I’m so tired of feeling so rejected and being sad.
I had a relatively good weekend with my family, which is actually a first. Most family events leave me crying or extremely angry. This weekend was good – for once my sister and I didn’t fight – although the last night there I could feel one bubbling and inching its way forward. I tried not to react to things in the same way I used to. It felt so good to go somewhere and actually be wanted, to be embraced and awaited. And I really needed it. I needed the moments where I felt like part of something.
I figured coming home would mean people missed me and wanted to see me. But I came home to a dark house. It was depressing. I came home to no one. My cat still miffed at my disappearance wasn’t even willing to offer some kind of pet comfort. She looked at me, sniffed at me and then went off.
I hate that I need people so much. I hate that coming home to nothing has pushed me into tears, to loneliness and sadness.
I hate knowing how I should feel but not being able to feel that. It’s like trying to scream, but no words come out.
“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
I want to write something good... (long)
With my past few posts being depressing and sad, I felt it would be good for me to post and or write something good.
After my trip to NYC this past Sunday I left my beloved city with a sense of renewal and awareness. It was by far one of the better trips I have ever been on to the city and it just made me feel so alive when I have felt so dead.
While we were walking through the park I was snapping pictures when suddenly I heard a saxophone playing and my eyes almost instantly welled with tears. I really have no connection with a sax that should truly bring me to tears the way it almost did. There is no real back story where I can say something along the lines of "My grandpa So and so used to play me sax as a kid" or something to that effect, all I have is an imagination and a proposed idea that I made up. About a year ago, for my writing 101 class I wrote a descriptive essay about where I see myself in the future and this is what I wrote...
The light radiated through my window as I lay in bed resisting the urge to wake up. I could feel the warmth of the sun creeping across the floor and my bed, like a caterpillar inching slowly along. I knew before long I would not be able to resist the bright sunshine, thinking to myself that it would be a perfect day to take the camera out and see if I could capture a few decent pictures of fall in the city.
It wasn’t long before the coolness of the wood floors touched my bare feet and I was up walking around my twelfth floor apartment. Strolling by the bright window I remembered why I had made the splurge to pay the steep monthly rent; the view was breathtaking. I paused only momentarily to take in the landscape before I walked away to start getting ready for the day.
By the time I had showered and dressed, my apartment was filled with the rich smell of fresh coffee. The smell alone is almost enough to keep me up for hours. It reminds me of Saturday morning breakfast with my Aunt back when I was in college. I smile at the memory, grabbing my favorite coffee mug; filling it with the aromatic, dark, and steaming hot liquid.
I remember, I had always wanted a very open loft-style apartment with big open windows that would view the city, so it was no wonder that when I found this place that it would be my personal heaven. I stare into the vast and sparsely furnished room with a bed in one corner. Standing in the middle of the room, you could see one large window that covered the entire length of the apartment and from it, I saw what some people only see in pictures. Tall jutting up towers that loomed over the sidewalks below that were always bustling with people.
At 7 A.M business men already hurrying off to work in their expensive Armani suits, kids walking with their parents; lunch pails in tow and college students with their futures ahead of them; ready to be molded, carrying books that would talk about famous philosophers and how the West was won. Below, the streets were no longer lined with the mountains of black trash bags placed at the curb almost nightly by owners of restaurants or stores below me. Cars are already beginning to cram the streets stuck in tight, like sardines waiting desperately to get through the light. Car horns blast incessantly. Glancing over the city below, I am reminded by the scarlet red and pumpkin orange leaves sprouting from tree lined streets what my mission for today is.
As I open the door, the brisk cold air from the October air greets me, stinging my cheeks slightly as gusts of wind howl through the valley of skyscrapers that dominate above me. Once outside, the exotic smells of the city invade my senses. Today it’s a mixture of freshly baked bread and car exhaust, with a sprinkle of wood from the fires people burned in the previous night to keep their places warm. I take a step onto the leaf littered sidewalk and a billow of steam arises up from streets. The ground below me starts to quake from the roar of the subway.
I set out on my journey uptown to Central Park with camera in tow and the music of the city ringing in my ear. The music starts with the gentle sounds of steam being released causing a high scream and then a symphony of sounds join in, cars honking, a siren as a police car attempts to squeeze by jammed traffic on official business, people talking on cell phones and bags rustling in the wind. In the distance I can hear the lonely sounds of someone playing a saxophone; the music wails its story of love lost as my steps fall in line with the drumming of the city.
I am tempted by new smells almost every block, the smell of freshly made hot chocolate lingers in the air and a bouquet of flowers lures me and I think that I would love to have this on my table because of a single flower sitting like a lone wolf on a table. However, I know I won’t be home until later so I settle for a quick snapshot and enter the a corner store for a bottle of water.
Greeted by a bell; the sounds of the morning news on a small TV set located behind the counter, two Indian men talking in their native tongue, and a strange mix of foreign smells. The older man nods his head towards me greeting me with a smile, “Morning Miss.” I smile back, nodding, and head to the back of the store. Again I am tempted by the array of offerings in this small market. I grab a pack of Starburst and a bottle of water then bring my selections to the counter. The younger man rings up my purchases. “Tree-fifty” he says, so I pay and head back out into the chilled air. The bell jingles as I open the door.
Before long I am at a smaller opening into the park, excited to start snapping pictures. Already people have gathered to read their morning paper on the benches and men with horse drawn carriages begin to set up for the day’s work.
“Carriage ride miss?” one man offers petting the mane and neck of his mare.
“No thank you, I think I’ll do this one on foot,” I respond holding up my camera indicating my intentions.
He nods to me and I walk through the stonewalled opening, leaves crunching below me. My world becomes a bit darker as the leaves still on the trees shade me from the warmth of the sun. I pull my coat around me tighter, tying off the waist to hold it, and begin snapping pictures. I pay close attention to the birds chirping and watch how they dart in and out of bushes. I watch particularly close to what I can assume to be a lovers’ quarrel among two small gray and white birds. They squawk at each other fluttering their wings and moving about in a circular motion before one flies deeper into the park.
Again, I hear the wailing of the saxophone, this time more upbeat and before long I can hear someone plucking strings on a guitar. I follow the sound through the park where specks of light are allowed to squeeze through the bone like fingers of branches and leaves above. Before long I am at an opening. An old and weathered man dressed in a brown suit sits on a dirt encrusted bucket playing a worn and darkened saxophone. The sounds of the pads opening and closing on the saxophone can be heard underneath the tranquilizing melodies. Next to him is a boy, dressed in jeans and a black hooded sweater sitting cross-legged on the ground. He cradles a guitar in his lap, his fingers work the strings like a painter works a brush on canvas, each note is delivered flawlessly.
I notice the soft clink of change as it lands on the soft but worn velvety surface of an open guitar case and then the flutter of a dollar bill as it slowly cascades, joining more change and bills. Watching them play I am reminded why I love New York. The diversity comes rushing at you like waves lapping up on a beach shore.
A cool wind sends chilled fingers across my exposed cheeks; slowly I lift my camera, centering the frame upon the brick wall background and the two men working side by side. The camera clicks I am again reminded of why I am living the life I’ve always dreamed.
Basically my walk through central park was exactly this, okay there was no guitar player with the guy, I don't have a penthouse suite in a massively tall building.
I did however get rockstar parking on 70th and Central Park west, I ate a hot dog from a street vendor and got a bottle of coke. The leaves were changing and the air was beautiful. I almost cried because when I wrote this, I wrote it with the expectation that it would happen years from now.
If you asked me last June if I saw myself living a dream, I would have told you no. I would never have imagined that something I thought up would be something possible. The "almost tears" were purely because I was in public, had I been alone, had I had this epiphany on my own I know I would have cried. I would have cried because knowing that I accomplished something renewed my sense of direction. It gave me hope.
Okay, so I'm not a professional photographer yet, I'm working on it!
After my trip to NYC this past Sunday I left my beloved city with a sense of renewal and awareness. It was by far one of the better trips I have ever been on to the city and it just made me feel so alive when I have felt so dead.
While we were walking through the park I was snapping pictures when suddenly I heard a saxophone playing and my eyes almost instantly welled with tears. I really have no connection with a sax that should truly bring me to tears the way it almost did. There is no real back story where I can say something along the lines of "My grandpa So and so used to play me sax as a kid" or something to that effect, all I have is an imagination and a proposed idea that I made up. About a year ago, for my writing 101 class I wrote a descriptive essay about where I see myself in the future and this is what I wrote...
The light radiated through my window as I lay in bed resisting the urge to wake up. I could feel the warmth of the sun creeping across the floor and my bed, like a caterpillar inching slowly along. I knew before long I would not be able to resist the bright sunshine, thinking to myself that it would be a perfect day to take the camera out and see if I could capture a few decent pictures of fall in the city.
It wasn’t long before the coolness of the wood floors touched my bare feet and I was up walking around my twelfth floor apartment. Strolling by the bright window I remembered why I had made the splurge to pay the steep monthly rent; the view was breathtaking. I paused only momentarily to take in the landscape before I walked away to start getting ready for the day.
By the time I had showered and dressed, my apartment was filled with the rich smell of fresh coffee. The smell alone is almost enough to keep me up for hours. It reminds me of Saturday morning breakfast with my Aunt back when I was in college. I smile at the memory, grabbing my favorite coffee mug; filling it with the aromatic, dark, and steaming hot liquid.
I remember, I had always wanted a very open loft-style apartment with big open windows that would view the city, so it was no wonder that when I found this place that it would be my personal heaven. I stare into the vast and sparsely furnished room with a bed in one corner. Standing in the middle of the room, you could see one large window that covered the entire length of the apartment and from it, I saw what some people only see in pictures. Tall jutting up towers that loomed over the sidewalks below that were always bustling with people.
At 7 A.M business men already hurrying off to work in their expensive Armani suits, kids walking with their parents; lunch pails in tow and college students with their futures ahead of them; ready to be molded, carrying books that would talk about famous philosophers and how the West was won. Below, the streets were no longer lined with the mountains of black trash bags placed at the curb almost nightly by owners of restaurants or stores below me. Cars are already beginning to cram the streets stuck in tight, like sardines waiting desperately to get through the light. Car horns blast incessantly. Glancing over the city below, I am reminded by the scarlet red and pumpkin orange leaves sprouting from tree lined streets what my mission for today is.
As I open the door, the brisk cold air from the October air greets me, stinging my cheeks slightly as gusts of wind howl through the valley of skyscrapers that dominate above me. Once outside, the exotic smells of the city invade my senses. Today it’s a mixture of freshly baked bread and car exhaust, with a sprinkle of wood from the fires people burned in the previous night to keep their places warm. I take a step onto the leaf littered sidewalk and a billow of steam arises up from streets. The ground below me starts to quake from the roar of the subway.
I set out on my journey uptown to Central Park with camera in tow and the music of the city ringing in my ear. The music starts with the gentle sounds of steam being released causing a high scream and then a symphony of sounds join in, cars honking, a siren as a police car attempts to squeeze by jammed traffic on official business, people talking on cell phones and bags rustling in the wind. In the distance I can hear the lonely sounds of someone playing a saxophone; the music wails its story of love lost as my steps fall in line with the drumming of the city.
I am tempted by new smells almost every block, the smell of freshly made hot chocolate lingers in the air and a bouquet of flowers lures me and I think that I would love to have this on my table because of a single flower sitting like a lone wolf on a table. However, I know I won’t be home until later so I settle for a quick snapshot and enter the a corner store for a bottle of water.
Greeted by a bell; the sounds of the morning news on a small TV set located behind the counter, two Indian men talking in their native tongue, and a strange mix of foreign smells. The older man nods his head towards me greeting me with a smile, “Morning Miss.” I smile back, nodding, and head to the back of the store. Again I am tempted by the array of offerings in this small market. I grab a pack of Starburst and a bottle of water then bring my selections to the counter. The younger man rings up my purchases. “Tree-fifty” he says, so I pay and head back out into the chilled air. The bell jingles as I open the door.
Before long I am at a smaller opening into the park, excited to start snapping pictures. Already people have gathered to read their morning paper on the benches and men with horse drawn carriages begin to set up for the day’s work.
“Carriage ride miss?” one man offers petting the mane and neck of his mare.
“No thank you, I think I’ll do this one on foot,” I respond holding up my camera indicating my intentions.
He nods to me and I walk through the stonewalled opening, leaves crunching below me. My world becomes a bit darker as the leaves still on the trees shade me from the warmth of the sun. I pull my coat around me tighter, tying off the waist to hold it, and begin snapping pictures. I pay close attention to the birds chirping and watch how they dart in and out of bushes. I watch particularly close to what I can assume to be a lovers’ quarrel among two small gray and white birds. They squawk at each other fluttering their wings and moving about in a circular motion before one flies deeper into the park.
Again, I hear the wailing of the saxophone, this time more upbeat and before long I can hear someone plucking strings on a guitar. I follow the sound through the park where specks of light are allowed to squeeze through the bone like fingers of branches and leaves above. Before long I am at an opening. An old and weathered man dressed in a brown suit sits on a dirt encrusted bucket playing a worn and darkened saxophone. The sounds of the pads opening and closing on the saxophone can be heard underneath the tranquilizing melodies. Next to him is a boy, dressed in jeans and a black hooded sweater sitting cross-legged on the ground. He cradles a guitar in his lap, his fingers work the strings like a painter works a brush on canvas, each note is delivered flawlessly.
I notice the soft clink of change as it lands on the soft but worn velvety surface of an open guitar case and then the flutter of a dollar bill as it slowly cascades, joining more change and bills. Watching them play I am reminded why I love New York. The diversity comes rushing at you like waves lapping up on a beach shore.
A cool wind sends chilled fingers across my exposed cheeks; slowly I lift my camera, centering the frame upon the brick wall background and the two men working side by side. The camera clicks I am again reminded of why I am living the life I’ve always dreamed.
Basically my walk through central park was exactly this, okay there was no guitar player with the guy, I don't have a penthouse suite in a massively tall building.
I did however get rockstar parking on 70th and Central Park west, I ate a hot dog from a street vendor and got a bottle of coke. The leaves were changing and the air was beautiful. I almost cried because when I wrote this, I wrote it with the expectation that it would happen years from now.
If you asked me last June if I saw myself living a dream, I would have told you no. I would never have imagined that something I thought up would be something possible. The "almost tears" were purely because I was in public, had I been alone, had I had this epiphany on my own I know I would have cried. I would have cried because knowing that I accomplished something renewed my sense of direction. It gave me hope.
Okay, so I'm not a professional photographer yet, I'm working on it!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A cry for help answered.
It’s interesting how someone you used to talk to on a daily basis can disappear but then reappear at exactly the right time.
In a spill all moment I have to confess that my last two months have been anything but pleasurable. The week before my birthday I manage to hit a speed bump in my brain that disabled my ability to cope with anything. I slipped into this dark monster of despair and have yet to fully come up for air. With my 25th birthday approaching my mind sloped, as did my sense of reason. I attempted the first bout of suicidal thoughts and desires. I consumed an entire bottle of cherry rum within a ten-minute span. This was a bad choice and I later learned that I needed to space the consumption for maximum effect. My target of choice, being death by alcohol poisoning.
My reasons behind my desire to seek the closest exit stemmed a lot from my own mental anguish and feeling of inadequacy. Furthermore I was pushed by my inability to let go of my past demons and a need to be comforted and supported in my darkest hour. Comfort that did not come, as I would have liked it to. Is it even fair to be choosy at this time? I wonder? My failure to actually succeed in what I was planning left me deeper than when I had started. I managed to shake myself off, stand up and push further, each of life’s potholes pushing me off course and bringing me back into the dark circle.
With a stint in the hospital over Halloween, I found myself falling into despair with loneliness and sadness. But also these same hopes of death crept ever so slowly back into my mind. This time, the physical pain matching the mental pain that I had. Learning from previous attempts to speak out and express my feelings, I bottled them as well, filed under “Jennie-you-are-stupid.” Because that is how I felt and feel about my suicidal thoughts. My sense of self worth has been severely compromised and the things that I once found joy from are bland and colorless.
My hand reached out for a friend but was quickly bitten, snapped, my feelings belittled and criticized. To those around me, I was choosing to be like this. This was something I could control, just wake up and feel “all better”. Unfortunately, I knew from experience and books that I’d read that what I was feeling wasn’t going to change by just waking up. The truth of the matter being I needed “help.”
The problem is, I don’t find psychologist or therapy as an acceptable form of assistance. I also do not believe in mental medication as aid. I’m kind of a strong believer in self-help and assistance. I believe the mind is a beautiful thing and that it has the power to over come it just takes some conditioning and time. But I also believe that in this process it is important to have people to back you, to be there for you when you need it and give you positive reinforcement. This is the problem I face because those I have around me rarely look at my problem as something that is serious and often place blame on me because of convenience. My breakdowns to not fit into people lives And let’s be honest, it’s not really convenient for me to have this break down now. I have school and a job to maintain and I can’t actually take a mental health break as much as I would love to, I’ve used up my days for that when I was in the hospital.
Cut to this past week. After being released from the hospital my mind was still not in the right place and social situations with friends got awkward and then my brain slipped into its abyss-like madness. I attempted round two of suicide by trying to OD on drugs. Cue failure again. And with that attempt three followed with Tylenol and an attempt to cut my wrist, however, being that I am not a fan of pain, I am left with some dumb scratches and a stomachache, which just adds to the fact that I haven’t been able to consume food in the past week without puking, since my emotions control my stomach.
Still saddened by my ill-fated attempts I raise and go to work and then my phone goes off and I see a message from a friend from my teenage years. “Hey, How are you?” he questions. “I’ve had better days.” I respond as I follow the curious 1-year-old around the grassy yard. “How so?” He inquires. “Oh besides the 3 failed attempts at suicide?” I click back on the keyboard not sure of why I am divulging this information so early on. “Why do you want to die?” he asks and I can feel that his questions are not judgmental but concerned. “What are you so unhappy about?” my phone beeps back. I think for a second, my life isn’t that bad. I have a decent job and I am doing fairly well in school thus far, but my brain is plagued with emotions and lack of support. I am angry and I feel alone so I tell him this. I spend the next 5 hours intermittently texting him back and forth answering each prying question with utter and complete honestly. He ends the conversation with “You have my number, the next time you feel like you’re ready to go, call me.” I read the words over in my mind, roll them around. I have had people saying I could talk to them, but is the first time that I feel like my needs were met. All the right questions were asked and all the right responses were given. I can feel myself move slightly up in my hole.
Someone stopped to say, “How are you?” and didn’t have a hidden agenda; there were no personal influences. He was not upset by my feelings and he was not disgusted. He did not take personal offense to anything I said, but asked me questions and allowed me to talk… So maybe I could rethink this therapist thing…
In a spill all moment I have to confess that my last two months have been anything but pleasurable. The week before my birthday I manage to hit a speed bump in my brain that disabled my ability to cope with anything. I slipped into this dark monster of despair and have yet to fully come up for air. With my 25th birthday approaching my mind sloped, as did my sense of reason. I attempted the first bout of suicidal thoughts and desires. I consumed an entire bottle of cherry rum within a ten-minute span. This was a bad choice and I later learned that I needed to space the consumption for maximum effect. My target of choice, being death by alcohol poisoning.
My reasons behind my desire to seek the closest exit stemmed a lot from my own mental anguish and feeling of inadequacy. Furthermore I was pushed by my inability to let go of my past demons and a need to be comforted and supported in my darkest hour. Comfort that did not come, as I would have liked it to. Is it even fair to be choosy at this time? I wonder? My failure to actually succeed in what I was planning left me deeper than when I had started. I managed to shake myself off, stand up and push further, each of life’s potholes pushing me off course and bringing me back into the dark circle.
With a stint in the hospital over Halloween, I found myself falling into despair with loneliness and sadness. But also these same hopes of death crept ever so slowly back into my mind. This time, the physical pain matching the mental pain that I had. Learning from previous attempts to speak out and express my feelings, I bottled them as well, filed under “Jennie-you-are-stupid.” Because that is how I felt and feel about my suicidal thoughts. My sense of self worth has been severely compromised and the things that I once found joy from are bland and colorless.
My hand reached out for a friend but was quickly bitten, snapped, my feelings belittled and criticized. To those around me, I was choosing to be like this. This was something I could control, just wake up and feel “all better”. Unfortunately, I knew from experience and books that I’d read that what I was feeling wasn’t going to change by just waking up. The truth of the matter being I needed “help.”
The problem is, I don’t find psychologist or therapy as an acceptable form of assistance. I also do not believe in mental medication as aid. I’m kind of a strong believer in self-help and assistance. I believe the mind is a beautiful thing and that it has the power to over come it just takes some conditioning and time. But I also believe that in this process it is important to have people to back you, to be there for you when you need it and give you positive reinforcement. This is the problem I face because those I have around me rarely look at my problem as something that is serious and often place blame on me because of convenience. My breakdowns to not fit into people lives And let’s be honest, it’s not really convenient for me to have this break down now. I have school and a job to maintain and I can’t actually take a mental health break as much as I would love to, I’ve used up my days for that when I was in the hospital.
Cut to this past week. After being released from the hospital my mind was still not in the right place and social situations with friends got awkward and then my brain slipped into its abyss-like madness. I attempted round two of suicide by trying to OD on drugs. Cue failure again. And with that attempt three followed with Tylenol and an attempt to cut my wrist, however, being that I am not a fan of pain, I am left with some dumb scratches and a stomachache, which just adds to the fact that I haven’t been able to consume food in the past week without puking, since my emotions control my stomach.
Still saddened by my ill-fated attempts I raise and go to work and then my phone goes off and I see a message from a friend from my teenage years. “Hey, How are you?” he questions. “I’ve had better days.” I respond as I follow the curious 1-year-old around the grassy yard. “How so?” He inquires. “Oh besides the 3 failed attempts at suicide?” I click back on the keyboard not sure of why I am divulging this information so early on. “Why do you want to die?” he asks and I can feel that his questions are not judgmental but concerned. “What are you so unhappy about?” my phone beeps back. I think for a second, my life isn’t that bad. I have a decent job and I am doing fairly well in school thus far, but my brain is plagued with emotions and lack of support. I am angry and I feel alone so I tell him this. I spend the next 5 hours intermittently texting him back and forth answering each prying question with utter and complete honestly. He ends the conversation with “You have my number, the next time you feel like you’re ready to go, call me.” I read the words over in my mind, roll them around. I have had people saying I could talk to them, but is the first time that I feel like my needs were met. All the right questions were asked and all the right responses were given. I can feel myself move slightly up in my hole.
Someone stopped to say, “How are you?” and didn’t have a hidden agenda; there were no personal influences. He was not upset by my feelings and he was not disgusted. He did not take personal offense to anything I said, but asked me questions and allowed me to talk… So maybe I could rethink this therapist thing…
Thursday, November 05, 2009
I never meant to start a war...
So without fail my life seems to have flipped itself upside down. I was walking pretty strong with most things in my life, while my emotional side wavered and constantly took abrupt stops and dips, financially and physically, I was okay. I managed to survive a year in a new place, where I knew very few. It was something I could be proud of. I was able to help friends for a chance instead of everyone always helping me. And even thought emotionally I was blustery, I was good.
When I decided to quit my full-time job and take on a part time job as a nanny so I could go back to school and really concentrate, I thought I was doing something for the good. I thought, yes, finally I’m doing something I can be happy with; I’m finally making those steps to accomplish my goal. Even if it is a goal I question now and look back on with much skepticism, at least I was doing something right?
Mostly, I didn’t want to work for the company I was working for, at the end of the day, I didn’t feel like I was doing something I could be confident in. I didn’t feel good about myself, I felt like I was a sneak, and that what the business did was deceiving and something I couldn’t allow myself to do. And so, as luck would have it, the day I was to return to work after a surgery, a family I had interviewed with offered me a position as nanny to two little boys. I jumped. I was so excited that finally someone looked past my obviously questionable appearance and took a chance. And things have gone pretty good.
Cue disasters.
Financially, quitting my full time job was stupid. Financially, I figure I had everything planned, with financial aid I thought could really keep myself afloat for the few months, I had saved and conserved some money to assist me with this. I didn’t factor in getting ill, having to go to doctors, having to have my car towed twice and having to buy parts (some, not all) for the car. I had only factored in what I needed to make it month to month with some going into savings. I didn’t plan enough and so I sank. Or rather, am sinking. And then I spent 4 days in a hospital, not sure how that bill is being paid for… But I suppose I will cross that bridge when I get there…. Or maybe I’ll just jump off it.
With this financial instability, I found that my emotional problems began to weigh more on my mind. My desire to be independent of people collided heavily with my co-dependent personality. My desire to help clashed with my selfish need to be helped. My need for love collided with my lack of love I have for myself. My need to be in the spotlight infringed upon a want to be unnoticed. I wanted this, and that, but couldn’t articulate how to get them or how to meet these needs. My thirst to be normal complicated my need to also be different, unique and desired.
Words I’d said in the past continued to haunt me even while I was attempting to make changes. When I would crash into these past demons, I found myself reacting the same as I had then, with more anger and resentment that I was unable to be free of things I had long apologized for. My frustrations were growing, my mind was sinking, financially I was in muddy water and I fell.
I fell deep and I fell hard. And I have yet to actually pick myself up and shake myself off. However, my desire to push forward has faded. Before, I always had a small motivational factor that would push me through, whether it be my need to be something more, to rise above, or be it a friend who’s need for me held me somewhat grounded. Something always made me get back up, dust myself off and try again. Something always made me laugh, made me smile, and made me see light in a dark tunnel.
I find that I’ve run out of “some things” to keep me moving. I’ve lost my ability to find a silver lining. I’ve lost my hope and my desire, my drive to live and my thirst for adventure. I function now only because its what is expected and what should be. No longer for myself, I continue to go to class, do the required work and attempt to pass. I wake up and go to work, do the required time and return home. And maybe that makes my only driving factor the idea of what is expected of me. I am expected to pay my bills and contribute to society. I am expected to take care of my responsibilities. I am an adult now so I am expected to answer as such. But I would rather hole myself off, breathe and attempt to heal these scars, these wounds that continue to break open festering with vile infections that slowly are rotting me…
When I decided to quit my full-time job and take on a part time job as a nanny so I could go back to school and really concentrate, I thought I was doing something for the good. I thought, yes, finally I’m doing something I can be happy with; I’m finally making those steps to accomplish my goal. Even if it is a goal I question now and look back on with much skepticism, at least I was doing something right?
Mostly, I didn’t want to work for the company I was working for, at the end of the day, I didn’t feel like I was doing something I could be confident in. I didn’t feel good about myself, I felt like I was a sneak, and that what the business did was deceiving and something I couldn’t allow myself to do. And so, as luck would have it, the day I was to return to work after a surgery, a family I had interviewed with offered me a position as nanny to two little boys. I jumped. I was so excited that finally someone looked past my obviously questionable appearance and took a chance. And things have gone pretty good.
Cue disasters.
Financially, quitting my full time job was stupid. Financially, I figure I had everything planned, with financial aid I thought could really keep myself afloat for the few months, I had saved and conserved some money to assist me with this. I didn’t factor in getting ill, having to go to doctors, having to have my car towed twice and having to buy parts (some, not all) for the car. I had only factored in what I needed to make it month to month with some going into savings. I didn’t plan enough and so I sank. Or rather, am sinking. And then I spent 4 days in a hospital, not sure how that bill is being paid for… But I suppose I will cross that bridge when I get there…. Or maybe I’ll just jump off it.
With this financial instability, I found that my emotional problems began to weigh more on my mind. My desire to be independent of people collided heavily with my co-dependent personality. My desire to help clashed with my selfish need to be helped. My need for love collided with my lack of love I have for myself. My need to be in the spotlight infringed upon a want to be unnoticed. I wanted this, and that, but couldn’t articulate how to get them or how to meet these needs. My thirst to be normal complicated my need to also be different, unique and desired.
Words I’d said in the past continued to haunt me even while I was attempting to make changes. When I would crash into these past demons, I found myself reacting the same as I had then, with more anger and resentment that I was unable to be free of things I had long apologized for. My frustrations were growing, my mind was sinking, financially I was in muddy water and I fell.
I fell deep and I fell hard. And I have yet to actually pick myself up and shake myself off. However, my desire to push forward has faded. Before, I always had a small motivational factor that would push me through, whether it be my need to be something more, to rise above, or be it a friend who’s need for me held me somewhat grounded. Something always made me get back up, dust myself off and try again. Something always made me laugh, made me smile, and made me see light in a dark tunnel.
I find that I’ve run out of “some things” to keep me moving. I’ve lost my ability to find a silver lining. I’ve lost my hope and my desire, my drive to live and my thirst for adventure. I function now only because its what is expected and what should be. No longer for myself, I continue to go to class, do the required work and attempt to pass. I wake up and go to work, do the required time and return home. And maybe that makes my only driving factor the idea of what is expected of me. I am expected to pay my bills and contribute to society. I am expected to take care of my responsibilities. I am an adult now so I am expected to answer as such. But I would rather hole myself off, breathe and attempt to heal these scars, these wounds that continue to break open festering with vile infections that slowly are rotting me…
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)