sad story

I should be happy to be a woman, but instead I see it as a curse. Time is my enemy. It keeps moving forward, and I am living in the past. I try to cling onto my youth, try and make it last forever, but instead, I feel myself grow weary. I see myself grow wrinkly and old, this putrid decrepitude slowly impending on me. As men grow more handsome and desirable with age; we women become frailer, our fertility disappears as we slowly dry up. I watch models in magazines; I see them smirk at me on the glossy pages but ha! I know that their youth too will one day come to an end. This life is shorter than we can ever imagine and all our dreams, everything we achieve will vanish in the blink of an eye, when the clock strikes the Inevitable Hour. The years creep on you and you can’t escape from them, try as hard as you might! I have bid adieu to my teenage years and I see nothing good in the road ahead of me. I am twenty one, and I will be twenty-two in five months. I feel as if I have been alive forever, I feel so old, so disgusting. Birthdays used to be something that I celebrated. I was happy to turn driving age, happy to turn drinking age, and now there is nothing left. My hair will grey and my skin will become sallow. I can’t even appreciate my youth because I’m so focused on it vanishing. Oh, how I envy those in their early teenage years! The difficult days of puberty conceal its true appeal- the journey into youth! How beautiful life would be if we just stayed a teenager forever! Why must things change? Why must we age? Why can’t we freeze our beauty? why can’t we become moving photographs? Why can’t I embrace womanhood as a gift? Why must I be so scared to leave this world? I’m terrified to enter into a world of nagging bosses, marriage difficulties, and whining children. I’m scared to bring a new child into this world; a world of chaos, a world of war and death, a world that sees beauty as a quality pertaining mostly to those who are rail thin, a world who valorizes the young, the young whose youth lasts only a few precious years. I’m scared to give birth to a child, who will live, and who may enjoy life, or who may be a lost soul like me, who does not want to be in this world, but who came into it nevertheless. How is this fair? Why am I here if I never even asked to be here? Is it fair to give birth to a child who shares the same ideas? A child who, as it grows, will realize that it is a soul trapped in a body with features beyond its control? How is this fair? How is birth a miracle? Having no say of anything, no control, as we watch the world change as everything around us becomes a fading blur, spinning out of control…

why?

Today I got pills. Pills that I felt for the longest time would be the answer, but I know they are not. I feel so many things that I don't think anyone else does. I don't think anyone will ever understand. I feel so trapped in the constraints of time, of humanity, of this world. I feel like I can't just live my life without worrying. I wished for the longest time that I had a boyfriend. Now I do, and I feel like my friendships are slipping away. Why can't I just be happy? I feel like there is no solution. I hate walking around places alone, going grocery shopping alone. But at the same time, sometimes I hate being with people. Sometimes people annoy me and I want to be away from them. Why can't I just be satisfied? I get high marks and I'm still not satisfied. Why? What's wrong with me? I have everything I could possibly want but I still feel sad all the time! It's not even that I'm anxious about school or about the future- it's just that I'm constantly sad. I try to help others, yet inside, I still don't feel fulfilled, I still don't feel like I'm worthwhile. I feel like I'm useless a lot of the time- sometimes I just want to jump in front of a train. I've thought about just running away, leaving everything in life behind me and just ending my life. I don't know what I'm living for and what the point of everything is! I'm so confused about everything. I feel like I'm too old for university but too young for the "real" world. I just want to be able to chill out, to relax, to enjoy. Why can't I?

france

wearing flipflops in november. swimming in the mediterannean.

dirty feet. crazy drivers. language barrier. wanting to tell someone off but not knowing how to word it in a way they'd understand. feeling foreign. etrangere. getting pissed off at having to constantly use accents on words when typing. having an absence of something. discrimination. inconveneince. lack of customer service. actually, having no customer service. expensive things. profs that speak quickly and you can't understand them.

canada. going to second cup with my mom. drinking coffee in the morning with my dad as my dog sits on the couch and keeps guard for squirrels outside. random trips to tim hortons with friends. going to lakeshore.

A Day in Baguette Land

So we have a grumpy old man in our building, who I decided to call The Blackhole of Fun, since he sucks the fun out of every situation. But Waheeda wants to call him Herpes or Turdsicle, and I think those work equally as well.. We were just talking at a normal volume in our room in our apartment and then old man walks in and yells at us and threatens to call the police on us. Then he tells his situation to the concierge.. who pretty much takes his side. I feel discriminated against because we're the only people under 30 in our building and we're english speakers.. i'm pretty sure if we spoke french or if we were more elderly he wouldn't complain. As I was walking in vieux nice today a woman carrying flowers decided to spit on me.. and she pinched a woman up ahead of us. And then, in our English class today, the text where we have to translate into English is short, yet the one that we have to translate into french is so long, and we're not allowed french/english dictionaries for our exam. It's times like these where I wanna fly back to Canada.. where people don't spit on you, and where we're not penalized for talking in our apartment.

...

the truth is, sometimes there's just that one person that captivates me, someone that has that je-ne-sais-quoi about them. i'm really into smooth talkers. and sometimes, that one person that we think was something else turns into being someone different. or, even worse, sometimes we know they are wrong for us all along, yet we're still inevitably drawn to them. i'm still wondering why. why would i get myself into something, something i know i'd regret? and i'm just so caught up in what i'm feeling in the moment that i don't consider the repurcussions of my actions. yet i can't help thinking it was somehow worth it because if i didn't do it i'd keep wondering what it would have been like. and that feeling would have haunted me. but now that feeling is instead turned into something kind of like regret. i don't feel used though. i don't feel angry. i just feel a little bit confused, and a little bit hurt. yet i was happy that i was filled with the passion of the moment.. i behaved in a way that was so unlike me. i became someone else for just one night. it was a way to escape, to become a sultry vixen, to expose myself without becoming vulnerable. i released my inhibitions and acted impulsively, instead of rationally. the only thing that haunts me is that i might be forgotten, and i don't want to be forgotten.

it took me some time to realize

that it doesn't really matter what other people think about you. it's how you think about yourself that counts. if you know, without a doubt in your mind, that you're trying your best, that you're working hard... then that's all that matters. some people are going to judge you harshly, but that doesn't mean it's true. it's just an opinion. subjectivity can hurt, it can be tough... but in the end, it's what you think of yourself that matters. those people are going to be in your life a couple of months... a couple of weeks... you are going to be in your life your whole life. try to do nice things secretly.. be humble about things... i think that's what's most important. don't do things because you want recognition.. do them because it's the right thing to do and you want to be a good person. a piece of paper should not define who you are as a person... a failed relationship doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you... and i have spent so much time agonizing over these things, these tiny incidents, blaming myself and hating myself and just not accepting the fact that people will hold opinions about you.. and you can't really change what they think or change situations... sometimes they just happen and are so out of your control. life throws shit at us from every direction... you need an umbrella to shield yourself from all that shit.. but you know what you gotta gain your composure and deal with it.... even though you feel like breaking down, even though sometimes you feel so alone..... remember, your friends help you save money on therapists. and friends are more valuable than any boy. because they will always be there for you no matter what, they won't pretend you're everything and then vanish at the next moment... they are constant, and they are amazing. so surround yourself with positive people, don't let sucky situations get you down, love yourself for who you are, and don't change yourself for anybody.

uggh

why am i struggling with myself?? i'm not even a teenager anymore, these things should be over... but i always feel like i'm so down all the time, and it's hard to put on a smiling face when you feel bad about yourself all the time..... i seriously don't think i can work with kids.. i enjoy their company but clearly i'm not good enough to lead games with them. i don't understand why everyone else can do it but i can't... and why i get shit evaluations when i try my hardest.