So here’s the shindig.

I have no idea what I want to do. Not really. I like psychology, but then I like drawing as well. Doesn’t mean I’m good at them though. I’m too scared to pursue art or cooking or singing or writing or any of those unstable careers because I’m a wimp who grew up in a home where disappointments run amok and I never actually got around to getting a real spine for myself. Yes, Jellyfish Syndrome is within me; you just either have to look real hard past the whole Ice Bitch exterior or be incredibly well versed in people speak.

I like control. Who doesn’t? Apparently, it’s a drive that motivates almost everything for people. But my control is simple. I like to control what I know I can control, but I tend to let the rest slip. I can control my grammar and so I like perfect grammar. It doesn’t always come out that way, in fact it rarely does, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I can’t control other people’s lives so I don’t bother trying.

Interesting approach for a psychology student, huh?

Maybe that’s why I’m adamant about not becoming a clinical psychologist or counsellor. It’d mean trying to fix other people’s lives when I have way too much baggage in my own to give a damn. Or, more specifically, I’m just too wimpy to try to get involved. It does mean potential heartache and emotional turmoil. Thanks, been there, done that; try next door please. So, yes, people rarely ever come to me spilling their woes to me ever humble and empathetic ears. (You may note the self-deprecating sarcasm there.) Or perhaps it’s just that most of the people I know operate on the quid pro quo basis and since I don’t spill my secrets to them, they don’t spill their secrets to me. Who knows? I certainly don’t since I’ve basically condemned myself to hermit-hood all the way through my unconscious mind. Damn, if only Freud was still alive. I’d probably be able to get paid big bucks to be a case study of his. Although, I imagine it’d probably be traumatising for me to watch the little bearded man having a field day. Lord knows how he acts when he does. After all, he did come up with the Electra and Oedipus complex based on his observations of his own family life. Who knows what lurks in that mind of his?

Either way, I am floundering. Just... without the Picasso-two-eyes-on-one-side-of-my-head thing going on. (If you actually caught on to that admittedly lame joke, I will either congratulate you on your keen skills of observation and deduction, worry for your mental health since you’re obviously along the same wavelengths as me, or do both.) I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get through university and a job and life and come out fulfilled. This is probably Roger’s self-actualization tendency theory coming into play; because I’m getting some serious dissonance from my inability to understand what the fuck I want. Correction, I’m failing to get a spine. Perhaps I should borrow the stick to shove up my ass to give me more support? Or do I already fulfil that criterion by being a rather bitchy, uptight wench?

I wonder, if I had the ability to change my past, would I do it? Would it make any difference? Does my past and environment mould who I am? Or do I get to take the easy way out and blame it on my genes? Scary thing is, I don’t know what my “Ideal Self” is. It’s so far away; it’s like being back in chemistry class all over again. Nothing makes sense. And every time I think of it, I feel like my head’s been stuffed with cotton. Or perhaps it always has been and the MRI scans that I got not too long back was actually some other person’s that was accidentally mixed up.

Do I want a happily ever after? Fuck yeah. Do I think I have a glimmer of a chance to get that happily ever after? Let’s just say that I’ll have more luck winning the lottery six times in a row; do you know that I have such terrible luck at the lottery that I’ve never even been able to win a dollar out of it? When all three of my younger cousins have?

I don’t care what the fucking self-help books say. Think positive? Work towards it? Yeah, that works. It worked so well that I went through court cases with my bastard of a father fighting for my custody; that I was very nearly abandoned into the arms of shitface several times when my very own mother got into a fight with my stepfather, that I cowered in my room every time I heard screams and shouts and revelled (yes, revelled) in the day I was finally old enough to lock my room door. Why? Because locking the room door means less chances of having to wake up to two screaming adults demanding different things and with every ability to physically hurt a child a quarter of their age while they’re stuck in their little hissy fits.

Maybe... maybe I’ll end up giving up everything. Maybe I’ll leave home, cut all my ties with everyone and become a tramp. And the scary thing is, maybe I’ll actually enjoy myself. No obligations, no pretences to keep up; no nagging or yelling, nothing to remind me of everything that was me except a mirror. And that can be taken care of with a little scalpel and gauze. With or without the money behind it.

Sometimes, I honestly envy people who just. Don’t. Care. Who will go out in the rain and walk as much as they want just because they want to. (The last time I tried, I got weird looks from people in their snug little houses; like I was a madwoman who would pull out a knife at any time screaming bloody murder.)

If I could... I’d be a sponge. Nothing to worry about, nothing to think about. Just grab plankton and eat and grow and if you’re eaten, too damn bad. It helps that there’s no brain or people or bars to lock people in. It helps that gore and blood is so normal.

Yes. A sea sponge.