First thing, hi y’all! I still check the email that sends me an email for every new post to this blog, and whenever I see the word feluoys… it hits me with such nostalgia. I’ve had so much fun in the past with you lot. It’s a great thing to hear if you guys are well.
My last few years haven’t all been great, but I think I’m on the right track now. I believe I’m in good mind. I hope you all have been well. I’ve been well, I’d say.
2010 to 2014 were my high school years. My home life was not great, and never is, and might never be. Socially I am inept. I had very few friends. I don’t talk to anyone I was friends with in high school anymore. Most of my social interaction was online: as it always was, and still seems to be.
Summer 2014 is when I started going to college at UNC-Chapel Hill. I started in the summer as part of a program called Summer Bridge, where I got to take English and Chemistry 101 with other incoming freshman that came from rural places or were less privileged. Small classes. I had access to the professor and tutor-mentors. I connected with my peers and had fun doing stuff. One of my best summers.
Fall 2014, I started to fall through on meeting new people and staying connected. I turned to playing games again. I was too socially anxious and failed to make the most of making real friends. I struggled a lot in Chemistry 102 because I didn’t feel like I belonged in the Honors version. The instructor was nice but didn’t get me; the classmates felt so much more in tune with it. I made the first C ever in my life for that course. My other courses were fine. Chem was the first snowball.
Spring 2015. Even though I struggled with Chemistry 102, I went on to Analytical Chemistry. I hated it. I was doing awful. I never talked to anyone in the class, and didn’t speak up when my advisor asked how I was doing. I gave up going to class halfway through the course. My first F ever in my life. Yet I did great in all my other classes, A’s and B’s. In hindsight, the chemistry courses and isolating myself clearly killed me. I felt like such a failure. My home life was doing nothing to support me, my father simply wanted me to go to medical school and would accept nothing less. Verbally abusive at all times. I hid. I had no one to talk to.
On my college application, my intended major was Nursing. I changed it to Chemistry after I did well in 101 that first summer. By now, I switched to Biology because of the urging of my father and my failure in later chem courses. Hindsight says this was the worst fucking choice, I should’ve stuck to my calling which was my first intended major. Oh well.
Summer 2015 was another amazing time in my life. I spent the summer abroad in Beijing, China. Traveled a tiny bit outside of the city, but Beijing did have a lot. I learned Mandarin while enjoying and exploring this city. I met amazing people that came from all over the US. I’d love to visit again some day.
Fall 2015 I took a lot of fun courses, and didn’t fail any. However, I was still pretty damn lonely. I think I only had my boyfriend and roommate for company at the time. It wasn’t so bad, but I still struggled with talking about any problems internally or externally here. I always have had a lot of growing to do. I failed to reach out for help.
Spring 2016, my mental health was getting worse and worse. I missed classes of every course I was registered, not just a singular chemistry course. Eventually I never left the room. I stopped talking to anyone entirely. I was a living zombie.
Summer 2016 I had spent at my family home. It was awful. The thing that kept me living was the job I had as a nurse aide. I either did home health, going to care for people (usually elderly) at their homes, or was a nursing assistant at a nursing home. I worked a lot of hours. 12 hour shifts with long commutes or 2nd shift (1500 to 2300) would avoid my family. I did enjoy the work. I decided I wanted out of that home, and it motivated me to get back into shape for school. Academically, anyway…
Fall 2016 was my best academic semester. The one time I made Dean’s list. Of course, my cumulative GPA was fucked from previous mistakes, but I wasn’t letting it get to me at the time. I was technically alone still, but I had done well in classes while keeping up online friendships.
Winter 2016, I had to go back home. Again, it was awful, and I didn’t have a job to let me escape for the time. I had no friends. Losing myself in MMORPG’s and getting to know people over them was how I survived.
Spring 2017, I was still feeling the effects of home life and a bad breakup. I was hating myself. I couldn’t focus. I failed everything. I didn’t get the help I needed. Talked to no one again.
Summer 2017 I spent the summer far away from my family to heal. I lived with a boyfriend, lying to my father, saying I had an internship. I knew I wasn’t going to graduate the way my father wanted. I was running away from that during this summer before my senior year.
Fall 2017, I had two fun courses I actually attended and did well in: a digital culture course and an English-Chinese translation course. My other two courses were Biology courses I never attended. So, I had two A’s and two F’s this semester. No one knew me really.
Spring 2018 was the semester I was supposed to graduate, had I not failed so much and gotten the help I needed. I never went to a single class because all my registered courses were required for graduation with a biology degree. It was not my calling. I dropped from school the month before graduation. I think the people I had met during my good years had a good graduation.
Summer 2018 I was lost. I could definitely not live with my father, so I moved to a house he rents out in a city 2 hours away from him. I lived under him, but not with him. It lessened the stress and turmoil he had on me, but it wasn’t perfect: he still found ways to berate me. I found a job as a pediatric nurse aide. It was part-time only and paid like shit, but I enjoyed it. It gave me purpose in life again.
Through 2018, all I did was work and played games for a while. Outside of working and playing games, everything was shit. I had no agency in the house I lived in. My father would do nothing but make me feel worthless for what I was doing. My mental state was a mess. I needed out.
2019. While continuing to work, I began taking classes at a nearby community college to get myself back on track to get a nursing degree. I achieve straight A’s. I’m making moves to apply and enroll into a nursing school come Fall 2020.
By chance, destiny, luck, fate, or you-name-it, I met a wonderful older woman who would become a mother figure to me. She helped me find myself as a human being again. I wouldn’t be alive right now if we hadn’t met, I admit. She also told me about a nearby nursing school I didn’t know about previously.
Summer 2019 was a pretty big turning point. I could not bear the stresses of both my father and his shitty tenant who would make my life a living hell. My father never took my side. I had a friend visit, and the shitty housemate texted screenshots from the camera system to my father. My friend was a black guy, and my father is incredibly racist. I instantly got chewed out, being accused of doing drugs and drinking irresponsibly with no regard for what I had to say, the truth, and had the worst day of my life. I moved out at the end of that month, only texting my father that I’m moving to my own apartment. I’m currently living alone right now and am blessed to have this place. I limit contact with my family for sake of my sanity.
During Fall 2019, I finished more prerequisites and retaking of courses I failed before. I applied to the nursing school I had recently found out about this year.
In Winter 2019, the school accepted me to enroll January 2020. I had to quit my job as a nurse aide, because I was gonna go to nursing school.
Spring 2020 was my first semester of nursing school. I completed this first semester with straight A’s, even after it turned online-only halfway through the semester due to coronavirus.
Since we get summers off from class, this summer I’m currently working full-time as a nurse aide in the hospital. Thanks to Covid-19, I’m usually on the ICU now. In August, we’ll have class again. I’m set to graduate with my BSN in December 2021.
On my free days, I like swimming, reading, knitting, watching shows, or playing video games (yes, it’s still in me, of course). I still don’t have many friends. Some days are very hard because I feel so alone. I do chat with people I’ve met here and there, but nothing fulfilling (?). I don’t know what I’m looking for when it comes to relationships, honestly. I can’t speak well about it either. I’m clearly still figuring out who I am.
Anyway, this was a real trip down memory lane for myself. Life can be rough. I’ve been very, very, very down before. Ultimately, today, I feel blessed to be alive right now. I feel that I’m on the right track for myself. I can make it.
When I have a down day, I remind myself that I’m strong enough to get past it. I know it gets better. I’ll stand strong on my own. Here’s to the next decade, whatever it may bring.
FLYIN` FELUOYS v.2 