the_quiet_shout

I feel lightheaded and rather cheerful, possibly because I just emailed my course leader saying how unhappy and unfocussed I've been all this year, and I want the opportunity to redo second year completely, or drop out entirely. I love making decisions.

I do still have to do the exam today, though, since I'm not going to get a reply in time. Boo.

Exams start today. My revision has been unfocused, and nothing will stick in my brain. There was a brief breakthrough moment where I drank four cups of coffee and everything seemed to make perfect, sparkling, caffeinated sense, but as soon as the cappuccino low hit, I'm back to where I started (or further back, it seems). This morning I have been reading over my revision notes for T&L, but not a lot of it is going in since I am mostly rocking and crying and drinking even more coffee.

Conversations with the boyfriend are not helping. He's not online until half eleven, and I feel I should talk to him, although at that point I also feel like I should take a hundred sleeping pills and have a decent night of rest. The conversations aren't enough of a distraction from revision, and they're no comfort that things with him are going better, so I've emailed him this morning saying I don't think we should speak for this week. It would be nice if he sent me texts during the day, or something before the evening, when there is a chance that I am awake/unstressed enough to actually hold a conversation. Most of me is saying "no, you know what, you tried. You tried for months, and look what good that did? It isn't your turn now. Now let's go DRINK MORE COFFEE".

The dreams don't help. A very detailed dream yesterday - most of it sucked, but I dreamt a part where a friend from home (hullo, Nat) sent me a comforting letter with a teabag and small pack of sugar in. The emergency tea kit! Somehow, the envelope also managed to contain several self-help books, but I didn't get a chance to read them in my sleep, because then I had to go to the roof garden and speak to someone else.. it made sense at the time. Then again, last night I dreamt I was in the final four on Over The Rainbow and Simon Cowell said I wasn't putting enough emotion into it and then kept offering me cigarettes.

My dad rang yesterday to see how I was. I think I spent most of the phone call doing that little squeaky voice that is on the edge of tears. He sent me an email saying it didn't matter how well the exams went, he was still proud of me anyway. That set me off again. GOOD GOD. I need to man up and stop leaking from the eyes. And also drink more coffee.

We will count that visit as going well if we're using the following definitions of going well: 

• Crying. A lot. Mostly me, once him.
• Being incredibly irritable. All me.
• Thinking I've made a bad decision.
• Knowing I've made a bad decision.
• Having noisy sex that my flatmate did not want to overhear.

Standard definitions, right? 

Other news, revision going badly. Am mostly choosing to ignore it, as everything I learn is forgotten in fourteen point four seconds anyway.

Back up in S-town, the only place where I could nip out to the shops wearing pyjama bottoms and my ex's hoody and not feel judged. The plan for this evening: 

Coffee. Paracetemol. Trousers that are not covered in ink. Fake date night with G, comprising cinema and a meal.

The ex sent me a text last night, asking how things were going. Funny how he only does that when he knows (through the gossip grapevine, and I know exactly who it is) things aren't great. Didn't reply.

"Break up with him. Shag your way around the country." 
"I don't have the money for travel. Or condoms." 
"Make them provide the contraceptives, and empty their wallets on the way out." 
"Alright, but I'm not sleeping with anyone from Essex." 
"Why?"
"If I don't leave some limits, that makes me a slut." 
"Fair point." 

I attempted to break up with the boyfriend last night. It went badly in that I didn't entirely manage it. When I rehearsed conversations in my head, they were a lot easier. Mostly because I was doing all the talking on both sides. In the real world, we were circling the thing until four in the morning.

It's a choice between staying with him and knowing he doesn't love me as I love him, that he could slip and land on someone else's mouth at any moment, and might lie to me about it afterwards OR breaking up with him and not speaking to him for a while. The latter has three possible diversions - the first, we end up friends, and I always wonder whether I made the right decision. The second, we get back together, while I am fully conscious that he's probably shagged his way across the entirety of the south west in the interim, and that's hardly going to help. The third, we never speak again.

I don't know which I prefer.

Songs that are tugging on the relevant heartstrings at this moment in time: 

Gregory & The Hawk - A Wish/The Bolder Thing To Do
Mountain Goats - This Year