sigh

It’s been a minute since I wrote and got my thoughts down so now seems like a fitting time, especially since it feels like a lot of life has happened since the last time I put words on paper (digital paper? keyboard? whatever you get the gist). Every time I write one of these I hope that I don’t have to repeat myself in whatever next post I write, but surprise surprise, I am struggling once more. On the bright side, I think I’m at least struggling with different things, even if they always existed. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last time I wrote something I was wrestling with coming to terms with the imperfections of my parents and navigating becoming a more loving, more present son. And I want to say that that has at least gotten better. Maybe it’s the distance, maybe it’s the school struggles, but I find myself being more responsive and present with my parents. I don’t reject my mom’s calls as often anymore and I try to actually respond and hold conversations. I’ve told both of them I love them much more than I did previously, and I think I actually mean it most of the time now.

But like some sick game of wack-a-mole, when one goes down, another has to pop up doesn’t it. Life wouldn’t be any fun if I could just coast for a bit without any internal turbulence or whatever else.

Law school has been kicking my ass and I am so fucking tired all the time. I’m not going to toot my own horn or brag about my own intelligence, but I can’t really remember a time in my life where I really struggled with school (besides AP Chemistry maybe but literally nobody enjoys AP Chem anyways). Now, it’s become all-consuming. My imposter syndrome has come roaring back to full force and I genuinely considered dropping out at least thirteen different times within the first three weeks of the semester. But everyone I talked to whether it was upperclassmen, my friends, my dad, my sister, they all said that if you give it some time it’ll get better. And I remember actually asking a 2L: when does it get better? How do you know that it’s gotten better?

I don’t remember what she said but I’m pretty sure it was something along the lines of adjustment period, learning how to do school, what professors expect, etc. If I’m being honest, I don’t know if things have gotten better or I’ve just adjusted to the sheer amount of work that is expected of you and I’ve forced myself to grind things out because that’s just how it is and I’ll be damned if I don’t meet those expectations. Outside looking in, it does seem like I’ve adjusted, I’m ahead on my readings, I prep for class intensely, and my study group is pretty ahead on review for finals in the next few weeks. So why do I still feel anxious all the goddamn time? Who knows.

I feel like that’s kind of just how I’ve approached life all this time. I’ll get thrown into something, figure out what it is I need to do, and then force myself to do it so that I can get by. At this point, I’ve lost sight of why I’m doing this in the first place and I guess the prospect of making a lot of money doesn’t really shine too much now if it’s coming at the cost of weeks of mental toil. I’m probably just burnt out though, nothing new.

Even when I write this out, I feel like I sound so dramatic. It’s just school. It’s just readings. It’s just finals. And at the end of the day, no matter how stressed I make myself, things will probably work out. But there really isn’t much comfort that comes from that. I am a pro gaslighter though so maybe I just need to gaslight myself a bit harder.

That kind of feels like my general approach to life. If I gaslight myself hard enough, I know that somehow I’ll get through whatever struggle it is, and once it’s over, it doesn’t matter right? The bad thing never happened, you came out the other side unscathed, so who cares about your hair falling out or your growing reliance on substances or the fact that you’ve missed so many classes cause you can’t get out of bed that your crim law professor has asked you unsolicited if you’re doing okay. Once you get to the end, nothing that happened along the way matters.

I think through countless times of trial and error, I’m starting to realize that maybe the things that have to be done to get to whatever end result actually do matter. The end doesn’t always justify the means. If you can’t even make it to the end, then what’re you going to do?

I don’t have a good answer for that. At the same time, I think I do know deep in my heart that I will make it to the end. And there’s good and bad that comes from that because I know I’ll make it so I’ll continue to find the motivation to study and make it to the end of the semester, but that also sounds an awful lot like repeating the same thing all over again.

It feels incredibly distasteful and also kind of concerning to leave it at that, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think I have a good answer for any of this. It feels like too much work and effort that I’m not able to muster to be able to tackle this in a nice healthy way, at least for now. It is what it is. If it’s any consolation, I may be heavily depressed, but I don’t want to die! So there’s that. Small victories.

I have no good springboard or segway into this next bit but it is something that I’ve been wrestling with for however long and it is annoying and I think writing it down will make me feel better.

There’s a line from Bojack Horseman that I’ve probably mentioned to most of you at least once in my life but the gist of it is essentially that there are people in your life that help you become the person that you are and you can feel grateful and thankful for them but they were never meant to stay with you forever.

I wasn’t a really big believer in this line. Or I guess a better way of saying it is that I appreciated the line, liked the bittersweetness of the tone and all, but didn’t think it was ultimately applicable to the person that I thought of whenever I heard it. And so I was convinced that somehow, someway, I had grown enough and enough time had passed that whatever it was that we had could be rebuilt once I reached out. For a few weeks, months even, it felt like it could work.

Even as we tiptoed whatever line it is that we had arbitrarily put up and ignored what was probably feelings or whatever else getting in the way, I think I was convinced that it would work. But baggage is a thing that is real and expectations and miscommunication are also things that exist, no matter how much I want to convince myself that it doesn’t. And all it took was one conversation for everything to be brought back down.

Initially, I was annoyed. I thought that the idea of rebuilding meant that putting baggage to the side and trying again. But that was ultimately me being naive. Obviously there will be baggage, especially when things previously ended on such bad terms. And so, back to square one, all over again. I found out recently she removed me as a follower from her Instagram, and I guess that’s some deserved ironic twist since I was the one that did that last time.

All part of growing and learning I guess. And I think now I’m able to swallow that bitter pill at least a bit more willingly. Sometimes there just aren’t people that are meant to be in your life. It’s not closure at all, and I’m still bothered when things like this cross my mind, but you have to learn to live with it.

Part of me wants to gaslight myself once more and tell myself that I am the problem. I am a pit where good things fall into and get buried to die, yadda yadda yadda. Call it character development or whatever else, but I don’t think even I hate myself enough to do that now. Which I guess qualifies as another small victory? That sounds kind of morbid.

It’s 4 AM. I should probably be sleeping but I have also realized that I enjoy relishing these late nights on the weekends because I can actually sleep in the next day without an alarm to worry about.

To conclude on a relatively (?) high note, things are still okay for me. I don’t dread life every single day. I have made around three friends that I genuinely enjoy being around and am thankful for. The semester is over in less than 6 weeks and I will be going to Korea and seeing old friends. Just need to count my blessings.

I will probably be incredibly embarrassed like I always am the next morning whenever I read back whatever it is I wrote, but at least it helps on nights like this. Yuck.

As always, if you made it down here, thanks for reading.