Naturally, I have always been a planner.
Every morning, I’d wake up, write down my to-do list for the day, and postpone sleep until all my tasks were checked off. I structured my days into a series of expectations, leading to inevitable disappointments, as there were always more boxes to check off than there were hours in the day. This cycle of daily highs and lows worked for years. Sh—t got done as I cheated the 24-hour clock to finish the lists I wrote in my planner—until it didn’t.
A few months ago, God, the universe, or my body decided that the energy-depleting cycle had to stop. Despite this, the force that made me halt in my tracks didn’t give me the opportunity to slow down, take a break, or find an alternative. The system simply shut down.
The gears functioning within me like a machine slowly stopped turning and the entire structure failed. No one bothered to press the reset button or at least guide me towards it. There was truly no indication of life.
It began with an uncontrollable bout of tears after a magical week-long vacation high, followed by the low of returning to my basement apartment in Kingston—a city I had yet to learned to love.
The morning after my return, I opened my eyes at 9 a.m. to the sound of my alarm and was greeted by darkness and a cold draft seeping through the crack in my bedroom door. Unbeknownst to me for what reason, a single tear met my pillow. Three months after my move to Queen’s, this somber scene was familiar, but that November day, whatever had shielded me from processing my unhappiness in this environment didn’t wake up with me.
I lifted the covers slowly and dragged my feet to the bathroom. The hallway was frigid, and I could feel the small blonde hairs on my arms lift from the skin just below. As I met my reflection in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself.
Nothing changed in my appearance—my curls showed the usual symptoms of their nighttime battle with my pillow, my undereye bags were the same translucent violet, and my forehead was manifesting the usual cold-weather dryness I would soon soothe with my moisturizer. What was different was the new dark shadow in the honey of my eyes.
For the next few weeks, with little understanding as to why, I did the bare minimum for the first time. I handed in my assignments, showed up to my meetings, replied to my emails, and did my readings, but what wasn’t required of me simply was not done.
I didn’t get ahead, try to impress, or put in effort. There was no list dotted with perfect “i’s” in the morning—the dopamine hit from checking off boxes throughout the day was now non-existent.
My disappointment, however, didn’t desert me. It still rolled in with the tears as my head hit the pillow. I would cry myself to sleep at 8 p.m., sometimes even earlier, and hit the snooze button just enough times so I could catch the last bus to class, replacing my morning skincare routine with a natural mask of salty water.
While I’ve always been a big crier and find liberation in shedding a few tears, these tears were different. They were out of my control and for the first time, happening without reason.
After years of complete control over my every action and emotion, I had no say on the shadow in the reflection of my eyes. It came in the morning, between classes, on the bus, in the middle of a conversation with my boyfriend, and halfway through cooking.
I’m not scared to get help, and I’ve always acknowledged the importance of sharing my feelings. So, I booked myself one of those same-day appointments at Student Wellness Services.
The counsellor told me I would have to see through what I was feeling, learn how to deal with the dark basement and pressures of grad school. I told him I knew I needed to be more social and take more time for myself and slow down, but I didn’t know how. I’d lost the spark that made the list in the morning, handled the self-criticism at the end of the day, and kept pushing. He said it was up to me to get it back and pick myself up.
With December, the winds grew stronger, and my autumn coat was replaced with my long winter jacket. I began to care for my soul, despite the cold air growing brisk and sharp. In between sobbing for hours and replaying “Sparks” by Coldplay, I began taking baths, creating colourful scenes with my watercolours, making new friends, and studying out of genuine love for the content—not because it was a task on my list.
After my exams, I headed home and had to spend the holidays alone because my mom was taking care of my ill grandma in Russia. The once cozy house felt larger as I made my way through days alone. I got sick a few days before Christmas and went to the hospital when I started having trouble breathing on Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas in bed nauseous from the nine antibiotic pills I was taking daily and was welcomed into the New Year with the news of my grandma’s ing.
The morning after I returned to Kingston to start classes, my new light therapy sunrise alarm clock greeted me at 9 a.m. As I wiped my tears and ed that first warm puddle from a few months before, I realized I cried every day since Nov. 16, 50 whole days ago.
I’m getting to know my new friend: uncertainty. We’re talking about how we can work together to find my spark again and how we can stop being so afraid nothing will work out the way we’ve planned it. The first remedy has been that we’ve decided to stop planning as much, both for the everyday and in the long term. Because the 50 pages of my thesis I was supposed to write were replaced by 50 days of crying, despite all the planning and preparing I’ve done.
I see glimpses of light in the moments that fulfill me, like talking about this and that on the phone to my boyfriend, holding hands with my best friend as we watch fireworks, and listening to classical music as I write my thesis.
It’s not easy, and though I’m struggling, I’m also changing my mindset from expectations of myself and others to certainties in my and their abilities. I no longer hope things will work out the way I’ve imagined them, obsessing over the catastrophes I presume will occur otherwise; instead, I know everything has, and always will, work out for me regardless of circumstances.
Although this still means I must work hard, make the to-do list, and put in effort into my relationship with myself and those around me, there’s no plan more secure than the plan the universe has for me. It’s not about charging your crystals or manifesting or writing down your resolutions—it’s about trusting that what is meant to happen will.
Even if it’s 50 days of crying.
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