matter much anyway because it’s not like anyone can really help the situation as a whole. I feel like college is not designed for me, or for other non-traditional students. Even though I’m college aged, I feel like I’ve had to take on a lot and it’s hard to not feel upset about that.
It manifests itself in the weirdest ways. Small comments from other people - oh, you can’t afford to go to this fun thing? But I thought you worked all the time! Comments that tell me that these people have never had to pay their own expenses or budget their own money in their lives, people who I know work their part time jobs only for the spending money. My friends making plans and not understanding that I can’t just take off work with a few days notice and it’s rare to get a shift covered in that timespan as well. Professors huffing and sighing at me when I’ve told them that I was working, I’m sorry I wasn’t super fucking creative on this project, I was more concerned with getting something turned in than in stretching my creative muscles around three other class projects and a full weekend of being at work with no time to actually make anything halfway decent. The weird imposter syndrome and guilt and sadness and resentment that I’ve felt for having to half-ass certain projects that I would have loved to spend time on because it was either that or my money and sanity.
I’m just stream of consciousness rambling at this point, I know that things will be okay, I know that I’m in good academic standing and I’m so close to being done and I’m committed to buckling down and finishing strong but it’s just so fucking hard to navigate the weird minefield and mood I’ve been in since this semester started.
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