Trying not to give up

I am writing this more as letter to myself than as an actual blog post. It is only Wednesday and yet somehow this has been one of the worst weeks of college so far. It is not so much that something so irreversible has happened but rather I have just been reminded of my own inability to feel productive or useful. I remember sophomore year I thought about dropping out, the rules and restrictions of college no longer appealed to me and I was ready to just give up. Dominoes kept knocking more and more dominoes and eventually I just end up sprawled out on the floor dazed and confused by the world around me. I have a lot of ambition, but that does not really account to much when you can't get out of bed or muster the energy to write a poet or make a dance. Three years I have been doing this routine and I just cannot see myself making it thorough a fourth. But of course that is why I am writing this. My heart on a page I really want to make it in life, I want to see and do and be something. In these times when I hate myself and the world most the only way I know how to cope is to be honest. I mean I also cope by shaking and holing up in my room until hunger forces me to leave but that doesn't translate very well to a blog post.

I had lunch with my friend Shakti today. She remains of one the realest people I know and despite the fact that we are both really too busy to hang out our conversations are always interesting. To put it simply I made a huge mistake in one of my classes and my fail as a result, keep in mind that I don't fail classes, and she was giving me advice on how to proceed. After about 20 min she realized that I was too stubborn to drop the class and upon asking me about things related to the future I just looked at her with glazed over eyes and replied, “it's fine”. Keep in mind I was not trying to be rude to one of my closest friends its just that lately I have been on a sort of mission to rebuild myself. I want to become stronger and more capable, but to do this I have been deluding myself into thinking that everything will work out in the end. Basing my future around my own confidence is a terrible idea. I might fail a class here, I am probably not going to get into any grad school I apply to, my scattered course load consisting of psychology, dance, music, and religion may very well lead to my downfall. All this time I have simply been doing what I want and not really paying attention to what I may need in the real world. I don't map out classes in advance or care about credits, I just do what interests me, and now I am starting to second guess myself. My only saving grace to combat that train of thought is to go back to my original line of thinking that what I do HAS to work out for me. My future is entirely dependent on making something people care about consistently and would be willing to pay to see (music, dance ,poetry, whatever) and that is the only path I know how to walk. I don't care enough about careers to major in one, and if I crash and burn it will be because I failed. Simple as that.

In addition to my insane future choices I also cannot afford this school. Semester in and semester out I see my mom breaking her back to keep my here and every time it makes me question why I am here. Yes yes college is the golden age of opportunity yada yada but is it worth the stress I put on my family? The older I get the more I see my mother as a person and less as just my mother, she is only human. She is a fantastic human and one of my favorite humans, but that does not change the fact that she is one person. I want to tell her to stop, stop paying so much for a son who could not ever hope to repay you in the future. Stop fueling this crazy desire that I could somehow be relevant as a creator or as an inspiration. Stop giving away pieces of your life so that my life benefits. If I were a good son I would drop out, or transfer to a school that cost less, but I am not that. I attend this school day after day knowing the in's and out's of my family's situations and still have yet to muster the courage to say, “I will be fine with or without this school, so keep your money mom”. I see these people more well of than I flaunting things I know they did not buy themselves and just wish that I could do the opposite. I want to give back to my mom, to buy the house we live in so she can just relax. I want her to know that everything she has ever done for me will be paid back tenfold and that as I write these poems and perfect the art of movement I am constantly thinking of how she inspires me. My grandma got sick over winter break, so my mom's mom is now in a less than ideal place, which hurts me even more. My mom never asked for a depressed child or a child who picks art over practicality and as hard as I work it never feels like enough.

I want to give up more than I care to admit, I want to stop trying and curl up in a ball and just stay there. The world is scary, the world is cruel, the world is uncertain. In the same vein, however, the world is art, and Shakti, and my mom. All these things I cherish don't just inspire me but they literally keep me afloat. On some wall for some event here at the UR that was meant to push school love I wrote the phrase “The dance program here literally saved my life”. At the time the wall was full of all the I love my school because generic blank reasons that you could think of and I just wanted to be honest. I don't love this school because of its food or its location or reputation. I don't try hard because I want to get a job or have a family one day. This school has yet to let me give up, no matter how hard I have fallen or how sad I get I can never bring myself to stop. Something always comes up to stop my from jumping off the cliff and that is worth everything. I am lucky to even be where I am now, because given certain circumstances I know that I may not have even made it this far (interpret that as you will). I do not try and live in some fantasy world, I know that I need more than just a good work ethic to survive; I will need a bit or luck and a lot of support. I don't care about changing the world anymore, I want to make through this year and start planning for the next. I do not want to give up. Even when my depression hits the max or I can't stand people or when I can hear the exhaustion in my mothers voice I need to stay on my game...because honestly this dream and this work ethic are all I have.