drowningBut now, I have once again found inspiration to write, though this is sort of a step backwards...
I've been struggling lately. A lot. Since I started middle school, I'd always managed to scrape by in my classes, just barely passing; not from stupidity but from sheer laziness. After five years of that, I decided that that was enough. So this year, my 11th grade year, I decided to actually give a shit about my grades. And as it turns out I really am just as smart as I'd been telling myself I am, and in that department everything is going pretty smoothly. Hell, my dad's even proud of me this year.
All well and good, yes?
Too bad that this attitude apparently now applies to everything I do--this need to show off and appeal to my superiors. I can feel it slowly squeezing all of what little I had amassed as 'myself' out into the ether. I'm snarky to my friends, I can't trust anybody any more, and I always have to sit there and redefine what it means to be 'me' whenever I try and create something. It's killing me.
My art is suffering. My relationships with people I care about are suffering. My state of mind is deteriorating. But I don't want to give up my success at school. I'm smart again, my parents are proud of me, my future is clearing up. Why do I feel like this? In order for me to succeed, do I have to sell my soul? Is that what this is?
I'd been thinking that it'd all become clear to me, that all of a sudden all of the pieces would fall into place again. But lately... I feel like I'm missing too many pieces. I've been trying on old things that I used to love and new things that seem to have potential bit nothing seems to fit me anymore.
I've always held on to the principle that if you just wait it out, that somehow everything will work out to a better solution. Even if it rains for a hundred years, the sun will eventually shine again, right?
But what if we all drowned in the flood?
Miserable
Awestruck
