I’m not fine.

Proof that I am not fine is that I am starting to write here again. I’ve been okay for a bit, but that might just have been a big fat lie.

After school, which I aced with a GPA 4.0, I went on to my OPT. And here I failed. I failed to move on. I worked on many freelance projects… for free. I think that’s where the word free-lance comes from, right? But I wasn’t able to move on from love, until I had to. It was a tough time, but I somehow managed. Beaten, hurt, slayed. I started to write my story for my short film, based in part on my life. It took me forever to plan, to lay out, and actually write. I had help from good friends along the way. But as per usual, I didn’t have anyone to walk this with me, side by side. I did it alone, and I think this is one of the reasons why I’m not fine. In some situations you need someone on your side. Someone that takes your hand, looks into your eyes, and says, everything will be fine.

I have a few good friends. Friends who try their best to keep me on track. Friends who lovingly listen and give advice. But overall they have their own life, their own problems, and I can’t burden everyone with what is going on inside me.

But I still have to tell you, the inside of me right now is dark. Maybe not as dark as it has been once before, but dark in a way that makes me scared. I am afraid. I am anxious. And I do not know how to fix it. I am actually despondent. I had dire times in my life before. It was different though. I was younger, I could take more, I could make the right decisions to make it okay again.

When I fall, I usually get up and keep going. Like with the attempted robbery that I escaped recently. My knee still hurts, which reminds me of the incident every day. But I am confident that once the pain is gone I will forget. Like I always do. But with my upcoming life in general, I don’t know. I can’t seem to forget. Because it’s in the future. How can you forget the future? And on top of that, this time, I feel tired. All the time. I try to escape. But wherever I run, I end up at the beginning again. Only a few hours later in time. Not helping at all. It’s making it worse, because I know that I wasted time.

Are there any specific fears? Yes, I can name many. First of all, money. I’m running out way too fast. Then what will happen when I land in the cold in January? Where will I live. Will I find work to survive? Will I ever be able to come back? Do I even want to come back? And then my project…

I’m currently coming up with fake plans to hide behind. I want to come back, I want to see China, I want to work in production on a big feature. Things I put in front of me like a shield, a shield I know is just made of thin paper, and I hope others won’t see how fragile it is.

I want to reach out to talk. But I can’t, because it’s just too much to put on to someone else who barely keeps going with their own life. I’m at a point again, where I am desperately looking for the off switch, but I am not an android.

The last project I shot was my own short film that I wrote, produced, and directed. Produced is a bit of an understatement. I lost two producers along the way. Why? It could have been me, it could have been them, who knows. It wasn’t a good fit I guess. As it was my project, I did care a lot, but no one else did. Until one girl appeared out of nowhere and she cared. She cared about me, she cared about the project, and we got through it, together, side by side. It was like the first freelance project I did last year, but way better. Better in terms of harmony, better in terms of trust. Though everything that could go wrong with this project actually did go wrong. And I almost pulled the plug.

But all of that is only secondary to me. Primarily, with this project, I tore open old wounds. Wounds I was trying to heal since forever. Wounds that never actually healed though. And now, I am going on stage and say, here, see my scars. See what’s under my skin. The me that I thought I could hide for the last 21 years. The me whose only wish was to blend in. To be another fish in the pond. The me that never was another fish in the pond. (Though to some of you I was, and I love you for that. You know who you are.)

That’s what makes me not fine the most.

This lingering feeling in my tummy.

The uncertainty.