I am a flake. I cancel out of things at the last minute. When I can't bring myself to make excuses, sometimes I just don't show up.
On some days I have no commitments. I quit HRO so that I would have Tuesdays entirely free. When I get to the end of Monday--if I don't flake out of Monday--I heave a sigh of relief. A whole 36 hours before I have to face the world again.
Today I flaked out of all my classes. I flaked out of an appointment with my adviser. I flaked out of lunch and breakfast. I will probably flake out of dinner too. I would rather starve than venture out of my cocoon.
None of this was a good idea, and (being after all not a complete idiot) I would never choose to do it. I never consciously decided, "Today I am not going to show up for x, y, and z." I flaked out of making that decision too. Instead I told myself, "I will go in just one minute."
It seems like you always need that one extra minute. One extra minute to brace yourself. One extra minute to pull yourself together. One extra minute to hide from the world before it inevitably finds you. One extra minute not to think, not to feel, not to move. One extra minute to curl into a ball and pretend you don't exist.
Every few days, I can muster myself and replace "in just one minute" with "now." Every "now" is a personal triumph, but they don't come very often. My personal record is two "now" days in a row, but more often it lasts only through an afternoon. After that, and for the next few days, I have run out of energy/motivation/will/strength/hope/desire/emotion.
I know I need to do something about this: my life is falling apart, and I need to act now to assess the damage and now to salvage what's left. But I'm not very good at now. Instead I say, "Tomorrow will be better." I know damn well it won't.
Some way to live.
Your post struck a chord in me, as I can very much relate. I don't know if that's comforting or not. I suddenly realised exactly how many classes I'm skipping and how little work I'm successfully doing... five days before my exams start.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that salvaging my life, my personality, is the only viable option left, too. It seems that I have hit rock bottom, I have listed all the things that are wrong with me in my mind and on paper, and now I need to fix them, one event at a time. I guess what you have to do is notice everything you do, and catch everything you do.
Being so far away, all I can say is I wish you luck. I think we're both going to need it. Take everything one step at a time, let go of the past, forget regret, and, if you can't focus on the future, focus on making this moment a good one.
I am flakey too.
Man, I know what you mean about the "just one more minute..." It's certainly the reason why I'm often late to class, late to get food, late to take a shower... there's no good reason, and I don't really know why, but somehow I'm just not ready now, but maybe I will be in another minute... I wish I understood why this happened. There is some inertia to stay put, even if it's not a happy kind of inertia; I tend to feel better once I get going.
ReplyDeleteDon't be a plain flake. Be a snowflake, instead. :)
ReplyDelete~ Stella
OH MY GOD.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly how I've been feeling this year, especially after getting deferred. I used to be on top of things, and now I'm not. I feel completely exhausted; I hate school. It's horrible. I, too, "flake." (I had never heard that expression before).
Remember those perfect attendance awards in my resume? well, this year I've missed more than two weeks of school. And things are just getting worse b/c they are piling up. Just now, I was tossing in bed all night(actually day) long; it's 6.41 am and I'm still thinking of everything that's undone. One part is applications and their freaking january 1st deadlines and all the grammar errors I had in my duke and stanford application (indeed, two words have been tormenting me in the past three days).
On top of this, all the school work I have not done torments me. I was supposed to turn a major outline TWO weeks ago, and I havent even started. For the past four months I'm supposed to have been researching Mother to child HIV transmission and visiting my mentor, a doctor at Hopkins, and you know how many times I've seen him? ONCE. Do I know anything about MTCT? NO. How will I produce the outline? I dont know.
Frankly, I thought christmas break would solve my problems. I figured that with one week off I could straighten up my life and catch up with tons of other things. You know what happend to this week? it flew by and i didnt even finish applications. Yet again another example of how 'tomorrows' dont work and 'now's are imperative.
In a positive note, even though I didnt get much work done this week, the rest has given me some energy.
As for you, look at it this way: you are starting new classes this semester. You are done w/ everything that went on last semester so, as we say in spanish "borron y cuenta nueva," which literally translates to "deletion and a new account." hehehe. So next time you dont want to go somewhere, dont think about it and just stand up and go (but you really dont have to think about your getting up)even if you know whatever happens next might not be pleasant.
that's what I try to do every morning before school: getting up is the hardes part of the day.
LOVE ANNE MARIE FOREVER :)
gay
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