Retrograde


I have never really been the type to have a crisis. I may fake it a lot, act dramatic and proclaim "I quit!" but the truth is, I have always known what the next step was even when I didn't know what that step led to. I've also never allowed anything outside of myself to make my decisions for me, for most of them are ones I cannot afford to regret. It was a strict program yes, but it was efficient and reliable because I understood the environment I have inhabited for my entire life: academia.  

Today, I don't even recognize the structure of my mind anymore. It has been two months since I graduated and I wish I could say it's been awesome, but honestly, it has been scary and uncertain. I cannot build my life around uncertainty and guesswork. But alas, every single factor of my life, from career to family to relationship, is uncertain at this moment. I am struggling to separate emotions for them accordingly. They bleed into each other inside me. There is no structure anymore and quite frankly, I don't recognize myself like this. 

These days, I walk a lot and for a while it helps me think. I start to feel like I can trust myself again and then I get back into my house and I am once more assaulted with impending doom. Some nights I extend my walk just to escape it. I watch the moon and the stars and I get the urge to just scream my lungs out at them. I talk to my friends, who knew me in academia and they go "Vicky, you got this, if any of us can do it, it should be a piece of cake for you." great help. Then I reach out to people who just know me, without academia and they laugh, because they've all done it before and they know its doable. Yet, I can not help but feel shitty. All I would like is to be heard. These days, silence and feedback loops seem to be the only things straightening the spine of my back when all I want, is to just crumble. 

I am afraid. Not being able to trust my own emotions, my own thoughts, my own logic, makes me afraid. My compass has suddenly lost North, and I am unable to articulate that to people who do not hear me. It feels like I'm back to square one. I feel like I'm back to 2018, that night I stood in a dorm room in the southern United States, staring at myself in the mirror trying to find any semblance of who I'de become past the bruises on my arms. Except this time, the bruises are in my head, and a certain place in my chest that I dare not say out loud. 

It feels very karmic like a circle trying its best to close itself. Now that I've done all I needed to do, 2018 is slowly and finally unraveling itself inside my chest, just when I thought I was finally past it, making itself known 'can we talk now?'. 


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