I set new words unto an old refrain.

"Life goes on, within you and without you."
The Beatles

It is truly a devastating moment when you realise, that no matter how hard you try, you will never live up to other people's expectations. The more rational person would say that you should not live your life trying to please other people, that you should live for your own happiness. I'd like to consider myself a rational person and I would say that it really is not easy to shrug off other people's opinions. I could care less about what people think of the clothes I wear, the things I do, but I can't stand living with the knowledge that I've let someone down. I have though, my family especially, I can't be what they want me to be. They expect someone pure, intelligent and successful, someone who is going places. I'm just not that person, but there is no one else I can shift these expectations off to and truly I wouldn't wish them on anyone I know.

There are a few instances in my life when I truly believed I had achieved something, only for that moment to be ruined by someone or by myself. When I received my HSC results I was in London and was quite pleased, until I got home and was told promptly by my father that I could have done better, if only I hadn't made myself so sick. "If only," that should be inscribed on my tombstone. Again, after my first semester at University when I thought I had been doing fine, only to discover that compared to my friends I had done so poorly. I'm still doing quite poorly, but I gave up on trying for my degree a long time ago. Aside from scholarly pursuits, in life I measure up even worse. Constantly being compared to your very beautiful, very thin and very social sister is never easy. I refuse to even try and compete with her anymore, she's much more than I could ever be. I'll always be the black sheep of the family; the quiet one in the corner or the weird one, who constantly argues against racism and homophobia (so I must be a lesbian!), I'll never be the golden child. I'm not sure I would want to be.

It's so very hard to know what people want from you, but it's even harder to realise you can't deliver. I'm not smart enough, I'm not pretty or social enough and I never will be. When you realise you have failed so early in life, you develop some way to cope with the overwhelming sense of despair. I've always had a sort of masochistic streak (only towards myself), a belief that I deserved some sort of punishment for failing. It would be crazy of me to go out and ask someone to hurt me for being so lousy, so it always ends up being me who does the punishing. Whether it be dieting to the extreme, closing myself off from people or other more harmful means, I've always known that I deserved everything I have done to myself. Although I may not have deserved everything other people have done to me, it's more comforting for me to believe I did something to deserve being treated so poorly, than to accept the fact someone has hurt me just for the sake of it, because they could.

I am truly a sensitive person. By sensitive, I mean I'm like a sponge. I absorb what people say about me, how they feel about me and what they expect of me. I'm not someone who can just forget about an argument or an insult, I have a terrible habit of replaying these sorts of things on a loop in my head for days. It's always the people you care about the most who can hurt you the worst and perhaps it's because I love them so much, that I can never forgive or forget what they have said. If only I could switch my mind off, life would be so much easier.

So I am a living embodiment of disappointment for my family. I'm proof that a person can in fact live carrying around that knowledge and still function, barely. If I have to punish myself, more than any person ever has, then it is because of this. I can't function and still attempt to try if I am not punished for my failures, the only reason I would try again, just to give myself some time before I fall inevitably back into despair.

I know that most people can get themselves back up again without the need to hurt themselves or avoid the rest of the world, but I can't and I'm sorry. If only trying was good enough, maybe then I would be good enough.

“CURSE thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,—
Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
As if spent passion were a holiday!
And now I go. Nor threat, nor easy vow
Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
And know not where nor unto whom I go;
But that thou canst not follow me I know.” Edna St. Vincent Millay