2019.

It feels like it is a repeat of 2018 but instead of feeling like it launched itself away from the linear timeline, it feels like it is dragging on and occupying the space that 2018 didn’t spend any time occupying.

Many things have changed near the end of 2018 and it is not a surprise to anyone in any way, shape, or form. My distaste of having to travel hundreds of thousands of miles away from home is affecting me quite obviously.

I struggle with the simultaneous desire to remain at an arm’s length and the barbaric part of my mind’s desire to socialize.

Whenever night falls and the air is filled with nothing but the silent air around me, my mind plummets into a pit of darkness of its own creation. There is no escaping it and I don’t seem to have the willpower to do so anyway.

I can never be left alone with my own thoughts. I torture myself because I know I am wrong and there is nothing that I will do to fix it. I cannot pass the obstacle that I pose to myself.

As humans evolved, the first big problem we had to overcome was “me versus us.” Learning to sacrifice a little individual freedom for the benefit of a group. The next problem to overcome was “us versus them.” Trying to see other groups different from ours as equals.

I think, after getting thrown into a land so unfamiliar, detached, and foreign from what I know, I cannot get past the “me versus us” stage.

There is a subconscious part of my brain that is making a conscious action for me. It prevents me from really bonding with a group to make me feel like I belong. I subconsciously, and thus consciously, refuse myself happiness and the feeling of belonging because this is not where I should be.

The self-loathing that comes with being unable to stay at home grows stronger and stronger every day. Going home and then having to leave it becomes increasingly hard. A mix of having to face my failure right in the face and the fact that I have no one once I leave home really messes with my willpower.

For months, I have not made any self-deprecating or suicidal jokes. Whenever I do, I am in England. The refusal to bond with anyone and the depression of having no one is tearing me apart.

But I know it is there and I know why it is there. I just cannot change it.

I don’t want to bond with anyone because none of these people are the people I want to bond with, to spend time with, to be with. I want to be with my friends back home, I want to be with my family back at home.

No matter what these people say or tell me about how much I mean to them, about how much they miss me, about how we are friends and that they even view me like a second family and would never leave me behind and reassure me constantly that they like me and my company, it is not the same.

These people are not my mother. These people are not my father. These people are not the friends that I grew up with in Hong Kong. These are not the people that I should be with because, perhaps, being with them means abandoning the people I know back home.

I know that is not true and that I actually do have friends from across the world, be it in America or Poland or New Zealand. But there is just something so different about meeting someone in real life than meeting someone over the Internet.

I am not in my element. I am not at home. I am not with my people. I am alone and I do not want to be here.

All of these feelings are coming down upon me like an avalanche and I am suffering. I do not want to be alone but I prevent myself from being with anyone. I am terrified of socializing yet I cannot stand not talking to someone after hours of being alone.

It is horrible and I don’t want to feel like this anymore.

But the problem is, I can never get past myself. I cannot get past “me versus us.” I cannot find the willpower to step out of my comfort zone so I cannot stop feeling like this.

The only way of relieving myself from this complicated mess of a feeling is to remove myself from the country that makes me feel like this, but I cannot do that either because then it would mean abandoning my degree and my mother has always chastised me for giving up halfway through things.

I suppose the only other thing I can do is to constantly remind myself that it is not long left until the end of my degree. Soon, it will be 2020 and then it will be May. I would be graduating then and then I can be at home forever, with my family. I can leave all of this sadness and lumpiness behind as a closed chapter of my life.

The whole thing is making me numb to all sorts of feelings and I can, at any time, break down crying. I can also, at any time, tell myself that I do not have time for crying and stop. It is unhealthy but it is the only way.

Many people say that your college/university years would be the best years of your life, that you will look back to it and regret the things that you didn’t do while you are still a college/university student. I doubt that would happen to me but then again, I also said that when I was in secondary school and complained about it.

I do miss my secondary school years now. I had far less to worry about and I had far fewer responsibilities. I went home every day and I was never far from my parents. I had everything that I wanted and didn’t desire anything else.

Then again, nostalgia always has a bad habit of making things in the past better than they actually were.

I will write this down now, that I am completely miserable here in England and I would give anything to go back home. If I ever look back at these three years with a fond smile and a disapproving gaze of my behavior, it is not the true reflection of how I feel.

I hate it here. I can change it, yes, and I probably should, but I will not. I am stubborn and I will regret this decision but I am living this down.

Mark my words, future-me, I hate it here. I hate it here and I will not change myself to love it here. Loving it here means betraying my love for my home. Loving it here means I will “miss” being here when I am home. I will not “miss” being here when I am home. I will sell half my liver and half my kidneys to be at home with my family, to study at some lame Hong Kong University, no matter how annoying exams are.

I hate it here and I will never change my mind about it.