Failing Physics

It just seems like one of those awfully, odd days where you want to go and hide under a rock. But the only problem is that you can’t find a rock big enough to hide you. You feel exposed like everyone is seeing into your soul.

Interacting with anyone of any species seems like a burden. You feel like you’re in a zoo, and everyone else is human and you’re the only animal. No matter how hard you try you can’t disguise yourself. You’re scared that they’ll find out that you’re the only normal one.

I’m standing in front of the chemistry department in the huge line. The Asian girl with glasses in the front asks me how I did on the physics exam. I blankly stare at her.

Do I even know you? The thought passes my mind. She flashes me a smile, and I unconsciously do the same.

“Amazing” I lie to her. Twenty-four out of a hundred. I think my professor pitied me, so he gave me a whopping 20 points. Maybe he was too ashamed to give me a four. The exam wasn’t hard. I just blanked out. The sentences on the paper weren’t making sense to me. It was like all the letters were jumbled together and they were dancing on the paper. I tried to focus, but my eyes refused to reconcile with my brain. My hands were shaking, and I was trying so hard to concentrate, but the anxiety bubbling inside of me was spilling through my limbs. The walls were starting to close in on me, and I needed to leave the room and that’s exactly what I did. I wrote whatever popped into my mind on that exam paper and ran out of the class as fast as I could.

She looks at me in awe and smiles. “How do you study”? Her voice is cracking. I have the strong urge where I want to hug her and cry into her arms.

We’re both on the same boat girl.

“I got above average.” she sighs. Above average, you’re kidding me right. My sympathy for her vanishes, and I have that strong urge where I want to hang her. I could easily blame it on gravity-It pulled her down. She asks me more questions, and I answer them like a school child being scolded by a strict teacher. When she turns around I slip away from the huge line and run for the library. The b-2 floor. It’s stranded and empty. It’s the perfect place to plan a murder, or even to carry out one.

I slip in between the shelves, in the back and make myself as small as possible.

There’s still the final. The thought is comforting, but it doesn’t linger long enough. I find myself thinking about dropping out.

But it’s not the end of the world.

Well, maybe it is.

But you studied so hard and you knew all the answers then why didn’t you answer them?

Because you’re an idiot.

The thoughts are starting to haunt me, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to jam them back in my mind. I’m scared the pulsing headache will come back with shit loads of anxiety. I’m scared I’ll have a panic attack and go into my leave-me-alone mode.

So, I whip out my notebook with the doodles on the cover, and I write whatever comes to my mind. Poems, short stories, and every thought that is hovering in my head.

I’m late for my biochem class, but it doesn’t matter.

You’ll fail biochem too. The thought pops into my mind, but I force it back inside, where all my other pessimistic thoughts are gathered. Sometimes these thoughts find a small passage and they flow through, but I have to fight them, to keep them locked up inside. Most of my energy is wasted here- in these battles I’m fighting in my head. How possibly can I focus on anything else when my mind is a battlefield, and I’m fighting the girl looking back at me through the mirror.

But there’s hope. There is always hope. There has to be. Sometimes my hope vanishes beneath these taunting thoughts, but it always finds a way to the surface. It always rises, and I rise with it.

I can do this. How? I don’t know. But I can, and I will. The greatest victories start with will. Don’t they?

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