The Bluestocking

When have I done something that made me feel truly alive? For years, I made choices  because it is what is expected of me. I have decided on matters because I am tied down by responsibility and obligation to the family.  I chose to do things because I felt lacking and way behind my peers. Embarrassing for me to admit but I gave in to the pressure. For a long time, I have let others think and decide for me. And here I am, wanting to break away from everything that’s tying me down. I feel so suffocated. I feel miserable. I feel anxious and burn out. I feel like I’ve been living on someone else’ shoes for a long time and now, the heaviness of the pretense is weighing me down. Every morning,  the thought of seeing people and trying to fix their issues and problems for work is giving me cold sweats and panic attack. I told myself I’d give myself a break from school and here I am enrolling myself in three courses this semester because i was afraid of wasting my time and lagging behind everyone else. My brain is going on haywire as tears well in my eyes and suddenly it’s getting harder and harder to breathe. 

If things were different, I wouldn't have gotten a job that would be interacting with people. I’d rather make art, write,  face a book or computer all day than to deal with demanding people. But Art doesn't make enough money to feed the family and so I chose a more practical one. I’m taking DPT courses because the world is complicated and competitive. Jokes on me, I don’t even like PT in the first place. 

It’s been two years now since I arrived here in the States.  Indeed, the saying: “the days are long and the years are short” rings true. It’s winter time again, my least favorite season. I’ve been feeling a little lonely with the gloomy season taking over. 

Lately, I find myself thinking again.  I wonder why I always repeat how I wanted to go home when I’m actually at the house I’m currently renting. I made myself at home since I’ve been here for two years but it doesn’t feel like i’m completely home. I’m also thinking maybe I’m just missing home but at the back of my mind, I know that would no longer be the same home I’d had when I was a child. 

I just feel a little unsettled. My thoughts and feelings are running erratically high and  unstable. There’s a certain heaviness in my chest I couldn’t quite get rid of. I find myself so fatigued an unmotivated especially at work and even towards. the. things that I enjoy the most. I’ve got no one to tell this to. Just me, this llitte cyber space and the Lord. To be honest, if I didn't have a faith or the Lord to hold unto during these conflicting times, the thin fragile thread holding me together might have snapped a long time ago. My mind strays and would often seek the unknown oblivion, but I’m too much of a coward to do it. So I pray. I pray a lot. 

At times, I wake up crying and gasping for breath as if I was drowning in my dreams.   I get these cold clammy sweats in the daytime during driving or before seeing my clients but I try so hard clamp my thoughts and emotions  down and attempt to get out of my head and function as a normal person. I smile and go about my day and the people I talk to doesn’t  have a clue of the raging turmoil deep in my heart.