I am ill. Not scary swine flu ill, but ill enough to feel pretty shit and not to have used the train ticket that I had booked for going up to Durham on Saturday. This sucks, although as lectures don’t start ’til Thursday and I was planning on avoiding all things Fresher-related anyway, I guess the timing could be worse.
My Dad is convinced that I have brought on the illness by anxiety, and as such the path to getting better is to leap out of bed, (wo)man up, and deal with it accordingly. I am yet trying to convince him that as much as there may possibly have been anxiety-related incidents involving crying and shaking and burying into duvets, a bug is a bug and the prospect of travelling again is even less inviting if I haven’t first got rid of it, which I can’t do by willpower alone. Grump. Parents. If he’s trying to persuade me that staying at home isn’t such a great option after all, he’s doing a bloody good job of it.
However the upside of one of the above incidents is that after yet another well-intentioned invitation to Talk About Things To Us, I am increasingly sure that I am going to take a gap year after university. Or a gap six months – whatever – because the wonderful freedom about leaving the educational system is that no longer will my life have to revolve around September starts and May exams. Maybe I’ll work, maybe I’ll travel, or maybe I’ll just stay at home and remember what bonfire smoke smells like in south Birmingham on November 5th, but what I will not do is refuse to give myself time and space to breathe. Maybe, just maybe, my ideal job will come up in the meantime and I’ll go straight to there.
But I won’t have to, because I will be free! I think that I need that light at the end of the tunnel.
I am so so scared about The Future.
The Future, in my case, ranges from next week, right up until next May, at which point I will collapse in a heap of uselessness. And so, in the past few weeks, Anxiety has reared its shaking hands & palpitations at regular intervals and it seems once I get over the fact that I can deal with Next Week, Next Year decides to knock me on the head, consequently, I am permanently on edge. It’s not fun, something must be done.
I would like to see that light, and the point of this self-focussed comment is that I am glad for you, that you can see it and I hope you feel better soon, because you’re right, travelling whilst ill is never a fun option xx
Space is always good. I think we’re programmed to rush full tilt at things these days and make decisions decisions decisions. One thing I have learned is that if you rush at decisions, you can potentially make the wrong ones.
The trick is to learn to block out what everyone else thinks or tells you because, trite as it may seem, it’s your life.