Some people may've spent their day helping the world move one step closer to curing cancer, some may've learnt about how the world came about, I however, at the ripe old age of 20, learnt that my lip genuinely quivers when I try to stop myself from crying. Who's winning here? Probably not me.
I swear this time I am not being dramatic. This is not like the time I turned my phone off for three days to avoid telling someone that I didn't "feel the same way", or that time I was unable to get out of bed because the aftermath of finishing reading the Twilight books and facing up to the crippling reality that I would never find a sparkly vampire who would rather die than be without me, was all too much. This time I am in super serious existential trouble.
The kind of trouble that makes you want to call your mum and sob down the phone to her for a while, before realising that perhaps you should've opened with the line: "I'm about to start crying, but it's not because I'm pregnant". But I digress, for I have found myself in a completely unforeseen predicament (that does not involve a pregnancy). Upon meeting my new dissertation supervisor for the first time, I was told that the way I write does not flow, and needs a lot of work. Ok, so this may not seem like a big deal, but for me, the world ended. I instantly felt like throwing up and crying all at the same time - kind of like a drunk first year who's still having the time of their life because they have not had their life's work crapped on.
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| It was extremely difficult not to do this while I was still in her office |
I'm trying to describe this in a way that is not pompously egotistical, which I'm realising now is kind of difficult, but the simplest way to put it is like this: in school, some people excel in sports, some excel in music, I somehow, was rather gifted at writing essays. It's like a party trick but more boring. Throughout school, college and about 60% of university I was led to believe I could write essays; just last week I was told that academically, I write 'really very well'. And considering this new supervisor was reading the same piece of work, I have to question what happened. Did my choice of words insult her? She circled the word 'sound' rather vigorously which makes me wonder if there's something deeper going on. I also noticed (while concentrating on a spot on her desk so as to try to stop myself projectile vomiting), that there were no personal touches - is this woman even who she says she is? Is she an impostor who showed up to stomp on the dreams of final year students who are only just starting to figure things out?
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| I am insinuating nothing... |
Who can be sure? But she definitely doesn't think I can write. Or I can, but it makes absolutely no sense when I do. And it would appear that I have attached so much of my self worth onto the knowledge that I can write, that I now feel as though my life purpose has been struck from me. Kind of like how Troy felt in High School Musical 3 when Gabriella went off to Standford without him. *Starts humming the tune of 'Right Here, Right Now'*. Obviously, he fixed that by stalking her to her college and dancing with her under a tree, but I don't think that would work in quite the same way for me.
When life tragedies such as these occur, I find immense comfort in the words Katy Perry spoke to me (and about twenty-thousand other people) this past summer: "whatever you're going through, just know that Katy Perry goes through crap too".
But for real you guys, I am dealing with this just fine.
~ Eleanor xo
