When Life Gets You Down, Hang In There...At Least For Another Week

Well. What a shitty week this has been so far. Here's some music for you guys to listen to.

Let's start with my returned hatred of Valentine's Day. So I finally confessed my love to my love interest via text (I had figured that it would be the most effective way of controlling my anxiety) and what do you think happened? I got rejected like a bitch. Not wanting to go away without something else I could reflect on, I asked why she wasn't into me. I knew it was gonna hurt, but damn. She told me she didn't really know me, and that I was too persistent in my attempts to contact her via google hangouts. Added to my uncomfortable opening in our text thread, I was apparently seen as a bit of a creep.

This went well...

I never get mad at people for any reason. I'll get frustrated, sure, and sometimes majorly frustrated, but nobody at my school has ever seen me seriously pissed off, which is why when I have to act pissed off for theatre I tend to scare people, because me acting pissed off is not even close to me being pissed off.

Long story short, don't even try to piss me off, because on the 1 in a google's chance you manage to get me pissed off, I'll actually admire you for the last 4 seconds of your existence. (Hint, if I gradually get more and more sarcastic and frustrated, and then all of a sudden become eerily calm as I politely ask you to stop, back the fuck off)

On that note, I digress from the fact that, naturally, I wasn't mad at her at all. I'm never pissed off because whenever I get frustrated, I direct all the excess anger inwards and let it calm down and sit there over time. I'm an easygoing person, which explains why I was more mad at myself than her. I see the good in other people, and the bad in myself, which I'm sure everyone can relate to. I immediately cursed my own actions, the words "you fucking idiot, why were you so stupid" swimming around my head for the rest of the day and some of the next, going into the "majorly frustrated" territory. I eventually got over it with the song I've provided for you to listen to above, and the lesson is, "just breathe"

I've talked about this more than I've liked to, and so I'll wrap up by saying even though it provided me with closure in the fact I was at least able to confess how I felt and that next time should be easier (if there is one), it fucking hurt, man.

Now, since you probably don't wanna hear about failed teenage romance, I'll rewind to that Thursday, when I was called into a conference with my counselors, my mothers, and my latin teacher, on the topic of my lack of effort on homework. I do admit I smiled and nodded a lot, while agreeing that the main problem was Minecraft distracting me, and that I should crack down on that. Another point that my Latin teacher made was that if I wasn't planning on going to college, or even making any effort of thinking about it, why was I going to an admittedly-known college prep school? The main reason I didn't go on a composed rant was half because it was in the morning, and half because my Latin teacher was there, because disappointing him is like having Fred Rogers say "I'm very disappointed in you" at a 1/16th of the power, since as anyone can imagine, 1/8th is enough to break your heart beyond repair.

Praise be unto Fred Rogers for the amazing childhood

Here's what I would've said:

1. I went to this school because I went to middle school with a bunch of idiots, and I knew enough to know that I did not want to follow them to high school. Also since I've moved, my default school has changed to the one that's apparently full of druggies. Knowing my intelligence, if I was forced to go there, I'd likely accidentally end up running the whole trade. How's that for a failed LASA student?

Confession time: I have no interest in Breaking Bad whatsoever

2. Maybe it's not that I don't see the value in doing my homework. The distractions do not prevent me from doing homework, the homework prevents me from doing homework. In that I mean homework is assigned without regard for other classes. Yes, every class has the right amount of homework, if we were only taking that class. Problem is that's exactly what every single class thinks. I remember in sophomore year our AP World History teacher asked us how we felt about homework (I can assure you, much of the class, if not many, complained), and then after everyone established that we were being assigned too much homework across English and AP World History combined, our loving teacher attempted to lull us into believing that it was our fault for not managing our time better. Ms. Pettigrew, I would like to humbly say, whether or not you're actually reading this, to go fuck yourself, and that you shouldn't claim that you went to LASA when you were in high school, because you obviously didn't.

3. Maybe, because of the homework, I don't have time to think about the college I might go to. I don't have time to think about what I wanna do in life. There was a reason I didn't do certain homeworks: because I valued my own life and sanity more than I did getting into Harvard. Sure, I do homework, but if I'm gonna do homework, I'm gonna do it already having my career in mind: that of the owner of a Maple syrup company (Yaple Maple Syrup, anyone?). Now that we've gotten that established, I might just major in economics and go to a business college. Alright, that's established, now I can worry about homework.

Following this meeting, my mother kicked me into gear, forcing me to do all my homework, and of course, my thoughts of suicide returned. Now, since my parents both read this blog, as well as a bunch of people I know IRL who are too lazy to follow my blog, I'll clarify on my perspective of suicide below, after I finish the story, or else I'll be hounded by people who think I'm gonna kill myself. I'm not gonna kill myself, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it.

The week then descended into the usual black abyss that accompanies homework. I worked hard and broke my back getting shit done on time, and spent my time during lunch talking to my online friend, Bianca, reassuring her of how life would eventually get better and she shouldn't just end it now when she can finally escape in less than a year from that abusive hellhole she lives in, also known as Utah. Of course I did it because I cared for her, but also because I wanted some of the reassurance one usually gets as a side effect. We're real friends now, and the first thing I'm going to do when she eventually comes down to Austin is take her into my arms, force her onto the couch, and make her watch all of Firefly. If we're gonna be real friends, then you need to have seen Firefly or at the very least, Person Of Interest, no contest.

props to anyone who knows what buhn dahn means off the top of their head

Now, today was a loud nail in the coffin. My eyes burned the whole time, and I experienced tumultuous feelings of anxiety throughout the whole day. This is one of those days where I come home thinking, "dear god, this sucked". The burning eyes was due to homework I had to do, and it's the main reason I can't do as much homework as the rest of the students at my school: LASA students naturally have to stay up late to finish their homework. I should've included this up there, but as we all know, I only write rough drafts on this blog.

Finally, the profound ending, AKA what I tell the concerned people that seem to only care if I'm thinking of killing myself, but not if I suffer (I'm proud of this sentence). I think the words I'm looking for are that I don't necessarily believe in suicide. I still think we kill ourselves, though. We kill ourselves all the time, but we only do so substantially every year or two, when we change. There's a truth to life that is somewhat morbid, but it's interesting to think about:

The person you were before reading this is dead. The person you were a month ago is also dead. The same can be said for the person you were a year, and two years ago. The average person encounters so much on a daily basis, even on the walk to school in the morning. Every experience, no matter how tiny you consider it, changes you and twists you into someone different than who you were before. Your entire persona will change again just after reading this sentence, and you will have died once again.

Either consciously or unconsciously, you make the decision to emotionally kill yourself based on what you've gone through. This is an insanely pessimistic view, but I think it fits with the idea of suicide, even if the "turn it off then turn it back on again" metaphor fits a little more nicely. Why do we feel suicidal? Because we think life has become something we can no longer face, and that is wrong. When a baby is born, it screams its head off not because it's hungry or just shit itself, but because that's the worst thing it has ever gone through just then. It'll scream and cry again when it feels the doctor take its blood pressure, because that;s the worst thing it has ever gone through. How are you different?

When you trudge through life suicidal, eventually one of two things will happen: you will either keep trudging, or you will become so utterly sick of it that you shout, "fuck this!" rip your homework in half, and decide to fail that six weeks. You will have become a different person, and you have just committed emotional suicide, allowing yourself to change and become someone who can take on life and lose, still grinning and spitting in it's eye. You will never be the same person you were 20 years from now, and you're not even the same person you were before reading this (sure, you don't notice it, but it's happened), so why kill yourself?

I know what it's like to want to kill myself. Oh gods, life is tiring, and it's too much, and I can't take it. Of course you can't take it. It's the same reason why when we're sad, we pull out our phones and text people instead of letting go and crying about it. We don't want to face the pain, it's so monstrous, so how could we face it? (I actually find it physically impossible to cry, so that's why I never do.) But you know what? Fuck it! You need to face that pain, because if you but hang in there, you will either win the day, or downright own it (and by that I mean failing with a grin on your face because you no longer care)!

The key to changing in the face of suicidal thoughts is simple: self reflection, swimming deeper into the pain, realizing you don't owe anything to anyone, and also in some cases, the realization that it's not actually you, you just happen to be cursed with the random ailment of living with a bunch of assholes.