Ouch (RANT)

I've been saying that too often in my mind. Why is it that I can't feel true...success anymore? I haven't felt so hopeless in a subject since Algebra II. I thought that feeling would go away once I started thinking...truly thinking for myself. I thought I was turning over a brand new page from all of those nightmare math days of middle school. I guess I am, because....I hate to jinx myself, but math probably isn't my biggest worry right now. I probably failed my test today, but I feel like that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Who knew chemistry would be so hard? I mean, why did I tell myself I'd let myself be a pharmacist in the future if I'd have to see this sort of stuff every day? It's not fun, yet. I say that because I used to say that about math, and now math is fun.

I swear...I don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself anymore.

Perhaps I wouldn't care if I weren't in it so deep already. Perhaps I could just...go back to my middle school self. I was the girl who got B's in math. I seriously only got two A's in math my entire middle school career. I wasn't so competitive and demanding back then. I didn't care if I had two B's. That was fine with me. Perfectly fine.

Now, I demand straight A's, and I've gotten used to it. I even enjoy it, now, even if I need to be a lonely person in order to have such a goal. The world seems to make me soft.

I don't hang out with the most studious people all of the time. They frightened me and made me fear for my own sanity and self. I know I'll never be the smartest person. It wasn't their fault. I just...wasn't that sort of person.

Gosh, I feel like Holden Caulfield. That book hurt me more than it helped me, I think. Before reading it, I just listened to the melodic words and voices that meshed into poetry and whatever else I needed to keep my optimism. Now I hear his stupid, grammatically deficient voice in my head whenever I'm not feeling great about myself. It becomes my voice, and I hate that. What happened to the eloquent self that had existed before then? I can still call little white flowers midnight stars that remained pinned to the ivy when the canvas of night tore away from the empty sky, but those things aren't what my mind drinks anymore. Now it's demands that drown me day in and day out.

I swore to myself I would stay in this and get it done right. It seems all right. It seems okay. I'm competitive, right? I can do IB and get it done well.

The sad thing is, my competitive spirit just died. I'm being pulled down because I'm told that I CAN'T do this, that I'm not able to do this. I'm told that I can't do it right unless I let go of the thing that allows me to succeed. Of course, they don't know that. They pulled the plug on me. There's old water gathering around my toes: the spills that I've prevented for the past three years.

Seriously, IB's fun, but I need my sanity. I need people who are nice, accepting, and yet studious at the same time. I love letting my guard down more than I love being around studious people, but I need someone who will let me let my guard down without pulling other parts of me down as well.

Too bad, though. I'm stubborn as ever. I'll stay in this until I'm on the edge of the cliff. Even then, I'll cling to a tree. It'll be the story of my high school career.

I guess that's the part of IB that I'm missing. I sit at the seminar, and I feel like I don't know anyone around me anymore. There's no family in here. No one even tries to talk to me. They don't have to, but that's the whole point, isn't it? I don't make sense to them. I'm but a shadow in their lives that they step on when they walk, as I step on their shadows swiftly and silently. We're on our way. I'm just walking too fast and using the same road twice before I know what I'm doing. That's the way it's always been.

Is this how they eliminate people? The lone wolf doesn't do well, after all. I don't want to be the first to go, though. I just need...someone. I wish I didn't say that, but then, as Holden would insert, who the hell is reading this anyway?