If I Lose Myself Tonight

by - 8:55 PM


Over the past few weeks I haven't been myself. Actually, that's not true. I've been a watered-down version of myself. I lost myself in my work. I started working at 8am and didn't stop until 9pm. The scary part is that I didn't even notice I was losing myself, not until I finally had time to sit down and write a blog post. Then I realized that Envy was... pretty much gone.

I'm in my junior year of college now. Three months in I can tell it's going to be a very difficult year. No matter how hard I work and how carefully I plan everything in my life, there are never enough hours in my days. So I started dropping parts of myself that I didn't need. The parts that took up too much of my time, but that didn't benefit my future.
Daydreaming had to go first. I needed those precious minutes to write reports, not to come up with blog post ideas or a chapter for a novel. So with daydreaming, writing also left my life, which was quickly followed by blogging of course. For a week my life felt very dull and empty, but then my workload was doubled and I had to make another sacrifice in order to have enough time for college.
I stopped reading. Not just blogs, but also books and magazines. Some nights I read five pages, then fell asleep. It made me sad that the days of 150+ pages were now over, but I didn't have much time to be sad: more work came my way...

For a few days I didn't know what to do. I tried to think, but didn't have time for that. I had to keep working. I tutor a kid from the other side of the street and also took on a translation job in August. My plan was to save up for a trip to India and Thailand, but those plans and the financial problems that came with them took up quite some time. So I stopped dreaming about travelling. I stopped making plans. I stopped doing everything that made me Envy.

I've lived like this for about eight weeks now. I wake up, go to college or internship, come home to do homework, tutor or translate, then sleep. Most days I'm so busy I skip meals. I lost quite some weight in the first month of junior year. I feel like I'm nothing more than a shadow of my former self. It scares me how I don't do anything anymore, yet I'm exhausted every night. I don't have time for my hobbies anymore. I don't have time for anything...

I never expected junior year to suck the life out of me, but it's doing just that. I feel like there's not much left of me and I'm very afraid to lose myself completely. I was planning on blogging regularly, but I can't. I can't promise when I'll write again, when I'll comment on other blogs again, when I'll be a part of the community again... But if I seem to disappear completely, if you see me lose that last little part of myself, please help me find my way back to who I used to be. Tweet me, mail me, smack me in the face. But please help me not to lose myself tonight, tomorrow night and all the nights after that...

Stay Awesome

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8 Fellow Ramblers

  1. I know exactly how you feel. When I moved to America I didn't feel like me anymore, it seems like when I stepped off the plane everything that made me 'me' was taken from me and I'm struggling to get it back. We just have to plough through and just hope and think this is just temporary and one day things will be better. I'm always here if you want a chat :)

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    1. Thank you, I'll definitely chat with you more often :) I hope you're doing well getting parts of yourself back. It's such a big switch to go from Europe to America. I'm sure it'll work out great for you once you're used to the States though :)

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  2. HEy Envy,
    I've looking around the internet and my own life and my conclusion is that november is always the same, the days are to short especially because of the quick darkness in the middle of the day, there will always be tests or things you have to do and you want to do things at one day but I've fall asleep hundert of times while doing my homework and didn't woke up until the next day. SO everything I wanted to do wasn't done and so the next day the same...
    Love,Lea

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    1. Hey Lea,
      You're totally right on the November thing. Christmas is still so far away and everything is glum and dark... It's an annual struggle... But we'll always get through it :)

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  3. I'm sorry you feel that way. I think I understand how you feel. Sometimes I would feel incredibly tired, just on the verge of life. More existing than anything. I wish I could offer you an easy solution, but in my (somewhat limited) experience, I feel as though the way forward is through. Whether it's waiting for circumstance, or simply waiting it out. Or finding a way to include the things you love to do. I believe that if your work begins to become more of a burden, and you lose sight of why you might've taken the course in the first place, then maybe it's time to reconsider. Is it worth it?

    But I understand that's easier said than done. One thing that helped me manage time was make a schedule, with a few short breaks and small, achievable goals. It can really motivate you when you achieve small daily tasks.

    If all else fails, what keeps me ... afloat the most is the future. Not just dreaming about it (although that's always fun), but thinking about my direction, and my purpose. I hope everything works out for you in the end. Hang it there. :)

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    1. From what you've written I think you exactly understand how I feel. I'm not living, just surviving. I keep going and going, some days I just wait until everything is over and I can go back to sleeping and recovering from everything the world has thrown at me.
      I've already figured out that I'm not doing what I want in life. I chose the wrong college course, but if I quit now I've wasted 2,5 years and I'll be in debt up to my ears. That's not worth it, since any degree is better than no degree and I know I'll be able to get that degree once summer 2018 comes around. It'll be a good starting point :)
      The future scares me, but it does help me stay afloat. Thanks for your kind comment. It's good to see you around again :)

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  4. Very raw post. I think the reason I love it so much is because it's so relateable... we all slip in and out of ourselves at some time or another and then we stop and wonder "where did we go...? how did we get here?" and we write posts like this. The good news? You're not lost yet, this post is evidence of that. Keep your eye turned towards travel, look at pictures of the places you love, daydream when you're en route from one place to another, and keep chugging away reading before sleep. You can do this. And I have all the faith that you won't lose yourself completely in the process. <3
    ~Steph

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    1. Thank you. I know I'm still myself somewhere, deep down inside. I just can't use the parts of myself that I love most. I hope I'll be able to do so soon. I'll definitely keep dreaming, it's what's been getting me trough the days this week :)

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