In Continuum.

A Failure

What came over me last night at 3am was something I haven't really felt in two years. I felt like a complete and utter failure, just eating me up from the inside. It's been too long since I felt that kind of sensation, and the worst part was I didn't even have anybody to tell it to at that moment. Sleeping seemed to be the only way to evade that fear of mine, and as much as it is a form of relief I hated that sense of escapism in me. After all, I have been running away for way too long, and the fact that I have seems to have taken a toll on myself.

A friend of mine was talking to me online just last night, and she - like myself - did not do exactly well for her A levels either. So I asked where she is studying now, and she revealed to me that she actually is waiting for the results to come out. If I am not wrong, this is the second or the third time she is attempting the big As, and I asked where she might be going after this, since she predicted that her results will not have a drastic difference from the previous attempts anyway. Instead of telling me where she intends to go, she told me where she didn't want to go, and straight up she told me that she's never going to head for SIM or MDIS, or any other such universities in Singapore. When I asked why, she simply replied," Because I have pride."

That really hurt my feelings in a way, and in a way my own pride. Do I not have pride in myself? If I don't have I wouldn't even have been rolling around in bed all night just thinking about the same question and fear over and over again. A man without pride would probably just curse the heavens and then be done with that, but I didn't do that, but merely myself for screwing things up. So why do you put me down like that, do I not have pride? Do I not have respect for even myself?

I wonder what came over me when I was in school, and I wonder if I am able to bring myself back to that time, I am able to do at least mildly better from the results that I obtained. The worst kind of results seem to be the kind that doesn't allow you to be retained, but at the same time not good enough to advance anywhere either. So you are in a way stuck, and though people have suggested that I go to a course that requires lesser score, and then change your course after the first year, I simply told them that I have already wasted two years of my life serving the nation, and I am not going to waste another on a subject that I hate, because studying for one useless combination of subjects in JC was enough for me to destroy my own self-esteem.

It doesn't feel good to be incapable of grades, especially when we all live in a society that depends so much on it. There is this eagerness for me to get a job, to live a life and to do so many things the adults are doing, but before that there is always the last hurdle of education, and that hurdle doesn't seem to allow me to pull through, because they rejected me wholeheartedly in the first place. The problem really is that I have pushed back this problem ever since the day I received my results, that February afternoon almost two years ago. I remember that look on Nirmala's face, the way she handed me my result slip and then went "Well done", when all she wanted to say to me was "You are fucked". I think if she said that, I might have felt better, save the sarcasm and mockery.

With two years ahead of me, with outfields and the army in mind, I didn't place too much emphasis on my educational life - or rather, what's left of it. I mean, instead of worrying about something coming up in the next two years, why not just live life as usual and worry later? That was the mistake that I committed, and as a person I am always built to regret everything, as much as I hate to do so. So I have been escaping the idea of me being an utter failure for the past two years, evading the thought that my future is screwed by my own hands, and the worst part was nobody really came up to tell me that I am fucked for life because I decided to be lazy for two whole years in JC. At least if my parents came up to me and told me those things, I might have felt that something is really wrong, and that they are with me in this whole mess, at least it would've been more comforting to know that they are by my side. But they never told me such things, never looked at me with stern eyes or, gave me talks to tell me that I am a failure to them. Sure, they might not think that way but, in a way I kind of hope that they should have.

Accumulation of such evasive self caught up with me last night, and it suddenly occurred to me just how big a failure I am. When you have given yourself so much confidence over the two years because of other things, the old pain catches up on you and pulls you down, and that's the most painful fall you can get - a fall from the highest peaks of your own confidence. I placed that fear to rest, swept it under the rug and never thought much about it. But now that I am back in reality, the rug is then lifted and before me is the truth, and once again I am forced to witness my own destruction. And when it has been gathered there for that period of time, it crashes back on you like a giant wave, and you find yourself under the blanket of darkness gasping for air. That is what I felt like last night, suffocating under the sheets with my eyes wide opened, unable to sleep or weep, just stunned and numbed.

The feeling of disappointment in myself was bad enough, and then I had to imagine the sense of disappointment others must have in me. I'm sure my parents never intended me to be in this state, no one wants their children to be stuck in the middle. I feel like I have let everybody who ever believed in me down, even you my dearest for some odd reason. But I guess in this state of mind I refuse to be rational or logical, and prefer to be submerged in the state of demoralization. To be honest, at least there is somebody in this world who's reminding me that the situation is not looking good - myself.

As much as I want to work around this problem, as much as I want this to be resolve, I never expected or pictured myself to be a person who works around problems. As in, whatever happened to my goals? Whatever happened to achieving them? Why do I always have to work around a problem and get used to a situation I shouldn't even be happy in? Why should I succumb to my fate, the fact that I fucked my A levels up and live with it? I don't want my life to be a series of roundabouts, detours and whatnot. As much as I want to pick myself up and begin again, it is hard for me to acknowledge the fact that I have failed, and that I have to work around that failure to move on. Life does not go on for me like that, knowing that I merely gotten used to the problem, and not exactly solving it and finding alternatives. It just makes me feel even more like a complete loser, in a way. It's like this beggar on the streets getting used to the fact that he is homeless and poor, what kind of life is that?

Suicidal thoughts are coming back again. I kept picturing myself falling off the edge of my balcony, the sensation as I surge through the air and eventually hitting the ground, creating a vibrant display of splattering blood. Or being dragged along by a bus and hitting lamp posts as my body gets ripped apart into shreds of flesh, banging my head against the wall or cutting myself in the wrist. I felt like doing all those things as I was in bed, and as much as suicides are condemned I think I do understand them from a perspective. It is much easier to die than to live, that is the truth. Life ends in a second, but a LIFE takes a lifetime. Those thoughts came bouncing off the roofs of my skull yesterday night, seeing myself with blood all over the place, with that sense of release was kind of disturbing but to be honest, quite a relief.

But I am never meant to be this weak, not meant to be somebody succumbing to my own failure. I know, but what else can I do about it? Perhaps this pessimistic thought is a temporary thing, that soon enough I am going to brace myself for the situation and go chest to chest with it. But for now, this sinking sensation is dragging me ever downwards, and like before, I no longer know what I am holding on to in life anymore.