my class is full of lovely people, and i’m sure i will stay in touch with a few, but during this school period i have not been able to build really close connections. i see them forming around me, but i don’t think i can and feel like joining. maybe it is just not my kind of people this time around. i wish i went to school during fall where there are less students. 37 is 30 too much for me. i realise how much i need to be to alone to function, and i thrive being alone, i thrive with a few, i thrive with the slow and the tender. here everyone is fast, individual, competitive, social (but also lovely, caring and fun).

also this final school period, a few weeks ago, i collapsed one day with severe anxiety when we were presented with 4 different presentation assignments. i cried in front of the teacher and the whole class and felt ridiculous. i always felt very anxious talking in front of others, but now at age 32 i felt my whole body saying no to it once and for all. it is not my way of learning or sharing. i don’t know why it took me so many years to figure out that i can actually say no to it, make it a boundary. i’m so tired of the fact that verbal language is so celebrated in school environments. i can’t just talk and talk and talk for the sake of talking, or casually socializing or for a good grade, nor do i wish that i could.

i say only a few things every now and then, and have built very few very close connections throughout my life. and that is doing my best