I live in a perfect world. I can’t really complain of anything. I don’t allow myself to have everyday problems, like many other people, or at least those around me I can carefully observe, do. It feels like I live inside of an “unburstable” bubble made out of a Hallmark movie and different people only come into my life for objectives – I’m like Super Mario, constantly jumping from one platform to another, in a game named after me. I’m a snob, I do not enjoy just any content, I need to search for just the right show, or the perfect media to consume. Otherwise I criticize it.
I went through so much stress in the academy, more than I’m willing to admit… I’m glad I’m not depressed anymore, because I’ve gone through so much hard time over the past few years, that if I were at the wrong space mentally, I most probably would’ve given up. That was the reason I never paid attention to what really happened, and instead I interpreted it my own way – imagined I was the main character in a story and I had to get to the end for plot purposes. The protagonist never fails, I used to tell myself. Well, the end of the chapter came and I’m just now realizing what I went through: social separation, institutional fraud, comparison. I had been blinding myself for all these processes over the course of four years.
In my strive for perfection, I put everything that’s not academic to the side. And during that time, I was becoming numb and self-centered. I fought everyone who even tried to talk to me, because they were distracting me from achieving perfection (i.e. graduating). I must’ve been a pain to have around. It is now dawning on me that I’m not charismatic, but just pleasant. When it comes to socializing, I have a great sense of humor, but that’s it. This grey wall has made finding like-minded contacts even harder than it used to be. Even worse, I’m walking the disguised and troubled way to complete solitude. And I never wanted that.
Which is why I’m determined to change, yet again. Only this time change doesn’t feel forced and unwelcome, or in the name of (finding) love. Instead, it’s a decision I was able to fully make myself, based on conclusions, because I don’t want to be this person, that I had become due to lack of self-care. I didn’t give myself enough time to grow, which lead to a chain-reaction of bad events: I frequently fought with my closest ones and I chose work over them, and I do not wish for that to be the case permanently.
I need to stop talking too much about myself, stop interrupting… It’s the small mannerisms that build up to become a roadblock in the path to self-realization. I don’t need to be so conceited; I’ll be friendly to strangers and caring to friends. I will change, again.
TOMMY EXPLORES THE WORLD 