Lisa Gerasimova, Pd 8, 5/4/22

Lisa Gerasimova

Pd 8

5/4/22

I’m just about finished. Goal setting. That’s funny. I don’t have any huge impactful goals that I’m working towards. It’s that time of the year where my biggest goal is to make it through the day. To make it through the monotonous and never ending week. To wake up and physically get up and keep going until I’m at school, then out of it. At work, then out of it. Finish my assignments, then finally go to sleep. Those aren’t the goals I tell myself that I have, some annoying, over-achieving part of me wants those goals to be re-writing a condensed version of my biology textbook or taking practice AP exams on the weekends or finally working up the nerve to call Yasha and schedule those stupid driving lessons already. Those are the goals I want to be working towards. And usually I make small, unnoticeable steps, but sometimes there is a gap in the monotony where inspiration and motivation converge and I can just do it. But lately, most of the time, it gets harder and harder to open my eyes in the morning.

This has all been weighing on me, and then today’s remind came in. “Replace ‘I don’t have time’ with ‘It’s not a priority’ and see how that feels”. I think I laughed out loud. EVERYTHING IS A PRIORITY! All of these things I know are important, but I have to choose one and neglect the rest. And the worst is when the one I choose is to wake up and work. Make your mental health a priority! Also comical, even funnier than the quote, actually, because that does not coincide with what I have to do. At some point, it is no longer about a mental health day. It is about sucking it up and doing what I have to and not relaxing for one second because if I do –if I taste the sweetness of relaxation– I realize how much I have missed it and it is debilitating. Resilience. It’s not the word I would use for what I display. I am more so living in a chaotic and surprisingly productive state of denial, but hey, usually I make it through the day and chip a small chunk off of the mountain that is my biology review. Whatever works, right?

And then there’s the rest of the world. Half of it has everything put together. They hand in their blogs on time and they have their license and they can participate in class without doubting every word and they know that 3+3 isn’t 9 (a real thing I wrote on a math quiz). We share an environment and they are thriving. And then there’s those that live in self-pity, or maybe they just have completely different priorities, but it seems like they allow themselves the simple pleasures over the long term benefits. They’ll skip school or classes when they don’t feel like going, they’ll miss work to hang out with friends without warning and leave me with their workload (27 3-6 year olds). And they’re also fine. So why am I struggling to just barely make it when it seems that to relax would leave me better off than I am? Why not just throw my hands up and be done with it all? Lean into impulsivity and comfort and what promises to make me happy when I can’t recall the last time I have been truly, unconditionally happy? Maybe the work ethic that’s been ingrained into me since I have been seven years old can keep me running even on a lack of will. Maybe it’s my ego that won’t let me fall into the group of people I have some sort of deep disdain for. Maybe it is the denial. Can all of that be called resilience? It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like the world keeps punching, landing every blow, and like an idiot I keep getting up only to be struck down over and over. But then again, as you like to say Ms. Fusaro, so far I’ve made it through 100% of my worst days. A small reassurance and a rather irritating saying, but it's truth can’t be ignored. And all of these small impulsive lies of happiness –just cry, feel bad for yourself, finally be done with it all!– are just that. Lies. Today I woke up, I went to school, I am going to work. And tomorrow, despite everything, I will do it all again.