Lately I've felt like giving up. I haven't been filling out job applications and instead I park my ass in front of the TV and stare at it until the day turns into night and its time for bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think about picking up a book but when I do I fall asleep, or get bored, or I think I don't have time to plow through 500 pages.
The frustration I feel is palpable. I want out of my apartment. I want to live by myself and not with a roommate at my age. I want a job that isn't something someone right out of high school can do. I earned a certification in order to change this but I'm learning that since I don't have any experience in the legal field no one will look twice at me.
This frustration and hopelessness paralyzes me. I know that the only way to change it is to....well....change it, because it sure won't change itself. Perhaps I'm just easily discouraged. Perhaps. But I've wondered if I'm not simply falling a bit deeper into what Kübler-Ross says is the fourth state of grief, depression. It seems like I've been here before so who knows, maybe I'm cycling back and forth between anger and acceptance and depression. I'll sure be glad when there's more of the one thing I can't change -- time. The passage of time will help.
Part of me longs for what Springsteen called the "Glory Days." If someone walked up and gave me the choice I wouldn't go back, but still....
When you're young or naive or just feeling full of potential and possibility, experiences are shiny and fresh. Unminted and unexplored. Nearly everything felt incredible or unique. Spending time with friends and bonding over long nights of passionate discussion, or non-stop wisecracks limned with liquor. Hearing them tell their stories for the first time and sharing your own. Discovering other people; discovering yourself in the process. Asking those who, what, where, when and why questions and not despairing if the answers weren't set in stone because you knew you didn't really know the answers anyway...they were only right at that moment and they'd change week to week anyway. Nothing felt immutable or hopeless yet.
That was heady stuff, that was. But like anything else it changes.
Years pass. You know yourself better. You're familiar enough with yourself that you know how you'll react to a lot of things before you even do them. The experiences that enriched you and led you on that voyage of self-discovery seem more like peanut butter and jelly rather than filet mignon. They become commonplace, the stuff of everyday instead of the unusual. You want to feel that same jet-fueled rush of connection that you used to but your senses betray you by dulling the essence of it all. You find yourself telling the same old stories and you listen to your friends tell their same old stories and it doesn't feel comforting any longer, it feels stifling. This disappoints you. You don't like that it does and you try to ignore that it does and you try to enjoy it like you did before. You want to enjoy it like you did before! But you don't as often; it comes only rarely.
Some fight this....this atrophy....by pushing the envelope more and more. Risking. Gathering new experiences. And others would say that if you vary the scenery -- get new friends or new surroundings -- that you can have that glittery newness back again. But I know that moving or swapping friends isn't a permanent solution and I am certainly not a risk taker. Instead, I'm a mourner. I mourn the loss of excitement. I mourn the idea that I have to exchange the people I care about for new models just so I can feel any freshness about life. And above all, I mourn the fact that I am the type of person that simply cannot remember that familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt.
So I don't know if it's apathy or just exhaustion. Which reminds me of another lyric -- "life goes on long after the thrill of livin' is gone." It's hard for me to get excited any more about life lately. There's a quote from some song about that, but it's not coming to me at the moment though it feels right on the tip of my tongue. Oh, wait! -- it's David Bowie's 'Changes' -- "and it seemed the taste was not so sweet."
I hope this means that when I finally get a taste of sweet, it'll be all that much sweeter?
((Song: "The Pretender" by Jackson Browne. Lyrics here:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/jackson-browne/the-pretender.html ))
2 comments:
I remember time seeming to stretch out after my breakup. I hated the fact that it might take me 2 years to get over that relationship, as everyone seemed to hint at. It seemed to add insult to injury. I was determined to speed up the healing process, particularly since my ex moved on quickly and got engaged.
Meanwhile I was dating men who just didn't fit... players, religious nuts, addicts, control freaks. It seemed like that unsatisfying time of life would never end but it did. It did happen to take me 2 years, but I don't think there is truly any set time for moving on to a better phase of life.
I also remember living with my brother as a roommate afterward and hating it. Our values weren't in sync and the whole thing felt like yet another mismatch. I couldn't wait until he moved out.
When he did finally move out I was thrilled. I had about a month or two of solace then started to get incredibly lonely. I think this loneliness actually drove me to look more consistently and find someone.
For me opening up in that way has always been difficult - it took the pain of isolation to motivate me. Up until that point I'd felt like life hadn't been giving me any good options, it was more like I hadn't been open enough to attract and retain them.
In terms of work, you are a great writer which takes analytical thinking, I would imagine that law would be a good fit for you. Getting that first job in a new field is always the hardest step, things get much easier from there. I'm sure you know the drill - resume tweaking, networking and career placement assistance from school is usually the way people get hired. Hang in there and keep plugging away, things will turn around for you :)
Thanks, D. I definitely needed hearing that I wasn't alone. You seem to have it so 'together' and I hope I get to that place too.
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