I'm usually a little reserved but I'll try to write to express this time. I'm giving myself half an hour. A little drunk on melancholy and a feeling of helplessness. Possibly the exam season moodiness, possibly the culmination of a lot of small things. I know that I shy away, I hide, I express things that have hidden edges. I understand. But it doesn't make the doubt go away, and it doesn't hurt any less, that distance. I know I said I wanted to write about happy little things. But I need this out now, so sorry. I need to put it into writing so it doesn't remain nameless.

There are many things bothering me now. The most pressing being the exams. I don't often put so much effort into exams. It feels like there is so much riding on this one, though. My parents' money, my dad's trust, people I got to know, life in Hobart? So much is going to change if I fail. I don't know if I could get up again after that, for a long time. I know I've slacked off for most of the year, and I haven't done all I can on assignments, getting advice from seniors on how I should do them and stuff. As a result I haven't gotten very good marks on them. I also haven't studied as hard as I could, procrastinating for the most part. It's mostly my fault. The responsibility seems to weigh so much now, now that so much hangs in the balance. The blame.

It doesn't help that I'm not playing as well as I could in ultimate, nowadays. I've injured my shoulder a little, and I keep doing it again and again. Nothing serious, but combined with that change in grip and throwing methods, everything is a mess. The only thing that remains is my catching, but then I'm not sure about that in the wind either, when my fingers are numb and stiff and move like they're holding an invisible stress ball when I want to catch the disc. I guess the shoulder injury and the grip change, and the resultant performance are a good analogy for things that I'm trying to do now, have been trying to do this year.

Especially socially, I tried first to do things the way an outgoing, outspoken person would. This just made me crash. I'd fail to talk to some people, or talk to some people and not be able to go beyond 3 exchanges in a conversation. I'd talk for a long time and still be dodging their eyes. It was just really scary. Till now I don't understand why this is the case. I'm fine now, I can look into most people's eyes and smile most of the time. But some days, that fear and anxiety and self-consciousness comes back and I don't know why. I fail to provide hugs or comfort when they're needed. I manage to piss off the people close to me, and I haven't talked to Claudia for most of the year now. I handled the electricity bill split badly, and didn't manage to stop a huge argument between my housemates. I think when it happened, I sort of gave up on trying to get to know people, and I just fell into myself. Which actually worked better than expected, falling landed me in places where I was most comfortable. Even so, even now, my lack of ability socially and academically still manages to annoy people, or distance them. Sometimes I think that if I get close enough to someone, all that's going to happen is that they're going to see that there's not much I can do, not much I can help with, not much I can be when I'm with them. I'm a dead end. Even the kindest people. So I distance myself. I don't know. This is a horrible cycle and this is a much more straight post than I expected.

Half an hour is up. I guess now that that's been written, I can leave it to mull. I guess all I can do is stick around.