(no subject)
I was lying in my bed, trying to get some sleep since I've been fighting off this odd mild fever thing for several days, when I just started crying. And then just sort of kept going, and going, and...well...it's been about half an hour to 45 minutes now. And I just kept thinking to myself: "what the hell have I done to my life?" Because right now, there is nothing, literally nothing, in it that does not make me sad. Note the wording there...because there are things which will occasionally make me happy, but even those are few and far between and they aslo make me--as I said--sad. And I don't know, I just don't know what to do. But lying there crying...I realized that I really have lost all sense of confidence and self worth. Even when I was massively depressed, I could at least hang on to the fact that I was quite good at what I was doing...
What is hardest for me, here, is that I feel like I have totally and utterly fallen epicly short of expectations...both my own and other people's. And especially that, comparitively, I appear to be quite at the bottom of the barrell of my peers, and that's not a place I'm used to being. But even that competitiveness and feeling as though I've let others down aside...I think it's much worse that here's something that **I** always imagined I would do quite well...where I can't seem to pass beyond the point of "thoroughly mediocre."
Many people are leaving Ellison. And maybe that would help. And if I thought it would actually be the solution, I would do it. Maybe. A large part of me thinks that I just don't have the courage. I already feel like I'm drowning in "adulthood" and "the real world" and to leave my source of income with no actual plan terrifies me. More than that, the thought of leaving as a failure just kills me. It is, I think, one of the last little bits of hope that I hold on to that I actually **could** make a great teacher. And to abandon that hope...to shrug my shoulders and say "well, I'm not nearly as good at this as everyone thought I would be, but ah well," would blow out that tiny flame. And with, right now, nothing supporting that but familial love and the odd person who still thinks I'm better than I am, I think I might actually crack if that were to happen. Plus there's that whole issue with feeling like I'm abandonning my students and school and being just one more person who leaves, and yadda yadda...but that's actually hardly even a blip on this particular existential-crisis radar.
It is hard for me also, that I feel like no one would try to stop me if I were to go. Or, rather, perhaps they would simply because of the sheer volume of people are leaving...that it would be nice not to have yet another position to fill, but I don't think anyone would be saying to themselves: "man, that's a real loss for our school right there..."
Now, everyone likes to feel like they really do matter, that their presence would really be missed if they were gone...but this issue runs much deeper for me. Especially right now when I seem to have fucked up every single friendship I have. Okay, maybe overstatement. I can think of two...or...well...possibly two...that I haven't. But, out of a lifetime of friends...two isn't very many. And even they are, shall we say, "growing out of me." As I seem so fixed and stagnant while others around me keep whizzing by, I feel like I am farther and farther away. That I really just don't "fit" into anyone's lives anymore. Right...but the connection here...I feel like I so easily seem to slip out of everyone's life and it just doesn't matter...I am either quickly replaced by someone else or...not even replaced, because I was holding no solid ground to begin with. And so, I think, would I "slip" out of Ellison...neither good, nor bad enough to be remembered.
And right now, I am feeling so utterly, entirely, relentlessly alone. And for someone who gains the most joy from being useful, for helping, and loving, and giving...alone is not a good place to be. Yes. Admittedly, this is partially my fault. I could be trying harder to meet new people and expand my group of friends. But bloody hell...I don't know a single person who has had to try this hard to do so. And right now, whenever I try to figure something out...some group to join or class to take...I end up getting either so overwhelmed or unsuccessful at doing so that I pretty much shut down.
In case you're worried...I want to make it clear that I'm not dangerously unhappy. I'm not even (at least what I would call) depressed. I'm not a danger to myself nor to others, unless you count dehydration from all the water leaving through my eyes. But that's nothing a tall glass of water can't fix. I am just really, really sad.
It doesn't help that I've been sick. And being sick and alone is, I believe, one of the absolute worst things there is. Not that I am anywhere near this sick...but if I were to...I don't know...spike a ridiculous fever or something that would render me incapable of fending for myself...to know that not a single person would even potentially notice until Monday is quite awful. And then just the little things...when your head feels like it's being clamped in an industrial-strength vise, the mere act of someone handing you a glass of water and a couple tablets of Excedrin so that you don't have to get up is pretty much a miracle of epic proportions.
There is a large part of me that wants to quit tomorrow (tomorrow, now, being Monday). To say, "hey, I'll be here through June 17, and then I'm packing up, moving out, and finding somewhere that I can be happy." But...that's far too rash for me, along with the host of other aforementioned reasons. But the plan had been to stay for at least two more years...and now, maybe...it will become only one. But both the practical and the competitive parts of me keep thinking "come on now...you'll have been there four years...you have to stay for that last one." And there's the hopeful part of me that says "maybe you've just needed time and slightly more favorable circumstances..." and this part is fueled by the fact that, for a week and a half last June and about two weeks in August, I was fucking AWESOME. I was. I felt that connection...I felt the excitement and the learning, and all that crap. And let me tell you...if I could even feel that for one hour a week, my life would be about 300 times better than it is right now. But. I have an apartment on which I just renewed a lease...I have opera season tickets, and they're finally doing Candide again, and I just can't miss that. I have my little Freshmen babies graduating...the only class, I think, where it really breaks my heart to abandon them.
I've essentially stopped writing in livejournal and even really, I feel, stopped being able to have any sort of conversations with anyone about anything even slightly personal, because I would 1) rather not whine all the time, and 2) there is just nothing in my own life that is even worth commenting on. It is now mostly about figuring out what change to make and how to make it.
What is hardest for me, here, is that I feel like I have totally and utterly fallen epicly short of expectations...both my own and other people's. And especially that, comparitively, I appear to be quite at the bottom of the barrell of my peers, and that's not a place I'm used to being. But even that competitiveness and feeling as though I've let others down aside...I think it's much worse that here's something that **I** always imagined I would do quite well...where I can't seem to pass beyond the point of "thoroughly mediocre."
Many people are leaving Ellison. And maybe that would help. And if I thought it would actually be the solution, I would do it. Maybe. A large part of me thinks that I just don't have the courage. I already feel like I'm drowning in "adulthood" and "the real world" and to leave my source of income with no actual plan terrifies me. More than that, the thought of leaving as a failure just kills me. It is, I think, one of the last little bits of hope that I hold on to that I actually **could** make a great teacher. And to abandon that hope...to shrug my shoulders and say "well, I'm not nearly as good at this as everyone thought I would be, but ah well," would blow out that tiny flame. And with, right now, nothing supporting that but familial love and the odd person who still thinks I'm better than I am, I think I might actually crack if that were to happen. Plus there's that whole issue with feeling like I'm abandonning my students and school and being just one more person who leaves, and yadda yadda...but that's actually hardly even a blip on this particular existential-crisis radar.
It is hard for me also, that I feel like no one would try to stop me if I were to go. Or, rather, perhaps they would simply because of the sheer volume of people are leaving...that it would be nice not to have yet another position to fill, but I don't think anyone would be saying to themselves: "man, that's a real loss for our school right there..."
Now, everyone likes to feel like they really do matter, that their presence would really be missed if they were gone...but this issue runs much deeper for me. Especially right now when I seem to have fucked up every single friendship I have. Okay, maybe overstatement. I can think of two...or...well...possibly two...that I haven't. But, out of a lifetime of friends...two isn't very many. And even they are, shall we say, "growing out of me." As I seem so fixed and stagnant while others around me keep whizzing by, I feel like I am farther and farther away. That I really just don't "fit" into anyone's lives anymore. Right...but the connection here...I feel like I so easily seem to slip out of everyone's life and it just doesn't matter...I am either quickly replaced by someone else or...not even replaced, because I was holding no solid ground to begin with. And so, I think, would I "slip" out of Ellison...neither good, nor bad enough to be remembered.
And right now, I am feeling so utterly, entirely, relentlessly alone. And for someone who gains the most joy from being useful, for helping, and loving, and giving...alone is not a good place to be. Yes. Admittedly, this is partially my fault. I could be trying harder to meet new people and expand my group of friends. But bloody hell...I don't know a single person who has had to try this hard to do so. And right now, whenever I try to figure something out...some group to join or class to take...I end up getting either so overwhelmed or unsuccessful at doing so that I pretty much shut down.
In case you're worried...I want to make it clear that I'm not dangerously unhappy. I'm not even (at least what I would call) depressed. I'm not a danger to myself nor to others, unless you count dehydration from all the water leaving through my eyes. But that's nothing a tall glass of water can't fix. I am just really, really sad.
It doesn't help that I've been sick. And being sick and alone is, I believe, one of the absolute worst things there is. Not that I am anywhere near this sick...but if I were to...I don't know...spike a ridiculous fever or something that would render me incapable of fending for myself...to know that not a single person would even potentially notice until Monday is quite awful. And then just the little things...when your head feels like it's being clamped in an industrial-strength vise, the mere act of someone handing you a glass of water and a couple tablets of Excedrin so that you don't have to get up is pretty much a miracle of epic proportions.
There is a large part of me that wants to quit tomorrow (tomorrow, now, being Monday). To say, "hey, I'll be here through June 17, and then I'm packing up, moving out, and finding somewhere that I can be happy." But...that's far too rash for me, along with the host of other aforementioned reasons. But the plan had been to stay for at least two more years...and now, maybe...it will become only one. But both the practical and the competitive parts of me keep thinking "come on now...you'll have been there four years...you have to stay for that last one." And there's the hopeful part of me that says "maybe you've just needed time and slightly more favorable circumstances..." and this part is fueled by the fact that, for a week and a half last June and about two weeks in August, I was fucking AWESOME. I was. I felt that connection...I felt the excitement and the learning, and all that crap. And let me tell you...if I could even feel that for one hour a week, my life would be about 300 times better than it is right now. But. I have an apartment on which I just renewed a lease...I have opera season tickets, and they're finally doing Candide again, and I just can't miss that. I have my little Freshmen babies graduating...the only class, I think, where it really breaks my heart to abandon them.
I've essentially stopped writing in livejournal and even really, I feel, stopped being able to have any sort of conversations with anyone about anything even slightly personal, because I would 1) rather not whine all the time, and 2) there is just nothing in my own life that is even worth commenting on. It is now mostly about figuring out what change to make and how to make it.