It has been a while.
I've been shut up indoors studying for my CFA Level 1 exam which I took on Saturday. I don't think I passed, but... well, that is that.
When I went to my Doctor a few weeks ago to ask for more pills, he said it was so sad that I spent my weekends in bed. At my age, I should be out enjoying life.
Oh. I feel like I have regressed so much. The darkness hanging over me, my heart smothered by the black clouds. Just like the old days, the old days from years, months, weeks ago.
The exam was the culmination of everything I had worked for and had dreams and nightmares about since January.
I took two weeks off work before the exam and made the terrible mistake of studying with Theo, day in, day out in the British Library.
I shouldn't have done it.
We had long lunches and tea breaks, talking like the good friends we are. And when the sun blessed us with scorching weather last week, we had a picnic in Regents Park, ate ice cream, walked through the beautiful English flowers,
felt like a couple
excpet we didn't hold hands, didn't touch, didn't kiss,
I wanted someone to love and look after so badly. I bought him medicine for his cold. I bought him teas and cakes. I gave him my notes and books. I calmed him down when he got mad. I paid for him to stay in a hotel with me by the exam centre the night before.
I did it because I wanted more, I thought that after the exam we could make it work.
I thought that we'd return to the room as lovers.
He went home. I cried all the way on the tube. I couldn't hold back all the pain. I saw the sadness in his eyes, but I also saw that he didn't understand.
I had imagined we'd drink and laugh and fall together now that everything was over, and it wasn't the case. Instead of the fun I'd looked forward to for so long, I cried continuously from boarding the tube at 6pm to going to sleep at 11pm. Hellish home. Hellish room.
We spent a wonderful two weeks studying together and now he will not reply to my messages or answer my calls. Now the exam is over, he doesn't want to know me.
Why am I not good enough for him? Why am I not enough?
I shake my head in shame. I am a strong feminist in a world of men in suits, and yet I want to care for and look after a man I love so much.
Three weeks ago I asked to meet the head of the department I want to join at work. I sat before him and told him that I needed to know if he was going to interview me again or not. I told him that I'd only stayed on at the company for the last six months because I wanted the job in his department, I also told him that I needed to know if I was staying on for anything or not.
He wants to interview me.
I've been sending him the work I've been doing, he's seen me in the office at the crack of dawn studying, on the Bloomberg terminal researching. I know he admires my ambition and my hard work and I know he wants to interview me.
"It's not my decision," he said. "I have to ask your boss. If he doesn't want you to move, then I can't interview you." I nodded. They know that if I don't get the job in the other department that I'm leaving the company.
I go back to work on Wednesday and I will find out if everything I have worked for for the last six months has been a waste or if they are going to give me a chance to shine.
The fear makes me sick.
I cannot bear the thought of not making it.
Depression never leaves you. All it takes is a little chill. Sinking under.
Saturday 2nd June had been in my diary for months as the make or break day. I broke.
Why the hell can't I be happy.
I've been shut up indoors studying for my CFA Level 1 exam which I took on Saturday. I don't think I passed, but... well, that is that.
When I went to my Doctor a few weeks ago to ask for more pills, he said it was so sad that I spent my weekends in bed. At my age, I should be out enjoying life.
Oh. I feel like I have regressed so much. The darkness hanging over me, my heart smothered by the black clouds. Just like the old days, the old days from years, months, weeks ago.
The exam was the culmination of everything I had worked for and had dreams and nightmares about since January.
I took two weeks off work before the exam and made the terrible mistake of studying with Theo, day in, day out in the British Library.
I shouldn't have done it.
We had long lunches and tea breaks, talking like the good friends we are. And when the sun blessed us with scorching weather last week, we had a picnic in Regents Park, ate ice cream, walked through the beautiful English flowers,
felt like a couple
excpet we didn't hold hands, didn't touch, didn't kiss,
I wanted someone to love and look after so badly. I bought him medicine for his cold. I bought him teas and cakes. I gave him my notes and books. I calmed him down when he got mad. I paid for him to stay in a hotel with me by the exam centre the night before.
I did it because I wanted more, I thought that after the exam we could make it work.
I thought that we'd return to the room as lovers.
He went home. I cried all the way on the tube. I couldn't hold back all the pain. I saw the sadness in his eyes, but I also saw that he didn't understand.
I had imagined we'd drink and laugh and fall together now that everything was over, and it wasn't the case. Instead of the fun I'd looked forward to for so long, I cried continuously from boarding the tube at 6pm to going to sleep at 11pm. Hellish home. Hellish room.
We spent a wonderful two weeks studying together and now he will not reply to my messages or answer my calls. Now the exam is over, he doesn't want to know me.
Why am I not good enough for him? Why am I not enough?
I shake my head in shame. I am a strong feminist in a world of men in suits, and yet I want to care for and look after a man I love so much.
Three weeks ago I asked to meet the head of the department I want to join at work. I sat before him and told him that I needed to know if he was going to interview me again or not. I told him that I'd only stayed on at the company for the last six months because I wanted the job in his department, I also told him that I needed to know if I was staying on for anything or not.
He wants to interview me.
I've been sending him the work I've been doing, he's seen me in the office at the crack of dawn studying, on the Bloomberg terminal researching. I know he admires my ambition and my hard work and I know he wants to interview me.
"It's not my decision," he said. "I have to ask your boss. If he doesn't want you to move, then I can't interview you." I nodded. They know that if I don't get the job in the other department that I'm leaving the company.
I go back to work on Wednesday and I will find out if everything I have worked for for the last six months has been a waste or if they are going to give me a chance to shine.
The fear makes me sick.
I cannot bear the thought of not making it.
Depression never leaves you. All it takes is a little chill. Sinking under.
Saturday 2nd June had been in my diary for months as the make or break day. I broke.
Why the hell can't I be happy.
Ohhh that is so awful. I really hope you at the very least get the job! Life is so hard on you, and I don't understand Theo's behaviour at all!! How can he be so hot and cold to someone so wonderful like you!? I hope you feel much better soon. Take care xX
ReplyDeleteI've been following your blog for ages now, and everything you write seems to mirror things I've myself experienced, felt, lived through during that time in a way that's almost eerie.
ReplyDeleteIt's why I keep coming back, of course, to feel that I'm not alone in any of this, and at the same time I weep for us, and for the realization that millions of similar stories are unfolding untold and unseen in a thousand places and iterations all around us.
The situation with Theo, the exam, the conflicting impulses towards creativity, ambition, independence, love, the eternal struggle to break free from depression and the crushing realization after every new attempt that the shackles were never really gone, one just managed not to feel them for a while...
I know it all so well, and after 24 years of breathing and searching for a solution I don't know how to hope for salvation anymore.
Still, reading this, I wish so badly for you to find that possibility of sustainable happiness at last, just as I desperately wish it for myself.
And I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts on this blog and making all of us anonymous readers in similar predicaments feel less forsaken.
Boys are stupid and they smell funny. That's what I tell myself anyway, when they act like f*cktards.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting ready to study for my CPA, aaaahhhh! So much work, too much info to cram into my squishy little brain. Good luck, good luck, good luck!
Stay strong and remember that you are beautiful :)
god i hope it turned out well! i am sure it did. Ophelia, i wonder if you would agree that the more we grow up the more demands seem to be added to our list of perfection. And if the ED fades for a while, its seems like one has chopped off a dragon head - just to find out that five new onse have grown back in its place...
ReplyDeletekeep going, keep striving as we no other choice anyway
Love,
Loulou