The size of a paper

I'm here. Always.

Days are blurry, one ending, the other one starting, with the blink of an eye they pass, or sometimes it's an hour that feels like a day. It's the time of the year when nothing really matters. When lots of things lose their meaning - and others just get a meaning. Like being outside in the sun, reading a good book, or sometimes going to the supermarket is the highlight of your day.

It's a weird time, and I never thought it'd be like that when I started uni. I knew it would be hard, but this? I don't know. It's exam period; don't expect anything from me.

I get up at 6 am every morning. I get breakfast, put on a shirt and sweatpants, and go to my desk. I plan my day, which always looks the same. Studying from 6.30 to 6 or 7pm, units of 90 minutes, mostly six or seven of them.

Sometimes I go to the kitchen and get food. I surf the internet when I am having breaks. I listen to music. I write pointless texts to the few friends who actually care. It sounds boring, right? It is. Only my occasional meltdowns bring a bit of an action to these days, not that I would even want that. Crying drains you, and all the energy you could have spent for something important is just gone.

It's been like this for about 3 weeks, maybe a bit more, and now 2 are left. It's - a blur, you know, you get used to it, as sad and as handy it is.

If there weren't these thoughts. Everyday. All the time.

Will I make it? Am I good enough? What will happen if I don't pass? How will I manage all my retakes? What will my parents think of me? What will my friends think? I'm scared. I'm done. I'm alone. I'm tired. I'm lonely. I'm losing my mind.

No one really understands it, and not many people even care. They are like "Well, yeah, you're a student, and that's exam period, deal with it". They don't realize how your life can shrink to the size of the paper in front of you, the paper you are reading over and over again, hoping the words would finally make sense, find their way into your memory, so overload and aching as it is. All you see are the 10/20 points you want. The only thing that would make you happy is to pass enough exams to attend the next year. And what would break you down is not achieving that.

It's you and your room and nothing else, no one around you, away from home for over 4 weeks. How could you even think about anything else?

Most of the time I am annoying everybody because they don't get how important this is to me. What I am doing right now is all I ever wanted. I don't want to fail. I don't want to. I can't.

So every morning, this vaccuum comes back and surrounds me, so I'm trying to think of something to do in the free 2-3 hours in the evening, to cheer me up.  Like going for a run and watching a movie. Little things like that suddenly mean the world to you.

So I am just here counting days. Crossing them away with a red pen in my plan, approaching the day my parents will come and take me home. And even though these 2 weeks seem like an enternity, they will eventually just fade away in this blur, and then I'll at least have some weeks of rest until I need to study again.

But why am I complaining, right? This was my choice. The show must go on.