“I’m just having one of those days where it’s too much, it’s too overwhelming, and there’s a fly in here.” — Zoella
Last week was big, loud and busy. So busy that my to-do list app was totally ignored (I just spent several minutes checking off things in the app, and feeling the kind of regret that I haven’t felt since I was 8 years old, and lied to my parents about having done my music practice.)
I also lost a 38 day streak on Duolingo, and was offered this, which I consider to be virtual blackmail.
I’ve always found life comes in waves, it’s super intense for a while, and then it slackens off for a bit. The key is not letting everything go during the crazy times.
I’ve been saying this for a long time, but I genuinely feel that any moment now, it’s all going to work out. I just have to hold on a little bit longer.
There’s a story that gets told to aspiring actors a lot. According to legend, the first person to commit suicide off the Hollywood sign was an actress, who hadn’t booked a role in a long time. If she’d just checked the mail the morning she jumped, she’d have seen that The Beverly Hills Playhouse wanted her to star in their next production.
She would have had everything she’d wanted, all she had to do was hold out a little longer.
So, this weekend I hung out with Amanda. When you’re long distance, and life is getting crazy, it’s easy for the other person to feel like you don’t care. Forgetting to respond to a text because you’re running on just a few hours sleep looks almost identical to what the kids call ‘ghosting’, since all you have to go on is a read receipt.
I cleaned my flat and I read a book on negotiation. The latter was so I can casually bring it up and seem like the kind of cool adult who reads business books on the weekend for fun. I Duolingo’d and now all the bubbles are a beautiful shade of gold, even if my streak is gone forever. As for my French progress: I’ve just started non present tense stuff, and I’ve not watched any English TV or movies in 40 days.
While doing chores I started listening to Mara Wilson’s autobiography, and I realise that I could do a better job with the people close to me who have anxiety.
But there’s a fallacy of constantly waiting for a better tomorrow, and I don’t want to wish my whole life away. As Alaska Young once said, “imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia”. So, though I spent a lot of this weekend trying to get things back to zero, I also tried to appreciate what I have today.
I went to a birthday party, and I’m so glad I did. Ever since I started living on my own, I haven’t been great at socialising. It’s easy for me to think that, because I work, like, 10 hours a day, I am ‘socialising’ but that’s not the same thing as hanging out with people that aren’t paid to tolerate you.
Looking at my calendar, next week doesn’t look so crazy. On Monday I’m going to dinner with a friend and mentor. In general, I’m going to be better at saying no. I need to recognise that many deadlines are arbitrary, and I don’t need to act like hitting them is life and death.
Although, typing out that last sentence paragraph made my stomach start churning. I hate the idea of letting people down, and I live in perpetual fear that if I fail at a small task at work, I’ll be immediately fired, and I will die slow, cold and alone.
Shit. Writing that out was not a good idea.
I think I’ll go watch Big Bang Theory. That show always used to calm me down when I was in university. I spent the first few weeks of university knowing I was in the wrong course, and throwing up every morning. I used to watch that show on the megabus back to Bristol. Something about how utterly innane and stupid it is relaxes me. As pretentious as it sounds, hearing people laugh at such simple jokes makes me feel less stupid, and it works even better en francais, as it requires even more of my brain to keep up.
Anyways, I hope you have a lovely week.
