Before my gap year “officially” started, I thought of making a list of things I would do. Of course, being me, I never really got around to making an actual list – but I did have a rough draft in my head of what I wanted to do:
- Read more (Shakespeare, Gaiman, Pratchett, Tolkien, etc)
- Learn more (here I envisioned frequent trips to the library)
- Expand my musical collection (classic rock, more indie, etc)
- Watch films and TV shows I never got around to watching before
- Be more creative (draw more, write more, paint more)
- Finally get to focus more on karate
- Visit friends who are now in various universities
- Enjoy having more free time
What I’ve actually done:
- Work
- Download a few new songs every week so I won’t go insane during my daily commute
- Work
- Watch a few episodes of Six Feet Under when me and a friend have time
- Work
- Ignore sensible voice in head and push on to karate training
- Work
- Occasional weekend meet-ups with friends
- Work
You may get the feeling that I am quite unhappy with what I’ve accomplished so far. You would be right.
So I’m an academic at heart. Fucking sue me, will ya?
Most days after work, I find myself too tired to do anything other than stare vacantly at whatever is in front of me. Most days I choose to not do anything after work to conserve energy so I can go to karate training. Most weekends I cannot even be arsed to open a book because I just feel so drained. And the weekends I actually want to read – well, I find that I *can’t*… because I have to do chores that have piled up because I chose to postpone doing them on account of my being too exhausted.
Fuck it. Gap year, my arse.
Yeah, yeah. As most of you would’ve screamed by now, right, I’m earning money which I’ll need for school, so what the fuck is my problem.
My problem is, I don’t want to emerge from this gap year as a mere shell of my former self. Right now, I feel like I’m slowly losing grasp on the things that define me, mostly because I no longer have the same amount of time nor energy to do the things that I enjoy.
You really never know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.
I miss wearing nail polish. I miss wearing my watch. I miss wearing bracelets. I miss doodling. I miss the occasional brainstorms and muse attacks. I miss actually getting to jot down said brainstorms and muse attacks. I miss my daily banter with people of equal wavelength.
I miss staying up late at night. I’m a night owl. I do my best work at night. I’m not and have never been a morning person, but I have to wake up early Mon – Fri to go to work. I miss having more control of my own schedule. I miss having the freedom to disappear when I feel like taking a mental health day.
I miss consuming ungodly amounts of coffee. Granted, I can still do that anytime I want, but it’s not the same anymore. I used to gulp down coffee to fuel my brain. Now it’s mostly to distract my body from the tiredness it’s supposed to feel… and I can’t really enjoy the caffeine high anymore, cause, well… let me just put it this way; I enjoy my ungodly amounts of coffee best when surrounded by like-minded people who understand and will most likely match my antics.
I feel like my spirit is being smothered, slowly but surely.
But at least the whine is out of my system now.
I love that feeling. You know, the one you get when you take a deep breath and suddenly everything feels like it’s going to be okay. When you’re hopeless as can be, and life is going nowhere, there’s those moments we have every now and then where we just stop, and we get this feeling, that can’t be described, but you just.. you just feel like everything really is going to be okay. Like the world stopped spinning for a second, and everything was clear. I need more of those moments.
