I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks. In the last two days, I have slept five hours collectively and I am on my way to another sleepless night. I can't get comfortable; I can't turn my mind off. I tried a sleep aid but it made me restless and achey, which seems counteractive.
What should I be [*silently, "When I grow up"]? Well, I want to do what I love- duh. Okay, so what is that? See, the problem is that I love so many things. Unrelated things. Is there a way to do 50 kajillion things at once and be like scuber duber successful, because I want to do that. I want to be the jack of all trades and the expert of none. I want that life. Where am I going? Who am I?
You know what is worse than that though? How small my problems really are. I know (at least I sincerely hope) that one day I will look back on this time and laugh and think how lucky I was to have the freedom to choose and to have all of the world's possibilities at my feet. I look on my Facebook page and see people my age dying, raising children, facing cancer. What happened to simpler times? Do you remember when brownie mix came in a bag and there was only one kind? I was at the store today and there were over 30 boxes and I just exasperatedly shouted for a bag of brownie mix- plain and simple. The old lady walking by looked at me like I was one with her and I am beginning to feel like I am. What have I become? Why must the world harden people? I am perfectly gullible and the world won't even let me play the fool. It AIN'T right, people.
I missed my nephews birthday after thinking about it a least four times this week. Like really Jane? He is 8. He remembers that you forgot, you piece of shit.
The thing is, I am good at getting things done. The problem is that I don't have any project that seems completable. I keep approaching it like any problem- I try one thing and if that doesn't work I try something new. The issue with this technique is that I have no focus. *Queue Christian saying, "I told you so. You need to focus on one thing, Jane." I try to peg a career path and focus on that. After 25 returned applications and remnants of crushed dreams on the floor, I try a new career paths in hopes that my luck will pick up. Each time I get more hopeful and more devoted. Each time I get more upset with myself: because I am failing, because I can't find a path, because I am not where I want to be, because I can't back myself up, because I didn't do the right things, because I didn't take that opportunity, because yadda yadda yadda.
My day is a list of menial tasks that will never be finished.
- Find what makes you happy
- Get a job
- Pay your loans
- Take a creative writing class
- Learn German
- Have fun
- Do something cool
- Make friggin' friends
- Make memories
- Unpack
- Apply to more jobs
- Change your approach
- Watch 5+ episodes of The Office
- Think of other shit you could be doing
- Talk to your friends back home on the phone for a collective 3 hours a day
- Listen to people lecture you on what you could be doing
- Make connections with people who could get you a job you will be miserable doing
- Try to decide between working for the man or working for yourself
- Is being happy even important at this point
- Focus on not getting stuck
- Decide to run again
- Think better of it this time and get a job there first
- Figure out where your next destination is
- Contemplate how much of a failure you will look like if you go back to Birmingham
- Make another, more achievable list
- Fight sleep
- Pet the dog and cry into his fur
- Brush the dog
- Read more books
- Pay attention to the news
- Try to make yourself more you
- Think about how much you want to blog
- Never do it
- Open 32 tabs in Safari and don't read any of them for at least a week
- Continue opening more tabs
- List all the things you need to accomplish
- Remember to get your prescriptions filled
- Think better of it because that money is more useful elsewhere
- Be super hardheaded
- Wonder how other people are getting this life shit right
- Be sort of angry about it
- Be actually happy for them
- Imagine yourself successful in 20 years
- Try to be useful
- At least feel like you are useful
- Remember when you were really good at shit and people probably thought you were going somewhere
- List all of the things you could do or buy if you had money
- Wonder how much of your life you are wasting doing these things
- Think about wrinkles
- Say "Fatty Fatty Boombalatty" over and over in your head and wonder where you heard it last
- Surf Tinder
- Realize that everyone here wears cargo shorts and earrings
- Cry inside
- Think about how wonderful it would be to have your own place
- Realize you need money for that
- See: train of thought nine bullets up
- Make excuses
I want you to know that I wrote this list before finishing a single one of the paragraphs above. Do you see what I mean about focus? I think of nine things at once and cannot finish a single thought before another persistent little bugger is working its way out.
I am throwing a pity party for myself. After all, since I have no friends to party with, it is all I have in the way of entertainment. You are all invited.
You know what? When I was a freshman in high school, I went out for the school play- Our Town. I happened to be (distant at the time) family friends with the Drama teacher. I ended up getting a part and I proudly walked into my house and proclaimed to my mother, "IT IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW, IT IS ABOUT WHO YOU KNOW!" When I tell you that this statement is biting me in the butt right now, you have no idea how hard. Not only do I not know anything, I also have the great joy of not knowing anybody either. So in this case, I am screwed. It feels like nothing will be able to get me ahead. Shit. Isn't it sort of fun to look back on moments like that and realize how stupid you were? I am sure these are the days your parents dream about.
My head feels clearer now. I am no closer to an answer than I was when I began; however, the tears have subsided and I feel refreshed. This refreshment doesn't help with the desire for sleep though. You take what you can get, am I right?
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