feeling a bit down about this at this juncture. of course, because i hardly planned to finish my degree with a spectacular, drawn-out, 6-month long mental health implosion. resorting to using self harm as a last-ditch sleep aid is quite an inventive low. but anyway here i am, degree done, rather alarming to exist outside the ever-present shadow of a deadline. Â
i can only ever conceptualise temporality in bite-sized increments so itâs rather hard to internalise the fact that this really is the end. iâve been looking forward to this rather desperately because it meant the end of being trapped in a place that was just... a palimpsest of past miseries, getting away from people who were just custodians of my various traumas. but itâs not just the end of the rather miserable way iâve been living - it really is goodbye to all that, oxford, england, university, the delusion that iâm an intelligent person, the greater delusion that literature has any value in the world. Â
itâs always surreal in a way youâd think would be creatively generative, yet i find thereâs not a huge amount i have to say about it. iâve really plumbed the depths of exhaustion that the human mind is capable of... poured out like water, no words in my brain, no energy left for self-indulgent reminiscences. truly alone with my foolish immanent rootless self for the first time in a long time. Â
itâs been... an interesting time. i certainly feel older, and i donât mean smarter or more mature or more capable, just older in an extremely dull worn-out capacity. so thatâs one thing. iâm still only in the first blush of my twenties and itâs silly to feel this way i know. (not something a week of good sleep and solid meals wonât fix, either.) i will be less cynical about this once i get a bit of perspective iâm sure. and itâs the most pathetic of life-affirming assertions but doesnât it say something that still, despite all this, i wouldnât take any of it back?
