On Water and Loneliness

I've been feeling kind of down lately. Yesterday evening I was close to tears. It's probably a combination of different things including exam stress and the fact that I haven't cried for no reason in quite a while and time's up. Tick tock.

Every time I listen to Frank Ocean's Blonde there's something unexpected, like a song I forgot was there, or just realising that time passes so much slower when that album is playing. It's an amazing album.

I've been really thirsty lately. I have been drinking so much water. Last evening there was a high-pitched beeping noise that would ring for a few seconds, then stop for one second, then start again, outside the window of my dorm at OSC. It drove me crazy. My chest felt tight and constricted, like someone was squeezing my heart, and I couldn't breathe well. I wanted to cry. Then I went to dinner and the food was extremely dry, and I probably drank about a whole carafe of water. Today my throat feels like parchment, probably because I forgot my toothbrush and as of now it has been almost 36 hours since I've brushed my teeth. My tongue is sticky and I feel like there are little granules of sand in the back of my mouth. So I finished yesterday's Evian and since I don't trust the tap water here, at lunch time I went back into town and bought a £35 adaptor for my dumb uniquely Swiss laptop charger, a huge pack of tissues, toothbrush, toothpaste, and another 500ml bottle of Evian that I proceeded to finish within two hours. I've never drunk so much so fast before, probably not even in the summer, though I can't be sure. After I finished the water I just sat there feeling very terrible and very thirsty. I still haven't been able to have a drink. I think I'll just brave it until dinner. This strange sensation of parchedness has risen to accompany a massive surge in loneliness. Because OSC runs for a long time and everyone drops in at different times, a lot of the people here already know each other. This morning I sat across-ish from a girl at breakfast and I didn't talk to her and left after 15 minutes, and then she arrived at where I was waiting and introduced herself to this other girl who was there (who was a girl with whom I ate dinner last night, but she didn't make eye contact with me when she arrived, so...) and they started talking to each other in French. Gradually the sparse individuals standing around began to arrange themselves into little circles and I was having an imaginary conversation in my head where I did talk to that girl at breakfast and would now not be standing alone. And I know none of this matters, because I'm here to study, not to make friends, and anyway who cares, afterwards I talked to this other girl who was also alone and she was really nice, though I haven't seen her since classes started because everyone melts into this crowd. At Harvard I learned to eat alone without feeling like a piece of shit, I've learned to hang out with myself, but at the same time it's not very healthy to just give up and withdraw into myself, but I don't have the energy to really go out there and make friends with the kids in my Econ class. I talked to this one guy Lem for a little bit, and Hamza whom I know from La Chat Stuco last year was also there so we talked a bit and sat together, but I didn't pursue it that much. This afternoon I crossed my arms because it was cold and realised Hamza had just crossed his arms a few seconds ago; I started to slide down my seat with that slouchy terrible teenager posture then realised that Hamza had just done that; I was mirroring him subconsciously, it's probably a psychology thing showing I'm deferring to him because I have nobody else to hang out with or whatever, I immediately straightened up and tucked my fingers under my thighs where it's a little warm. Anyway, I just tell myself that I'm actually very good at making friends when I want to, and I'll put effort into making friends when I'm in college when it actually matters, but I also wonder if a) I am actually that good, as since last summer I haven't exactly proven myself to be very good at making friends, is this just temporary or is this really me, have I gotten shyer, what's wrong with me, and b) I'm probably good at making friends out of necessity or convenience and clinging onto them for the short-term, but in college you're supposed to make lifelong friends and meet kindred spirits, and I'm scared I won't be able to. What if by the time I graduate university it'll be like now, where I realise how indifferent I am towards most of my peers and how I can't wait to move on and meet more people. I feel like I'm going through a mid-life crisis, I shouldn't feel this way, I'm still young, I should be enjoying myself and goofing off.

The title is so deep. I was going to write a short story fiction thing where I express these feelings but, you know, subtly. I'm too worn out for that. I'm going to go have dinner with a girl I had dinner with last night, and lunch with today, and with whom I walked back, but it's not like we seek each other out, we just run into each other and fall into step, it's natural and nice and carefree. After dinner I'm going to do 2 hours of homework and then it'll be, what, ten o'clock. I'll sleep.