i woke up at 4 this morning crying because i'd had a nightmare and i was afraid to go back to sleep but i didn't want to stay awake thinking about it. i want the kind of nightmares where you're being chased by a ravenous man-eating tiger or trapped in a labyrinth or something which you plainly can't believe even while you're dreaming it, only i never get that kind of dreams and can only imagine them. mine are always filled with real people in realistic situations and i am startled when i wake up that it wasn't really happening. in them people are arguing and miscommunicating and i always wake up crying with frustration at not getting myself across and with fear because those are the things i afraid to deal with, and mostly because i get so worked up emotionally. it has been a week now that i'm waking up in the middle of the night from dreams like these, which i haven't been for a while now.
this is happening, i have to conclude, in part because i've been reading ck's journal everyday and it only makes me think of myself, because all that she is going through now i know too well. and it reminds me of how i was and why i was that way. all of it, the bad dreams, the weepiness, the longing, the pain, the inability to sleep, the desperate need to distract, i know and empathise with her, but when she said, that she doesn't even want to do work, and
wants to do only what she wants to do, which is to sit ard doing nothing, i felt chilled, because that was me in april exactly.i've been in a bad state since november, and when i came back to school in january for two weeks after school started, i don't think any of my suitemates saw me. they knew i must be back, but no one had actually seen me. my door was always locked, i didn't go out even if i can hear all of them moving in and greeting each other and catching up in the living room, and i didn't go out even for meals. knowing they are all early sleepers i showered at 2 in the mornings and am back in my room before anyone sees me. my shades are down and one lightbulb glows from my desk, so i never knew if it were dark or light outside. mostly i was lying in bed crying. i don't think. if i start thinking, i can't cope. i have to keep going on. the way ck does it is to go out and socialise, fill up your life with as many things as possible, and face the emptiness afterwards when you're alone. it's the other way round for me, the more i try to go out and fill up my life the more unhappy i am, and i'm filled with a desire to escape back to my room and have some solitude. the most balanced parts of my social relationships are when i'm hanging out with grad students. they don't know me, or anything about me. they don't have to. i don't talk about singapore, my parents, my childhood or school life or love life, not about
me. only about the class, the professor, the school, ideas, things outside of me but which are of genuine interest to me, without having to touch the parts of me that are afraid.i'm surprised at how i turned out last semester. the english department went and gave me a scholarship for next year. are they mad or what. this is what i've been doing last semester: i haven't turned in a single paper on time. i miss every fourth class in both my english classes, and i haven't been to more than half of my greek classes. sometimes i don't go for a whole week at a stretch, and that class meets five times a week. the only reason i went to french was cos the TA said if i missed another class he'd give me an F immediately. i was surprised they didn't kick me out of echols, let alone give me money. i hope they know what they're doing. they probably don't.
it's nearly july now and i'm so fed up with everything because everything in me is left unspoken.
sometimes i want to ask, what has trying done for anyone? if you're weak, people try to help you. if you are strong, people leave you to struggle on yourself. for that matter, even when i was weak, sending out email after email about how i can't cope, i keep getting "you'll get over it" or worse "get over it, woman." in the end, i mostly shut up about it altogether. i wasn't any better, i just stopped talking about how bad i felt. if i go on people get fed up, or if i'm the same from day to day, i can't keep letting ppl worry nor can i manufacture answers to please them. so i stop talking abt it, i say it's okay.honestly? i feel much worse today than i was in april, march, february, january, december. i'm not better than i was, the only difference is that i've got good at going on with the rest of what i have to do in spite of it. i've got good at ignoring it as much as possible. people assume you're okay because you don't say you're not. that doesn't mean you really are though.it isn't just wearing on other people's patience or not worrying others. most of all i dun talk abt it. because if i think abt it or talk abt it or write abt it i start going to pieces. the moment my thoughts stray, the moment the first tears fall, i force myself not to think about it, and grit my teeth and go on. i have started crying again these nights. all i want to do is to let go and be as miserable as i want to be, only even now i don't. i'm starting to cry as i type this, but i wipe my eyes and say not now silly. last night i woke up homesick, homesick, here in my own bed. not homesick for school, but homesick just thinking abt going back to school and not wanting to go. i keep telling ck what she told me when i was - that one day we'll all be happy again and then what's all this, huh? it's not like i think i'll be like this forever you know? i will be okay again, in the long run. just that you can't get into the long run without first getting out of the short run, and it probably will kill me before that. and i want to talk about it freely and uninhibitedly like ck does in her journals, only i never do and i can't. i can't because if i even think about it again i go crazy. i can only chatter on petulantly like some carefree little bimbo about who i hung out with and what i ate and who said what when and what book i'd just read when what i want to talk about but don't is this pain, and i'm not going to start talking about it here or elsewhere now. if i face it i become an incapacitated babbling weepy idiot. so i don't deal with it becos i can't stand being so useless and helpless and pitiful, i'd rather just push it away and go on with life. i don't know what's wrong with me. i suppose this will pass. maybe i'm getting my period. this is what i always say when i get this way, and i could say it now. do what i always do: keep quiet, sooth it away, don't think about it, and then go on with the rest of it till the next time i get another attack of tears. but i know this time it's not so easy. because all this while it's so zhi biao bu zhi ben. because being home has shown me that it's there in ways i don't know, even though i've learnt not to think about it consciously, little things will make me uncomfortable and suddenly upset, like car licence plates or certain mrt stations and how i feel afraid to be alone in orchard, these things show me that it's there and not left behind. von says i must get angry and not be a bloody doormat. joel says i must talk about it and then get over it. the last thing i want to be is angry and i've been very good with not being angry and i don't want to come to terms with it, i don't want to think about it, i only want to forget it. you know the saying "chang tong bu ru duan tong"? sorry but i really rather not have the duan tong, because the duan tong will probably kill me right off. yen says, write about it, because when i do i'll be able to make sense of it and to take it out of me. ordinarily that would be the best advice anyone could give me but here's what scares me most, that i can't even write about it, because i can't think about it, and mostly because once it's in words it's easier to remember. incidents you forget eventually, once you put it in words, the exact phrase, the exact sentence, sneaks into your mind unexpectedly and hurt you, and you can't forget you'd read it either. above all i avoid putting it in words.
all i want to do, what i really, really, really want to do, is to lie in a bed, a narrow bed, and be held, and to cry, and not be afraid to cry, and not care about anything and to simply cry, and to go to sleep, and to wake up and cry more, and not have to do anything else.