Routine

It is the 16th of February. Besides being the 3rd anniversary of me and my bf getting together, it's also the day where I am exactly 10 days from leaving home, back to my dreary existence in Melbourne.

As if my existence here isn't dreary as well. *snorts* The mild depression that comes with a seemingly inescapable routine has begun to set in. Today, after a particularly frustrating round of DotA, my boy looked at me with weariness in his face.

"Wake up, work, play, sleep. Wake up, work, play, sleep. Every day the same routine."

I didn't know what to say to comfort him, because I feel the same thing every single damn day. I guess in my case, it's my fault for not trying to create excitement in my life. I mean yes, I just had a day trip to Melaka with my friends, I finally learned how to bake cupcakes, I met up with some of my favourite people for catch-up chats...but after all that is over, I feel myself sinking back into the abyss of boring, spirit-numbing routine again.

Every hobby I was once passionate about has lost their flame. Gaming has lost it's excitement, like silver that's lost it's shine. Everything seems tarnished and dull. I used to love to draw although I wasn't particularly good at it. As I progressed through art school, my love for design ignited, spread uncontrollably like a flame across a sea of oil...and then it was suddenly, inexplicably put out by the cold splash of reality.

I'm never going to get anywhere by being mediocre. I'm being honest with myself. My drawing is mediocre. My gaming is mediocre (if I don't completely suck.) My social life is mediocre. Hell, even my FACE is mediocre.

At the beginning of the previous year, I was full of determination to never cut myself slack, to push myself to rise above my peers and shine. I don't know what happened halfway through.

I keep wanting to get up and fight the resistance that blankets my will and rise again like a phoenix from the flames.

Nope. Not happening.

I KNOW it's my fault that I'm stuck in a rut. I KNOW I can get past it. Every time I write a post like this, I'm fighting an internal war with myself. I'm torn between the rational self, saying that all this whining is unnecessary, and the pessimistic self that is willing myself to fail. None of it makes sense. I don't know how to explain it. It's like when people who have never experienced depression before say that depressed people are all faking it and that they could snap out of it just like that. *snaps*

It's the same with me now, except that instead of being stuck in the well of depression, I'm stuck in the hell that is self-sabotage.

I miss the times where I felt strong, smart, beautiful and invincible. Once upon a time, people used to tell me that I was all those things. I wonder if I REALLY was all that, or that I only felt that way  because other people seem to believe that I was.

Anyhow, I can feel people's faith in me start to slip. People no longer believe that I can come out on top, they no longer believe I can survive a setback, overcome an obstacle. They SAY I can, but I see in their eyes that they are full of doubt. Those words are just a comfort to themselves, hoping that saying them aloud will somehow make them come true, because they still love me despite my failure to achieve the great heights that they have set for me.

I wonder if people fall into these kinds of ruts all the time, or it's just me who throws pity parties all the time.

I want to believe in myself again. There's a sense of repetition in the way I always turn to my blog when I'm down. I've been through this before. I'm sure if I look back at old blog posts I'd see the same rants, the same pessimism, the same whining. And then after that, the renewed vitality, the will to fight returning.

With every low there's a high. It's just so hard to see the light of the sky when you're buried in an abyss a thousand miles deep, with dirt suffocating you and earthworms shitting on your head.

I don't want to go back to Melbourne. Leaving home fills me with a sense of dread. In a way, I know it represents my reluctance to leave a life of dependence and financial stability. My mom feeds me, shelters me, buys me new clothes. My boyfriend accompanies me, fetches me place to place, kisses me on the forehead when he knows I need it.

Leaving home means leaving all that stability behind. Whenever I step off the plane onto Australian soil, I can feel the life of solidarity and responsibility weighing down on me. One step closer to the life where I'm responsible for sustaining myself. Showing up to work on time, impressing the bosses, bringing the bread home, managing finances...*buries head in palms*

I'm like a bird refusing to leave it's nest. I want to stay home, with my head buried in my mom's feathery embrace, with my bf bringing home worms to fill my growling tummy.

Okay, that was a terrible analogy. What did I say? I'm bleeding out. I don't see a bright and happy future. I'm afraid of being locked into the terrible dungeon that is work routine, coming home everyday exhausted and seeing my boy in the same condition as I am.

They said to think of life as a journey - what matters is not the destination, but how you get there.

Well, I really want to get to my desired station asap: happily married, with a comfortable home away from Malaysia, a stable job that I don't hate and isn't too stressful. How am I going to get there? I have no clue.

Anyway, rant over. I can't stand myself when I'm in this state. I'm particularly pathetic and vulnerable when I'm whining about my (actually very good) life.

Next post will be cheerful, I promise. Happy things or nothing at all.

I'm out.