Potato

Tonight is one of those late nights alone that has my mind pulled in about fifteen different directions, each one needing more attention than I have spoons to give at this point. I just got back from the gym, so I'm filled with the overwhelming desire to do everything yet too overwhelmed and unfocused to get anything done. 

I'm hoping to apply for grad school this fall. I haven't taken the GRE again. I've only briefly talked with the people I hope to have write my letters. I haven't even begun studying. I'm terrified that I won't do as well this time since my brain has been fried. I'm terrified that I won't get in. I'm essentially paralyzed and can't make any more progress. I'm even terrified of making the list of things I need to do. And I'm not sure what things need to go on it and what things don't. 

I don't want to screw this up again. I'm worried that I'll never get another chance.

Or that that third chance won't even be worth taking.

I'm worried that I won't be able to handle the environment during or after school.

I'm worried that my journey has to end. 

I know all of this, yet I still can do nothing. 

The guilt of being so out of control just exacerbates the problem. 

What's more is that I feel like I've failed my fiance again because I never feel like I'm good at helping in certain situations. No matter what I try, nothing seems to work. I just want to give you the right answers. To solve everything. But I can't. And I hate it. 

It's so quiet. 

I have a photo shoot Saturday.

I have a show Sunday. 

I need to make time to study. To set a date for this test. 

Do you see what I mean? 

I know I can do this, so why am I so stuck? Mental health, you nasty bitch. 

Also, 

I think I just got four more mosquito bites. 

I don't know how to explain the feelings I have right now. Of love. Of loneliness. Of fear. Of confidence. Everything tends to happen all at once, or to come in waves, which sometimes takes me from high to low and back again in a matter of seconds. It's dizzying. And the fear that that will never end...well, the knowledge that, yes, it absolutely will continue for the rest of my life and there's nothing I can really do to change that, sucks. 

I don't want damage control to be the story of my life, and I feel like it has been for a while. 

I want my thirties to be different. 

That feels weird to say. 

I still feel 12 years old. Just as confused, if not more. 

A friend and I figured out that secret a long time ago.

Everyone is just faking it. No one knows how to adult.

No one knows what the fuck is going on, and we're all secretly waiting to be found out. 

Work has taught me how to fake it until I make it. I just submitted a project proposal for a chance to work on a neuroscience portal for a major pharmaceutical company. They asked me to do it, and after a few rounds and 6 pages of absurd detail later, I did it. I had not one clue what the fuck I was doing. But I learned. I frequently have to work on papers outside my area of expertise, and google scholar has become my best friend. 

I also just killed a mosquito. So two wins for me, I suppose.

That's my story. Constantly feeling somewhere between "I'm actually really good at what I do" and "I'm a talking potato".

But maybe someday I'll be a potato with a PhD.