You know, if I ever have a nervous breakdown, it's going to be because this feeling will push me over the edge. The sick swirling feeling of panic/guilt/frustration/stress, of "I know I should be better than this, and I hate that I'm not"; the sinking feeling that there are too many things to keep track of and that you've inevitably forgotten more than a few which will come back to haunt you later; the sensation of running faster and faster just to stay in the same place; the way that you berate yourself fiercely for losing your focus and putting things off, and squirm, and then dive into something silly and shallow and unproductive to get away from the way that self-flagellation feels. It's the feeling I get when I know that I'm making my life much harder on myself than it needs to be. There's no good reason why my life shouldn't be under control. But it just isn't.

I need to figure out how to change that. I need different habits, different patterns, different attitudes. I need to take more deep breaths. It is not as bad as it sounds, and I am generally happy, but at the same time, I know that my mental health and my stress levels could be a lot better. I want to be more at peace.

Six weeks away from here, and I'm writing for the sake of writing. But it's the middle of the night, and if I don't get to bed soon, the lack of sleep will just hurt my focus tomorrow even more, and things will keep spiraling.

I need to write more. I think so much, and I feel so much, and yet I keep getting the sense that I'm not thinking things through. My life and my thoughts are as cluttered right now as my desk at work, brimming and overflowing, covered in tumbling, unsteady piles. I need to organize my heart and mind.

I need to sleep.  ¶ 1:18 AM