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There is a fly sporadically chasing my window pane, silhouetted against the greying sky-its occasional buzzing is agitating and doesn't aid my feeling of peace.
I am terrified of the future and at the moment, that future seems to be looming pretty near. In every scenario where I've needed to explain myself, I've used this to justify my fears:
I can't imagine myself in any other life/position than I am in now.
They furrow their brow, scowl-'get over it' is the message I hear silently slip their lips.
But let me explain.
When I was four, I imagined myself in primary school. I knew what the next 7 years would entail.
When I was eleven, I imagined myself in secondary school. I, again, knew what my (near) future would look like.
When I was sixteen, I saw a bridge with towering railings of security and an abyss of emptiness at the end, but I didn't focus on the abyss.
But now, I don't know what I'll be doing in a year or ten. I can't imagine myself at uni or away from home or without my friends or in another country or any age other than seventeen.
And this thought terrifies me because it feels like this is the end of my life.
Of course, that is metaphorical.
I know it is not.
But I can't imagine a life beyond school and friends and home because I don't know what the rest holds. Those who are intending to go to uni in September, while it'll be new and challenging and scary, they know what they are doing for the next 3 years.
And I don't and that's hella fucking scary.
And this is consuming 90% of my thoughts at the moment, I can't stop thinking what next, what next. What exists beyond this life I know? What purpose can I devour all of my energy into to escape the emptiness that exists beyond?
And, I think I am losing myself again. I am fearful of the upcoming weekend because it is empty. Unscheduled time is the reason I obsess so much over my school work, because its 'necessary', because I don't have to think about doing it, because I can't remember what I do for fun or fulfilment and enjoyment. And I partly blame the education system for zapping any ounce of independent creativity out of me but I also blame myself for losing my identity in insignificant letters.
I work so hard at school, partly because I can't deal with the fear of failure, but also because I don't have to think and I can disappear.
The effin fly has come back.
So, this weekend I'm going to try. I'm filling my time the best I can, not with school work, but hopefully with things I want to do.
I'm buying my friends birthday present, and searching for a top for a party in a few weeks, and preparing gift boxes for the homeless, and posters for this tampon campaign we are doing at school**, and battling through essays and babysitting and reorganising my room decoration and watching Fantastic Beasts for the second time (the last one was a midnight viewing-fab but regretted when I got in at 3am then up at 7 for school) and reading and maybe journalling and-oh man that sounds like a lot.
But, I'll do it all so frantically fast, worrying about getting it done that it won't be with enjoyment.
I'll breathe, slow myself and try not to think of the future.
The fly has got inside my lampshade now, I ought to rescue it.
**basically, my friend and I have been doing research into the HomelessPeriod so are collecting tampons nd pads at school to donate to women's shelters and foodbanks. School seem game so we need to get cracking.
