Penultimacy

Yes, that's today. The penultimate. Well, really, just one penultimate in a series of them, dotted with little flowers and smiley faces, or frowny faces and rainclouds. Why so much pressure on a handful of days? Days like today, and the more ultimate variety, make me intensely jealous of my friends who (magically, it seems to me) manage not to freak out about any of these things. Of course, this is nothing compared to the last penultimate adventure, but I'm experiencing in waves of intensity. Right now I'd give it a 4. This feels a bit like nausea, without the intense pukey-thing. This is more like a desire to expel all my organs, to become empty and thus, I suppose, so much less complicated. After all, if there IS something wrong with such and such project or my master of some idea or another, I would certain be able to identify and deal with it better were it only on the other side of my skin. Is this so much to ask?

Boring, really, this kind of anxiety. Particularly considering that it's neverending...will never stop...never go away. Even leaving the academy wouldn't solve my problem as there would simply follow a slew of other, non-academic penultimate days. And I'd be likely to find them less...significant. After all, the only thing worse than freaking out (penultimately) about something that terrifies you with its significance, would be freaking out (also penultimately) about something that you knew to be truly void of significance, yet somehow important in that existential crisis kind of way. So I'll take my lumps and try not to be too noisy about it.