Truly Nothing Special.

Everything’s gone grey. My least favourite colour. Not even the nice, soft grey that I can tolerate. More the unappealing grey that comes with an outline-blurring, image-distorting mist. It’s creeping over my brain, it’s saturating it and I’m starting to lose myself in the haze.

In the past few months, things that I once found easy or fun to do have become so laborious and difficult that I no longer see why they're even worth the effort in the first place. There’s no drive anymore. Not for drawing, nor blogging, nor working, nor driving, nor even making conversation. I’ve no energy to spare on little things.

Twice in the space of the last three days I’ve almost convinced myself into taking the day off school because never getting out of bed again feels like the best idea I’ve ever had.

The more these days wear on, the more I’m sure it is.

People are starting to notice and comment on how introverted I’m becoming, or how I “constantly” look down or how I’m “constantly” distant or how I "constantly" put myself down. Ironic really as this just makes me feel worse than I probably already do. Ironic too that the word “constantly” is used by them so much. It’s so far from what’s going on that it’s almost laughable. Nothings constant with me anymore.

You’ll find me some days in the library, wearing that smile that makes my face look like a football. I’ll be the Jemma that everyone knows. The Jemma who is madly in love. The Jemma who enthusiastically draws up plans for giant Slip n Slides that involve starting from the roof of her house, to crossing several roads before ending with a complementary doughnut in a park several hundred metres away. She’ll be completely up for building it and doing the first test ride and she’ll make a joke with reference to your mum last night because she just can’t help herself.

Other days you’ll find me sitting in the library, not saying a word. I’ll be the Jemma that confuses people. The Jemma who despite how hard she tries cant make the effort to hide how she feels with the football face smile or crazy idea. She’ll sit there straining her ears whilst she stares in space. Her paranoid thoughts will kick in. Are they nearby? Are they listening to our conversation? Do they hate us? Are they laughing about us? She confuses herself over who “they” are in the library, and she’ll want nothing more than to take cover in the shadows so that no one will notice her and she wont have to deal with it. She’ll desperately want an offered hug because he makes her feel safe and loved, but she’ll refuse for fears of drawing attention to herself. She'll hate herself for this. She’ll do anything to stay invisible. She'll get irritated, even angry, if she can't.

And so it has been going. Rocketing on an extreme high one moment, then plummeting down so fast the next that I cant keep up. I can’t deal with it. It’s got to the point where no longer know how to react in situations, I cant predict my reactions, I cant take things in my stride. I’m paranoid all the time, flipping between happy and sad. It’s relentless and so, so tiring. It’s overwhelming me.

I hate boring you all with my self indulgent wittering and going on. I know for a fact I’ll read this post in the morning, hate it, delete it and replace it with a 6 word one that has more relevance. If you read my blog you'll have noticed that my posts are becoming few an far between anyway, and even when they do appear they are nothing more than a few meaningless words or a worthless photograph. I've been trying, I really have, but I can’t do it anymore.

I’ve lost my direction and so too has my blog, so I guess this is goodbye. I think I need to take some time out and get my head straight. This is only going to get worse if I do nothing about it.

Thank you for your comments and ideas over the past year and a bit, you’ve all made my day at one point or another and encouraged me, which is something truly special.

Thanks too to those invisible readers I have, I’m sure you guys are really nice.

I’ll meet you back here if I blog again. I’ll bring cake.

You Know You're Failing When...

The closest you come to writing your Sociology essay is seeing your teacher in Morrissons.

Guess what happened today.

Dear HPV vaccination,

You're currently sloshing around my body -well, I think you're sloshing, you could be surging, flooding or even meandering through my spaghetti veins - or are you in my muscles tissue? Whatever, I don't know, my important leaflet was transformed into a paper aeroplane and I drifted off in that 'informative' assembly.

You feel like you're sloshing. You feel like you've mutated from the tiny needleful you were into an burning torrent that's swelling in my arm. You're being sneaky too - its not even swelling that everyone else can see, oh no. It's hidden, internal swelling that makes me look like a waffling hypochondriac when I stiffly move my arm and wince.

Oh yeah, you thought I'd missed that. You thought I wouldn't notice that the "only around the site of injection" claim was a complete lie. What you really meant was "the entire arm, shoulder, neck and chest" didn't you? Not that I'm complaining, of course. I simply love the prospect of not being able to properly use a fork or tie my own shoe laces for a week.

Is this revenge?

Revenge for my original skeptical attitude towards you? Or the hesitant research I did before agreeing to you? Perhaps I called you the HVP jag once too often...

Something tells me I'm getting off lightly though. Despite your oddly sneaky side effects, you're doing me a great deal of good - you're protecting me against the two most common strains of HPV that eventually lead to cervical cancer.

I realise my painful arms are irrelevant.

You're completely worth it.