So it’s fitting for me to be in this sort of lifestyle: jobless and a bad speaker. It just makes perfect sense. No one did this but myself. So I try to rectify now.

When I rectify my problems, can I catch up to everyone ahead of me?

For me, these highly dangerous feelings involve complete inactivity toward my professional career. I’ve wondered whether it is the fear or the anxiety or the depression talking, but I think it’s safe to assume that these three create a snowball that become my triple threat to disorder. Think of these three dangers as a big shadowy monster who corners little old you. You are curled into a ball while taking sneak peeks at the monster in fear. You don’t want to look, but must. You want to see your monster to face it. You have that an inkling of desire, a necesscity, to fight it. You plan for it, but you’re too comfortable in that corner.

With that monster, I cannot advance professionally. I speak candidly when I write that I am a soft-spoken and incoherent speaker. When it comes to strangers (even co-workers), I cannot utter a word. It’s funny how I lose my words in front of others.

So this performance anxiety makes me question I am on the right path for my life and career. I want to become a scientist, but because I’m a poor public speaker and interpersonal communicator, this may not be the right time to follow in my dream. It seems that there is another goal I must overcome first: speak with others. In other words, I must know how to communicate.

And I must know how to perform. Performance is no easy feat for me. Try as I may with learning new material, I cannot bring myself to practice out loud. I’ve got a roommate and I’m to pathetically shy.

Here I am thus far. Do I continue to follow my dream, even if I don’t have the skills yet (public speaking, performance, etc.)? Or do I stay and do nothing?

I have a mental block that dissipates my thoughts into nothingness. When I think I’ve found the answer to something, an invisible mental block obstructs my thoughts. The block, as if a gentle entity, admonishes me for exploring more beneficial thoughts. Are these mental blocks my insecurities? Are my old insecurities keeping me in check? For instance, just last night I went to be early at 10pm, but I laid in bed with thoughts racing until 1am. I stayed up until 3am to calm my nerves. My anxious thoughts attempted to predict my tomorrows (and consequently, I fulfill them, such as not waking up on time for volunteer work).

I want that mental block gone. Go away so I can progress.

I think and think, but do less and less. I review and review, but to what effect? I write but with no intended audience in mind except myself. My words appeal to no one but myself (sometimes– if I can get over how elementary my sentence structures and choices are).

My mind has become lazy. I’ve thought enough, stressed enough, that I’ve shut down. I am on Pluto, afterall. Although I say I am doing well, my life just doesn’t show it. I sleep in the early mornings because I overthink. I feel my mind go numb as I attempt a task. I’m going through another existential crisis. The only way to alleviate that is to read my way out of it.

Still in a rut. So what do I do with myself?

You must be wondering where in the world I have been. In the real world, I am recovering from depression and discovering novel labels for myself. One of these labels is that I’m just as quixotic as I am naive. For example, I am fixated with the only career goal I’ve had since young: become a scientist. However, I did not clearly defined a strategy to achieve such a goal. As much as I blame depression, brain fog, low self-esteem, and selective mutism, I am a lousy human being. It’s as though I can’t live or function in this world. Though I blame myself for failing to assimilate with society, I blamed myself for not being even a tinge of confidence to carry out my dreams. It is in my lack of self-love that I escaped into idealism. I trusted the ideal beauty of my goal, but failed to realize the work and grit required to become a scientist.

Dammit. There I go again–getting all negative and annoying myself and you.

As for the job update, I’m still looking for a job. My fears are bigger: no one will hire me because, well, I’m just unattractive and not smart (GPA-wise).

“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

– William Ernest Henley, “Invictus”

I was crushed. Here, they will judge me by my GPA. Here, all my hard work in this laboratory will be washed away by my failure of a GPA.

I am frantic. And I want to die. I have no pride left.

They ask because they already know. They are ready to throw me out. They already look at me smugly and hope I’d get away from them. I can’t because this is my passion, but I must because I am not the model student.

What can I do to improve my GPA now that I’ve graduated?

What can I do to prove I want to be a researcher?

I can only focus on the present: practice speaking in speech club, reading more research article, and have a little more confidence than yesterday.

But doing all this, is this truly enough?

I think my life is about to end.

Before he answered, I asked him if we were friends with benefits. At this point, I lifted my head and looked at him.

He spoke quietly, again, to match the volume of my voice. It’s a gentle feeling and it doesn’t scare me. (I’m usually scared when people raise their voices at me. I’m still learning to register loud voices as voices rather than attacks.)

He said that we are friends, but not necessarily friends with benefits. To put it simply, we are friends but we are exploring. And he likes me. He thinks I’m interesting. And he’s sure that I like him too. Then he asked about my feelings.

To me, he is someone. And he adds a qualifier that he must be someone special. I told him yes. I couldn’t look him in the eye for a few minutes. When I did look into his eyes, I could only smile.

Then he held me for a long time afterward.

Honestly, this sounds like something from a cheesy romance novel (I do not read these. Rom-com films yes, books—no). I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Nor have I ever told any of my good friends about him. I keep it all to myself. I am so private that people think I’m conceited most of the time. But I am just afraid of being vulnerable and being made fun of.

I do not know where our relationship stands. Even if he says we are friends exploring each other, isn’t it the same as friends with benefits?

I won’t think about the friends with benefits concept. I like his idea about exploring. It’s a careful way of looking at our relationship and it is perhaps a good way to trick me. This is only temporary and I can’t ask for more.