"Hindi naman ako nagmamadaling makakuha ng trabaho," I told my mother. "Pero ayoko rin namang walang ginawa. Ganyan ang mindset ko ngayon."

I thought that sums up what this week has been all about. Disregarding everything else - the sore toe, the ridiculous clothes, the bus window, the walking, the possible karma - it's still been quite an emotional wreck for me. I don't know what exactly it's all about, and when I try to think over it, I decide against the idea, scared that things will just go wrong.

I'd usually write about something pretty obscure, trying my best to pull things from my life together while keeping it shrouded in a degree of secrecy. Today, though, nothing really describes it. I worry about the phone ringing. I worry about the number of unread messages on my email. I worry about the stories I have to tell, about what happened last Tuesday, and why I'm backing out all of a sudden. I worry about the questions they ask. Heck, the end is inevitable, but who knew the beginning would have to feel like this?

Making that metaphorical step to the outdoors is a hard thing, much more when it's raining and the road outside's flooded with murky water. It just saps the life out of you. And every night, whenever I finish watching what I'm watching on the television, I start to think. Shouldn't you be doing something more important? I never fall asleep, as that sinking feeling happens again. Consistently. Every night.

Anxiety's what it's usually called, but I don't think it's what it really is. I'm still doing what I have to do, but I'm seriously doubting myself now. Things come and I don't take it, thinking that I deserve more. Well, perhaps the ego hasn't landed yet, the idea that I deserve more than what I am getting - and they don't deserve anything that they get - still ringing in my head. I refuse to compromise, because I still think that there's this path that you should take. Follow it exactly as you see it, and no shortcuts - that's what the tour guides tell you.

And everything, all of a sudden, goes wrong.

I'm slowly getting annoyed with people asking me questions. "May trabaho ka na ba?" "Saan ka nag-apply?" "Ano ba talaga gusto mong gawin?" I feel compelled to have an answer, but I actually don't, and it scares me that, for once, I don't have even a faint idea of what to answer. I'd usually blame this on circumstance - on why this and that became this and that - but I suddenly also have a compelling reason to believe that I did so many things badly, to the point that I don't have any choice now. And I hate compromises, even.

Now that I'm faced with a road map that will not get followed anyway, why bother? The instructions I hold are perhaps my last. Go to school next Wednesday and stay there for thirteen hours. Go to the PICC on Saturday and do exactly as you're told. Unless something deviates in between, you'll end up idle for the next few months, and then...

Sometimes I also think that's the way it is supposed to go. At one point, for example, I announced the beginning of my job-hunting efforts to the biters, to which some have explained why theirs took so long. Perhaps it's breathing space, a time to think over things and get ready anyway. Eventually, some say, it will come, and you'll be happier than you ever were. But perhaps it comes with some prerequisites - being so sure with what you are, what you want and what you think you should get. And I sort of failed on that one. Couple that with a fear of complacency - not moving forward is worse - and you've got, well, this.

Maybe it's never too late to contemplate ending it all. Besides, you only have everything planned out until the end of college, so maybe you should just end it by then, right? Whose failure is that, then?