So I have attempted and failed many of my attempts of journaling in the past. Something about keeping consistency was never feasible for me, even though it had always been something I've strived to achieve. Consistency... Something that is desirable yet unreachable at times. Anyways, in my attempt today to tackle this challenge of maintaining a consistent journal, I am trying to fulfill my own longing desire as well as my therapist's request for me to take note of things for myself. Hopefully with two reasons to back up my attempt today, I will be able to achieve further than my previous attempts.
I'd like to start off with a song I've been putting on repeat the past few days: After Tonight by Jason Nozuka. It's a calming song, but not a slow song. I am not a musician or a big music enthusiast, but I know what makes me feel nice, and this song is one of them for me right now. It's an older song, but I think I've had it on replay for long enough that it is becoming background music while I struggle to read Mockingjay on the airplane and at the airport. Those are really the only times I bother to read, since reading is not really my thing. Ironically, writing is more of my thing, and for some reason reading is just so much more difficult, unless I truly have the curiosity to learn something from whatever I am reading.
Coming back around after my tangent, I want to touch upon what I had discussed with my therapist this week. She told me to take note of how I am feeling every day, just a word to label a feeling every now and then, to help me transition from feeling "nothing" to feeling "a little of something" instead of going from 0 to 100 (where I become overwhelmed with emotions). I reflect back to it right now, and at the time of my session, what exactly has made me this way? Why have I refused to express myself emotionally, and why is it hard for me to let out just the right amount of emotions to prevent myself from falling apart? I think I found an answer, but was afraid to tell my therapist because I knew she would take the opportunity and dig deeper. Well, the answer is really quite simple: I don't feel safe enough to expose myself, even if it's just a little bit. I contain a lot of emotions everyday because I'm not sure who I have to contain a little bit of me every time I needed to let some of it go. As abstract as I am wording it, I hope that it can be relatable to people out there who are going through the same thing as me: emotional cut off, disengagement of the self from emotions, dissociation from emotional experience. It may not be as severe as it sounds, but to me it is the most extreme condition I have to work on.
So, in the attempt to label a feeling for today, I guess I will say I feel "calm" despite being thrown off a bit when my boss called today asking where I was because I was supposed to be at work, but I had forgotten to ask him for the day off ahead of time... Yes, that is how aloof I am these days. Time is going onwards without me, and I am struggling to catch up to it, but in my efforts to be caught up with time, I sacrifice things that I never would have before. Things like responsibility, punctuality, liability, all those traits that I had thought I could hold myself up to, but really it is becoming harder to do. Adulthood is tough. I don't like it. I like some of it, the freedom, the limitless opportunities, but on the other hand it comes with a lot of horrors too.
As I am reaching my quarter-life (crisis?) I hope to learn as much as I can and be as clear as I can about my future. It really still is a haze to me, which it has been all my life. I like to take things as they come, but maybe right now that is not the best option for me since I am no longer an irresponsible teenager.
Today I signed a payback contract for my stipend award, and so another chapter of my life begins: employment. As much as I dread doing interviews and filling out applications or writing essays, it is a part of life I may never escape from completely. They always come back to bite me. This time, I will put my defenses up so that I can be prepared ahead of time. Job search to begin in the January 2015 (is my hope). Graduation in 5 months (which is still so unreal to me). Christmas in 20 days. Although I was never that festive, I will try to be this year since I will be spending most of it in solitude in my new big-ish apartment.
