During tests in school now I lose focus so easily. Usually by the tenth or so question, I look up and around me, and wonder why we’re doing this. I wonder how many more times I’ll have to do this. I wonder what the point is, really at the core. I want to get up and walk out, go outside and scream. Instead I put my head back down before it looks like I’m trying to cheat, and continue to play the game. I remember that the end will come, and it’s sooner than it’s ever been. Just a few more, I tell myself. Just a little longer. The beautiful outside world will be so worth it, just you wait.

It feels like I’m dying, on the inside. Friday I felt the bell jar and it scared me so so much. I went to the bathroom and shook so badly; what I really wanted to do was scream. I need to get out and far away. I need air. I need wide open spaces that bring me to tears. Now I cry for my failures, my short-comings, my inability to fit their molds. This is misery and the worst part is that I did it to myself; I decided to become the over-achiever for reasons a shrink told me were because of my screwed up family. So blame blame blame but I did it, I did it. And it’s the academic crack, where now I can’t stand being less than anyone else. And I’m trying not to care but it still kills me. I’m trying to remember that I’m getting out, that these fill-in-the-bubble tests don’t measure love, that not being the best doesn’t mean I’m not good enough. I am enough I am enough I am enough. Sometimes I believe it.