A Mixed Bag

I've been feeling fairly calm and collected recently. My emotions rose up with a vengeance and went into hyperdrive today. I'm happy, I really am, so why do I feel about to burst into tears?

I'm not talking tears of joy, either.

Sometimes I can't deal with the future. These classes I'm taking... I'm overworking myself, and I can feel it every night when I toss and turn in my bed for hours as my brain keeps on analyzing and solving and writing late into the night. I need these classes, advanced and AP and back-breaking, to help my future. That oh-so-nebulous future that always seems just around the corner. Taking classes that are supposed to help me in life, but turn out to lead to other, even harder classes.

I can keep up, but when I look at the dark circles under my eyes every morning I think that my 'future' is nothing but classes, eventually coming to some sort of dull eternal job that doesn't require a brain at all.

I wish I were a bit less smart. Just enough that people's standards for me weren't set so high. Enough that my vague interests weren't dismissed as being 'a waste of that brain of yours.' It's my brain, dammit, and I'll do with it what I wish. I didn't sign any contract at birth ensuring that my intellect would be used for the betterment of society, of everyone except myself.

I've been totally sidetracked from what I meant to say originally, but that's one of the hazards of a stream of consciousness.

~Worried, Kit

Lightbulb

I was sitting here, reading someones LJ where they talked about all the friends they'd met online, and how they were so close, and those friends commented to all say how much they cared, all of them.

It was like seeing a campfire, being near it, but having the heat and light blocked by a ring of people surrounding it, holding hands.

I've been on a few internet forums. Most of them were so huge that you could never hope to know everyone, that you hung on with your fingernails to keep up with one thread. After a while of that, I found a different kind- small and cozy, where you can know the names of almost everyone who posts. It was like a family, and I was so happy to find it that I forgot one thing.

Families are as good at keeping people out as they are at welcoming them in.

I told you I was never lonely when alone, and that's the truth. The bouts of despair and hurt and depression only happen when I'm surrounded by happy people that I know. I see people who are so tight and close that they can tell each other anything, and it hurts. I wonder if it will always be this way, if I'll always be the odd one out. If it's something about me that drives people away or just keeps them from getting too close. I can smile and laugh and take what warmth I can from other people, but I wonder if they'd notice if I left. Probably it'd go unnoticed for weeks before somebody wondered why I hadn't left my usual confused review, shrugged it off, and put it from their mind.

I'm being melodramatic and moody, and I hate myself for that. I'll change my background to black for a day and revel in it before turning back to a cheery color and a cheery smile. Not that there's anyone to see it but me and my thoughts, drifting and unanchored.

~Just Don't Look At Me, Kit

Later: Yes, the black looks lovely with the icon (which, by the way, is from art by Ms. Fair). I might just be in mourning for some lost soul, which might just be my own. Spare me my own drama, please.