Sometimes I feel as if I have reached my breaking point. I feel I have been stretched so thin that I don’t even understand how I am making it through the motions of my day to day requirements, but somehow I manage to comprehend enough to close my eyes and wake up between one day to the next.
I am a senior this year. Technically a second year senior. This is my fifth year in college. I should be thrilled for my upcoming graduation date in 207 days (not that I am counting), and don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled. However, these last months, days and hours lead up to the inevitable list of questions: “What are you doing after graduation?” “Are you interning?” “Oh so you don’t know…” Yeah, I DON’T know. That shouldn’t be a problem. But it is.
This year has already been a whirlwind and when by me saying “this year” I mean two things. First, I mean broadly 2016, which is coming to a close. I spent spring semester (aka the first half of 2016) living, breathing, encompassing myself in the lifestyle of another place by studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic. It was fantastic. However, coming home was not. I went from a high to a low in literally a matter of a 12-hour plane ride. I came home to nothing. No job, no internship, no school. Just a typical California summer where you can only go to the same beach so many times or sit around a table and talk about your day so much that you start to go insane wondering when the next adventure will be. Second, I mean “this year” as in the school year. It’s the end of midterm season and I am curious where the time has gone, where it is going and can I get it back? I’ve been in my house at school since August and my room isn’t fully done being decorated. I’ve had so many crises with classes in the past two months and for next semester that I question if I will graduate. Everything continues to add and add to the stress of everything else, without leaving time and space to release the stress, making it impossible to ever feel ‘okay.’ This shouldn’t be a problem. But it feels like it is.
There is nothing wrong with not being ‘okay’ all the time. As a society, we have a social stigma that when we get asked “Hey, how are you?” the response should be something along the lines of, “I’m good, great, okay, fine, etc.” We have been trained by the media and society as a whole that telling someone, “You know, today I am not doing that great” or even just a simple “I am not okay” will make us be a burden to them, a bother, and make that person inevitably see us in a different way. It’s important to understand that we shouldn’t have to be ‘on’ at every moment of every day, and if I am having a bad da,y it is allowed, but that doesn’t mean it’s your fault, or anyone else’s. Sometimes, it just happens.
Just because I reach a breaking point, doesn’t mean I am incapable of putting myself back together and starting over. Not being ‘okay’ in a certain moment happens to many more people than is noticed. We should start embracing the conversation and recognizing the importance that not everyone is always okay; and that in itself is okay.
