How Are You?

This is how I'm feeling. I say I'm fine but I'm not. "I'm fine" is my automatic response when things have developed into a personal hell.

I'm fragile and I'm broken.

If you took one look at me, you wouldn't recognise me. I barely do when I look in the mirror. I know that 99.9999995% of the population have it tougher than me but yet I'm barely holding things together.

If you want to know what stress looks like, take a look at me now. This very moment. Though don't talk to me. I'm liable to burst into tears and I wouldn't know if I'd be able to stop crying.

I am supposed to be feeling upbeat with Chinese New Year celebrations tonight and I'm hoping I will be. After all I am spending it with family and it's been a while since the "clan" has been together in such great numbers. This isn't the way how I pictured the start to the new year. I have four hours to snap out of this.

I am a Chemist who doesn't want to be in a lab anymore. This is killing me inside. I'm hoping that a change of scenery will solve this. Otherwise, really, what the hell am I meant to do? I worked so hard to get my undergrad degree and harder still with my current course. I don't know how not to be a scientist. I've always been a scientist. And until recently, I always wanted to be a scientist in a lab with shiny instruments with mega-cool set-ups running the funky experiments.

I know I shouldn't define myself with my job. But it's who I am primarily. Strip away the rabid chocoholic and sun-drinking/loving girl and I am a scientist. That's the inner core. That's why my bedroom has always been scattered with science journals. Gossip and celebrity magazines never made it through the door. And also why the things on display in my room or the little toys I have are relevant to some particular branch of science.

I am a scientist but the idea of science is beginning to make me feel ill.

I am thoroughly shattered.