Some Darkness That Lurks Beneath
Well, I haven't written here in a long time. Since I last wrote, I finally escaped my exile, thus completing my year abroad, returned to the UK, and began my fourth and final year of university.
I don't really know what this post is supposed to be about in particular, but I know I need to get in touch with my internal life again. I've found that I've been losing more and more control of how I feel over time, and perhaps it has to do with the fact that I no longer have an outlet to order my emotions like I used to. I don't know.
Anyway, since then I've started my fourth year and have been in a stable relationship for a few months. I guess part of what I want to talk about is how fourth year is going and how that relationship is going.
This particular semester is overwhelming me. I have the majority of my courses concentrated in this semester and the workload has been burdensome. I've skipped days on multiple occasions, which is something I would prefer not to be doing in fourth year, but it's the only way I've been able to react to the overload. It makes me worried that if I can't handle a busy fourth year semester, what will I actually be able to handle out in the real world? I still want to do a masters, but I'm worried that my failure to deal adequately with this year might negatively affect my prospects, i.e. my final grade and thus where I can go. I'm also still unsure where I want to go. This is closely related to my relationship, which I'll get to in a second. I hope I can get at least a 2.1. I wanted a first, but that is looking increasingly unlikely. For one, I have no passion for my Italian courses, which makes it difficult for me to really work on them. And two, while I have passion for philosophy, it's difficult to get a first in that subject. I've handed in mid-terms recently, that I'll get back towards the end of the month, I believe. I'll have a better idea of how my philosophical skills are then. Anyway, if I get a low 2.1 in Italian, which to me is seeming most likely, and anything lower than 74 overall in philosophy, I will even out to a 2.1. I really hope I don't get lower than a 2.1 in either of them, or else I'll have to get a good first to bring it back up just into 2.1 territory. I don't -think- I'll get lower than a 2.1 overall in anything, but it's difficult to say.
As for the relationship, it's difficult. A makes me happy and she's my closest companion at university. She's loving, interesting, cute, and sexy. And yet I can't help but feel like I don't want to be with her long-term. What makes it so difficult is that I have no reason to feel this way. She ticks so many boxes in terms of what I could want in a girl that I know it would be difficult to find someone better. And yet, something in me doesn't want her long-term. I want her now and I enjoy being with her, but the end of uni seems like it would be a convenient end for our relationship too. I don't know why I don't want her long-term. And I know it's stupid. To throw away something good I have for uncertainty and possible loneliness, just because of a feeling with no rational base. But it's how I feel. Part of me hopes perhaps this might change over the months, but a more sincere part of me is almost certain that it won't. I love her, but not long-term.
This is actually a more broad pattern in my emotional life recently: having an appreciation of something, but some darkness that lurks beneath it, suggesting unhappiness. I'm happy to be studying and to be a student, and yet there is a perpetual darkness about it that undercuts it. That I'm not good enough, that my academic prowess is plateauing and getting ready to deteriorate. I'm happy to be in a loving relationship, and yet I don't want this particular one long-term, creating a foreboding darkness every time she implies she wants this to go on for a long time.
I just want to run away. I want to refresh. But I also don't. I like where I am in life. I like that I'm about to get a degree from a fairly prestigious university and that I (will hopefully) have masters choices available to me afterwards. And yet it's all undercut by that darkness I mentioned.
I don't think it's anything serious. I don't think I'm depressed or anything. I think the causes of this double-aspect of emotions is that there are things I know I should be happy about, but those things have aspects that undefeatably make me sad or stressed. That is, studying, but having to study Italian which I have no passion for; and a relationship I am in the present-moment happy to be in, but am resistant to in the long-term.
Potentially I could be much happier by graduation, if I get a good degree and amicably break off my relationship. Achieving the first is a challenge in the straight forward way, but achieving the second is a challenge in a much more sinister way... Because not only will it be difficult, but I'm not even sure it's the right thing to do. Perhaps with more time I'll grow to want to be with her in the long-term. I just don't know. I suppose I shouldn't make any decisions now, and just focus on what we have now. (Though this is difficult, when she often seems to allude to the distant future together -- a future the existence of which I am unsure).
Anyway, that's enough. I took the beginning part of my day off today because I was overwhelmed, and hoped to do work for my other courses in peace in the library while I should have been in class. But instead I've done nothing all morning, and now I'm actually in a worse position than I would have been had I just gone to class. Now I have less time to work for my other courses, because I've been sat at home unproductively. I still need to shower before I leave. I'll probably get to the library at 2 the earliest. I would have been at the library right now (it's 1) if I had just gone to my classes.
You see how it's easy for me to think I'm a fuck-up and that I'm not really cut out for this? ... Yeah. But in my defence, the classes I skipped were Italian classes, which, as noted, I have no passion for. I don't think I would have done so if they were philosophy classes. My second greatest university regret is not having realised I'm not truly passionate for Italian earlier.
All right, I really should go now. But I think it's worth writing here more often in the near future. So, I'll see you then. (Whoever "you" are. I suppose, it's more a "dear diary" type convention, rather than me addressing any particular person. Anyway, I really should get out of here.)
I don't really know what this post is supposed to be about in particular, but I know I need to get in touch with my internal life again. I've found that I've been losing more and more control of how I feel over time, and perhaps it has to do with the fact that I no longer have an outlet to order my emotions like I used to. I don't know.
Anyway, since then I've started my fourth year and have been in a stable relationship for a few months. I guess part of what I want to talk about is how fourth year is going and how that relationship is going.
This particular semester is overwhelming me. I have the majority of my courses concentrated in this semester and the workload has been burdensome. I've skipped days on multiple occasions, which is something I would prefer not to be doing in fourth year, but it's the only way I've been able to react to the overload. It makes me worried that if I can't handle a busy fourth year semester, what will I actually be able to handle out in the real world? I still want to do a masters, but I'm worried that my failure to deal adequately with this year might negatively affect my prospects, i.e. my final grade and thus where I can go. I'm also still unsure where I want to go. This is closely related to my relationship, which I'll get to in a second. I hope I can get at least a 2.1. I wanted a first, but that is looking increasingly unlikely. For one, I have no passion for my Italian courses, which makes it difficult for me to really work on them. And two, while I have passion for philosophy, it's difficult to get a first in that subject. I've handed in mid-terms recently, that I'll get back towards the end of the month, I believe. I'll have a better idea of how my philosophical skills are then. Anyway, if I get a low 2.1 in Italian, which to me is seeming most likely, and anything lower than 74 overall in philosophy, I will even out to a 2.1. I really hope I don't get lower than a 2.1 in either of them, or else I'll have to get a good first to bring it back up just into 2.1 territory. I don't -think- I'll get lower than a 2.1 overall in anything, but it's difficult to say.
As for the relationship, it's difficult. A makes me happy and she's my closest companion at university. She's loving, interesting, cute, and sexy. And yet I can't help but feel like I don't want to be with her long-term. What makes it so difficult is that I have no reason to feel this way. She ticks so many boxes in terms of what I could want in a girl that I know it would be difficult to find someone better. And yet, something in me doesn't want her long-term. I want her now and I enjoy being with her, but the end of uni seems like it would be a convenient end for our relationship too. I don't know why I don't want her long-term. And I know it's stupid. To throw away something good I have for uncertainty and possible loneliness, just because of a feeling with no rational base. But it's how I feel. Part of me hopes perhaps this might change over the months, but a more sincere part of me is almost certain that it won't. I love her, but not long-term.
This is actually a more broad pattern in my emotional life recently: having an appreciation of something, but some darkness that lurks beneath it, suggesting unhappiness. I'm happy to be studying and to be a student, and yet there is a perpetual darkness about it that undercuts it. That I'm not good enough, that my academic prowess is plateauing and getting ready to deteriorate. I'm happy to be in a loving relationship, and yet I don't want this particular one long-term, creating a foreboding darkness every time she implies she wants this to go on for a long time.
I just want to run away. I want to refresh. But I also don't. I like where I am in life. I like that I'm about to get a degree from a fairly prestigious university and that I (will hopefully) have masters choices available to me afterwards. And yet it's all undercut by that darkness I mentioned.
I don't think it's anything serious. I don't think I'm depressed or anything. I think the causes of this double-aspect of emotions is that there are things I know I should be happy about, but those things have aspects that undefeatably make me sad or stressed. That is, studying, but having to study Italian which I have no passion for; and a relationship I am in the present-moment happy to be in, but am resistant to in the long-term.
Potentially I could be much happier by graduation, if I get a good degree and amicably break off my relationship. Achieving the first is a challenge in the straight forward way, but achieving the second is a challenge in a much more sinister way... Because not only will it be difficult, but I'm not even sure it's the right thing to do. Perhaps with more time I'll grow to want to be with her in the long-term. I just don't know. I suppose I shouldn't make any decisions now, and just focus on what we have now. (Though this is difficult, when she often seems to allude to the distant future together -- a future the existence of which I am unsure).
Anyway, that's enough. I took the beginning part of my day off today because I was overwhelmed, and hoped to do work for my other courses in peace in the library while I should have been in class. But instead I've done nothing all morning, and now I'm actually in a worse position than I would have been had I just gone to class. Now I have less time to work for my other courses, because I've been sat at home unproductively. I still need to shower before I leave. I'll probably get to the library at 2 the earliest. I would have been at the library right now (it's 1) if I had just gone to my classes.
You see how it's easy for me to think I'm a fuck-up and that I'm not really cut out for this? ... Yeah. But in my defence, the classes I skipped were Italian classes, which, as noted, I have no passion for. I don't think I would have done so if they were philosophy classes. My second greatest university regret is not having realised I'm not truly passionate for Italian earlier.
All right, I really should go now. But I think it's worth writing here more often in the near future. So, I'll see you then. (Whoever "you" are. I suppose, it's more a "dear diary" type convention, rather than me addressing any particular person. Anyway, I really should get out of here.)
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