growth

this is not a sad post!

5:31 pm, Thursday 31 August. I should probably be doing some maths revision while I wait for my physics lecture to commence seeing as the test is on Wednesday but I’m not in the mood for that. I’ve come to the realisation that I always write Substack posts or diary entries when I am in a particular yet indescribable melancholy, mostly inspired by loneliness and my concerning tendency to overthink and people-please.

But today is not one of those days.

For once, I am in the happiest state I’ve been in for months and I feel like I’m walking on air. I was particularly stressing for this day during the week. I had an interview for a leadership position for which I am incredibly passionate and would feel devastated if I weren’t to be selected. I had to give a French oral presentation in front of my whole class and I didn’t prepare my speech until midnight the night before. Not very efficient on my part, I’m aware. I also didn’t prepare for my leadership interview until the hour before out of stress for my presentation. But I digress, my immense stress from this week is not the principal theme of this post.

With all that buildup, I wanted to say that all the things I was stressed about could not have gone any better. My interview went great and I found out I succeeded in obtaining the position mere hours later. My French presentation wasn’t horrible and I don’t think I failed miserably. I was quite productive with what I wanted to get done today and in about 15 minutes from writing this, I have an external physics lecture I’m attending online that is very relevant to my revision.

If I take a more holistic approach on my life at this moment, I am in a far more different place now than when the year started. At the start of the year, I was nervous for the start of my senior education, I felt neglected by the friend group I had only been a part of for a few months, and I felt unfulfilled.

But, oh, if she only knew.

I decided to drift away from said friend group and join a new one. I’ve only been here a few weeks, maybe a month, but I already feel more safe and included. I don’t feel as if I have to prove myself to get them to like me. I don’t feel like I’ve missed several years of friendship lore and that I was an outsider for such. Plus, I’ve been able to express myself in a way that feels unique and strange to me.

But sometimes I can still feel myself reverting to old, familiar patterns. Sometimes I feel myself getting attached to my close friend in the same way I did to my ex-friend in a way that hurt my self-worth. Sometimes I think a little too hard about trivial things. Sometimes I feel a little too heartbroken over marks I didn’t quite want, and sometimes I feel myself suppressing my emotions until they eat me alive.

While circumstances have changed drastically for me and sometimes I feel like a completely different person but it’s still hard to understand that. I don’t feel more mature or braver or new. I still feel like the girl who went through gruelling friendship drama or the girl who was excluded and neglected from too many friendship groups to count or the girl who cares too much about everything.

Maybe because I still am her. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. I’m just a mirage of current and past selves smushed together and sometimes the voice in my head is me now or the scared little girl who cares more than she should.