12-12-19
I spoke to Lamaria on the phone yesterday about being so bored now that classes were done for the semester (I’m in grad school now btw) and we ended up talking about how my life isn’t what I thought it would be at this point (even though I’m actually in grad school now).
She asked me what I liked to do.
And I said that I didn’t know.
I said that being broke and being anxious had combined forces to limit my ideas of what I liked. Of what I considered to be fun. Like, my current situation wouldn’t allow me to think of one thing.
And I know that she was trying to comfort me and give me ideas, but by the end of our conversation I felt so sad. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, like I wasn’t trying hard enough to not be miserable.
I can distinctly remember two days since I’ve been here that were “good” because of being in Auburn. The first day was when Tarauna Burke came to campus. The second was when I had a really good first meeting with my advisor that made me feel excited for my future as a counselor. Every other day here has been at best, bearable, and at worst, totally miserable. I will say, the miserable days have more bearable days between them now than they did at the begging of he semester. That’s an improvement, I guess.
I went back to some of my old Tumblr posts dating back to when I was in high school. It was kind of sad, for reasons that I’ll write about later, but it was also interesting to see my patterns of being. And through reflecting on those posts, I realized that I have slipped back into one of my old patterns, survival mode.
This isn’t new, I know that I do this. I just wasn’t aware of how being in this place was limiting me from expressing myself and just enjoying my life. For the past few months I’ve put all of my effort towards maintaining my class and work schedule, finishing my assignments on time, eating at least three meals a day, drinking water, exercising occasionally, and talking to my friends and family. I was so worried about falling into a depression that I tried to conserve all of my energy. I couldn’t give too much of myself to anything. It was good enough to just make it through the day.
This year was the first time in many years that I did not resolve to attempt to lose weight. In fact, I resolved to make myself bigger, to take up more space. And as I reflect on the past year, I feel like I have accomplished that in some ways. Through speaking up for myself more in my friendships, through being honest with the people that I care about, through being honest about my (lack of faith).
But in some ways, I feel like I’ve made myself smaller just to survive being in another white ass, racist ass, homophobic ass place. And think that I’m just afraid to use the energy that I would need to express myself because I know I’ll need that energy to keep my self when the racism and homophobia of it all try to beat me down.
That’s what it is. It took me three days of writing this to finally put my finger on it, but I’ve figured it out now.
If I were to make myself vulnerable to the possibility of enjoying this place, to possibly finding something that I love here, then I open myself to more harm and disappointment when this place inevitably hurts me. So I keep myself small, I keep myself close to myself and nothing else, to prevent myself from getting hurt.
...I’m doing a cost-benefit analysis in my head right now. I’m asking myself, “Is there something great enough and beautiful enough for me to possibly find here that would make pursuing it worth the risk of being hurt?”