Buffy: I thought it was gonna be like in the movies -- you know, inspirational music, a montage: me sharpening my pencil, me reading, writing, falling asleep on a big pile of books with my glasses all crooked, 'cause in my montage, I have glasses. But real life is slow, and it's starting to hurt my occipital lobe.

The past couple of weeks have seen me obsessively contemplating a return to University in the new year. I say obsessively because I have become consumed by the prospect. Previous attempts at higher education have not been particularly successful endeavours for me, and I am torn by my desire to start right away and my fear that I’m not quite ready.

I have always carried with me a highly romanticised idea of University. I think this, more than anything, even more than the problems I've encountered with mental health, is the reason I've not yet managed to complete an undergraduate degree. Because real life is slow and, well, real. Real life is more than just that series of stills I've carried around in my head in which I am balancing a coffee atop a pile of books, sitting wholly immersed in a big important text, participating in intellectual debate about the influences that brought about the Russian Revolution. No, real life demands you complete the required readings and attend the less inspiring lectures also. In real life, you work hard and curse the whole system and write into the earliest hours of the morning and give yourself a headache from the computer glare. In real life, things don't always feel like a sunny day at the park. 

I have been my own worst enemy when it comes to my education. I want so badly to be that person in my head, but I've been unwilling to do the work that comes with that reality. I’ve been waiting for some sort of shortcut or loophole, but the life I want doesn’t come that easily and in the past I haven’t proven to be up for the challenge.

Tom and I have been talking about me going back to Uni next year. I am paradoxically fuelled by excitement and paralysed by overwhelming waves of fear. I do not entirely trust myself to do what needs to be done. I haven’t in the past proven willing or able to make the journey in my impatience to reach the destination. 

But I think I’m ready, finally, to accept the work and the stress and the struggle that comes with my romanticised view of University. I want to work hard. I want to prove to myself that I'm capable of achieving my goals. I don't want to let fear get in my way any more. 

on my mind: study, romanticism & perfection(ism).

Perfectionism has been crippling for me in the past, and it continues to dictate what I am willing to attempt and complete. Whilst for some, perfectionism may engender a ferocious and occasionally dangerous need to push oneself, for me it is a somewhat different beast. My desire is not to do my best, but to be the best at whatever I do - thus I choose to do very little. My logic is obviously flawed. I've heard the saying "you only fail at what you don't do", and yet I choose time and again to do nothing, to quit and bolt at the first sign of trouble, rather than to try and perhaps fall short of my ridiculous goals.

Tom worked so hard this year. His honours year did not come easily, it was a year of long hours and hard work and bouts of stress and self doubt. In order to achieve his goal, Tom invested all of himself into his work. When I went to

Obviously, Tom is not the first person I've seen work extraordinarily hard towards their goal. I suppose that you find what you need when you need it the most.

I wanted to be a University student, but I didn't want the work that came with it. I had romanticised the place beyond reproach as this wonderful mecca of knowledge and intellectual debate and I was unwilling to accept that I'd have to hate it every now and then in order to reap those benefits. University is not a mecca of intellectual debate - it is full of young people wasting time while they figure themselves out. People like me. Perhaps some of us a widely read, but most conversations are about the hilarious thing that happened at the bar last week.

I'm going to finish my three Certificate IV's in marketing, advertising and business this semester, because even though they haven't engendered in me any great enjoyment or inspiration, I need to finally prove to myself that I can work towards a goal and complete something again. It's been too long. I've been too easy on myself, allowing pleasure in the short term to count for more than what I will gain in the longer term. 

a confession

The story I posted recently with the title Secrets and Solitude has somehow deterred me from posting anything much since. I retreated from this place because I had shared more than I'd anticipated. In sharing my past I was sharing my soul. That girl feels so foreign to me in so many ways, and yet she and I are still so very much the same. 

My life in no way resembles her days of loneliness and fear and insecurity, but I still struggle with the same demons. She and I will never truly be separate. She is my past and I am her future and we share the same mind and the same heart and the same memories. 

I still feel sad for her and all of her loneliness and the big black Unknown that she faced. There was so much more to her loneliness than the simple fact of her ostracism from a group of false friends. I remember that feeling. I still know it sometimes. I still feel alone in the absurd ticking of my mind. 

I wanted to write this simply to break the ice again, so to speak. I miss this space and I miss blogging freely about what matters to me, be it superficial or otherwise. We will speak very soon. 

catchup

Whatever happened to three posts a week? I've written about as many unfinished drafts, but nothing has felt right to publish. I hate that I haven't blogged for a week; I feel like I need to make the 'comeback' worthwhile.

I'll get back into the rhythm this week; I made a promise to myself at the beginning of the year to post regularly and I want to keep that promise. But for today, just a bit of an update and a few recent photos of some simple joys I've enjoyed of late.

So, since we last spoke, Tom finished his thesis. We pulled a couple of all-nighters at the end (I helped by looking over the grammar & making the formatting uniform), but it's done! He still needs to give a presentation and defend the thesis, of course, but the hard part is over.

This is what 6am in a freezing University office looks like:

Tom's studying hard and I'm contemplating murder. I don't deal quite as well without sleep.

We took a couple of days off in which we wore ugg boots and watched children's movies and drank vodka and generally just relaxed at home, per Tom's request.

Rainy days are my favourite days.

This flower seems to have mutated or something because the leaves and the petals have grown together. Tom was kind enough to feign interest when I dragged him over excitedly to show him.


And look, he's on a bridge!

Proper posts very soon. x