I have these moments when I feel like the most unaccomplished thirtysomething in the world. When I look back on the last decade of my life and think you did it all wrong. Instead of going back to school, an endeavor which is taking way more time than expected, I maybe should have stayed at that one job and spent my time working my way up the ladder. Maybe I would still be unhappy, maybe it’s the depression coming back, maybe I’d be making more money, maybe I wouldn’t have to live where I live, maybe I’d have a sense of having done something. Anything, at this point. Because this kind of life – it’s just not working.
Today is one of those moments. One of those long, drawn out, 24-hour long moments. I walked through Lowe’s, looking to buy my father his promised garden gnome. I found one for him. I paid for it and walked out with a stronger desire for my own outdoor space, my own indoor space, and a deeper pull on my chest. The kind of pull that drags you back down to those places you’ve been before and don’t want to go back to. The kind of place that makes me jealous of people, makes me wonder why they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor and I don’t. Why have they been rewarded for their hard work and I haven’t? And if I have been rewarded, how come I don’t feel like I’ve been rewarded? Instead, I feel like I’m still in the same position I was in twenty years ago. And, in many ways, I still am. Except I have bills now and a child to feed and a constant reminder that I’m doing this all by myself.
This shit gets old.
The psychological aspect of it all can’t be healthy. As you can pretty much tell from this post, the emotional aspect kind of leaves me feeling face-down in the mud, while all those being rewarded by life, whether deservedly or not, stomp on my back and push my face back down…down…down. I’m suffocating. I’m stuck.
This shit gets old, too.
If I’m doing something wrong, tell me. Obviously I can’t see it for myself. Do I need to work harder? Work faster? Work smarter? Tell me. Because I don’t know what I need to do.
I want a life. I want my life. The way I want to live it. Is that wrong? Am I wrong to complain because other people have it worse off than me? Am I wrong to say that I’m still allowed to be angry at the way my life has turned out because someone else’s life is even less than ideal? Some days I just don’t care. Today is one of those days.
Most people my age have experienced so much, sometimes alone in their own life path or with someone else if they’ve been lucky enough to find that someone else. Me? I’m beginning to think that the decisions I made in the past are keeping me from making any decisions now. If you don’t make a decision, than you can’t be blamed for the outcome. But what if that decision could earn you a great deal of credit and self-worth and a sense of accomplishment? I’m too afraid to find out, possibly.
Yes, the girl from high school who stopped at nothing to get her way is now too afraid to make a decision. The same teenager who dared to stand up for herself in front of school boards and police and thugs with guns can’t get her shit together these days. As much as I hated teenage life, I would kill for an ounce of the courage I once had, even a simple drop of self-respect I carried with me back then.
What has happened to me? When did I lose myself? And more importantly, where did I lose myself? Is it possible to go back there to get that girl…to go back in time or back in place to find myself? I just need a moment, just a general idea or a roundabout moment that can clue me in to the second I changed into this person who doesn’t know how to take care of herself anymore. If I had any idea, maybe it would all click. It would all come together.
If I could figure out what I did then, I just might be able to figure out what to do next.
Floridahoma 