When I was released from the hospital in early April, I felt invinvible. Upon being released, I felt this burst of confidence as if I had all the freedoms in the world- I could be anyone I wanted to be, I could do anything I wanted to do- and no one could stop me. Now, I feel as if I'm back to living within the confines of the expectations put on me by society and even the people that I love.

The situation can also be explained this way. Say you're driving down an icy road and your vehicle spins out of control. Your car goes spinning and flipping, crunching and smashing, before stopping abruptly at the base of a tree. You've been beaten within an inch of your life and the world is fading away from you- sirens sound in the backround. Later, you wake in a hospital, the tear-streaked faces of your loved ones immediately at your side, hugging you and professing their love for you. It's a miracle, but you pulled through. You've made it and you're so thankful for your life, you've beaten the odds. You live to tell your tale heroically to all that will listen, dramatically recalling the details of the crash to all that will listen. With your new respect for life, you feel like you could do anything- it's a chance to do better. But eventually…eventually the excitement wears off. Everyone's heard the story, it's not new anymore. Your wounds have healed and the scars are fading. The memory becomes just that. Your employer expects you to return to your same mundane job and your loved ones have expectations of you. Now that life's returning back to the way it always was, it feels as if you pulled through for nothing. Surely something was suppose to have changed, yet nothing is changing. You're still your same self and everyone still wants something from you.

This is how I feel. When I was first released, I felt like it was a chance to completely reinvent myself and to be a better person; a person I could love. Instead, my life went back to being exactly how it was before I went into the hospital and that feels like a major defeat to me. I have the same responsibilities to myself AND to others. It's summer and I'm still catching up on assignments that I missed while I was in the hospital, which makes it really hard to let go. I'm really fortunate to have such understanding professors, but I almost wish I could just give up. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that without failing and I can't afford to do that. It would ruin my GPA. I just really wanted my life to change in a big way. When I first got out of the hospital, I even loved myself for a week or two. That's NEVER happened before. It felt sooo good. Sadly, it wore off and I'm back to feeling terribly uncomfortable in my own skin. I hate feeling like everything I went through was for nothing becuase it was such a huge ordeal, but all the good that I felt upon being released has faded away…