This is a long one.
No, I'm not about to talk about the end times of the world. I seem to be at the end times of the life I have been living for the past few years, though. I've said sometimes that I died at Harding. What I mean by that is that my personality changed. The person I was when I went in was not the person I was when I left. Psychological connotations notwithstanding, I was somewhat cracked. I thought all I had to do was show up to class, do a half-hearted attempt at homework and take tests that I didn't study for. That's how I got honor roll in high school. I was wrong. My last semester, Dr. Claxton, who taught the British Literature class I was in, told me I had no discipline. I was offended when he told me, but he was right. That was why I was offended. I hated the fact that he was right. That I used my fear of people laughing at me because I left class due to my tics to keep me from going back. I ended up going to class, allowing my tics to take over, or even faking them some days, and leaving for the rest of the hour, just to get my stuff at the end of it.
I'm ashamed that I did that, but I had to say it now. I've never admitted that before to anyone, not even myself. I faked my tics to get out of class.
Well, some of my problems that year were also medical. I had developed a blood clot in my left hand during the summer. I know it was there then because that was when my knuckles started hurting if I stayed still for too long. At Harding, it got so bad that I would sleep for fifteen minutes at a time, get up to walk around and numb the pain under ice cold tap water. Half an hour after I woke up, I would sleep for another fifteen minutes, if I was lucky. I didn't tell anyone. That was why I slept in the Student Center all the time. I know I was doing it before that, but that was the reason I slept in the Student Center then and that was why I walked the halls of Grad Hall at three o'clock in the morning the fall of 2004.
I didn't have any goals or dreams, other than getting married and being a writer. Those dreams are still there, and they are goals that I am working toward, what with the things I've been writing lately and the job that I have, allowing me some modicum of self-sufficiency once my paycheck comes through.
However, after I got sick, everything changed. I thought everything I had worked for was gone, but I hadn't worked for anything. I didn't want to admit it, so I didn't. I still knew that everything that was taken from me were things that I had taken for granted and didn't do anything to deserve. I didn't study, lamely and falsely saying I didn't know how. I didn't work for my money, blaming the difficulty of finding a job in Searcy. I even took my friends for granted, never trying to give back to them. I wanted to go back because it was a place that felt like home and I didn't belong in Merrimac the way I was at 21 years old.
Now I want to go back so I can make it up to people. I want to apologize for what I jerk I was and for what a jerk I've been for the last 24 years of my life. Over the past three years, I did a lot of changing. I stagnated in my self loathing. I nearly lost my mind, hanging on by simply hanging on the knowledge that the people in my head weren't real. It's still really hard to remember that fact sometimes, but it's getting better. In the past year, I took a full 180, growing nearly as fast as my waist shrunk. (Which puts me at just less than 180, ironically.) Now I have a job that I've held for just less than a week and seem to be able to hold it for longer.
The job. Now we come to the crux of the matter that started this ramble. For the past few months, I've been incredibly depressed. I thought the reason was the fact that I didn't have a job. Now I have a job and I'm still depressed. I could blame it on the fact that the job is only for the Christmas season. I could blame it on the fact that it won't really get me anything but a month of work I could parlay into another job, of whose existence I'm unsure. However, I'm tired of blaming. I'm tired of blaming others, circumstances, and myself.
I wrote a poem. It's 135 lines long. I really like it, and that fact makes me uncomfortable. I've never liked change. It's trait of Asperger's Syndrome, but I won't blame. I'll deal. I want to get this poem published, but I'm scared. I'm not scared of getting rejected, no. I'm scared of getting accepted. I'm scared of actually doing something good, something that I actually worked for, something that I didn't just knock out in a half hour, or whip together from whatever's in the fridge, or sit down to write without ever studying. I'm scared of actually doing a job that I keep because I'm actually capable of doing the job. I'm scared of actually finishing one of my stories and having be good enough to show someone else who can say, "That's good."
I want to move on in my life, but I'm scared because I don't know where it's going to lead me. I don't know if I'll be working at Starbuck's or Coffee Society or anywhere in January. I don't know when that interview for the electrician's apprentice program is going to be set. I don't know if I'll be able to go to school in January, or if I'll actually get my poem published or anything that's going to happen. I'm scared because I know something HAS to happen, because it hasn't seemed to happen yet. It scares me.
I'm scared because fear seems to be all I know. It never goes away. I don't like it. I want it to leave. I don't know how to make it leave. I don't know how to fight it. That's what I am most afraid of. Fear.
I'm ashamed that I did that, but I had to say it now. I've never admitted that before to anyone, not even myself. I faked my tics to get out of class.
Well, some of my problems that year were also medical. I had developed a blood clot in my left hand during the summer. I know it was there then because that was when my knuckles started hurting if I stayed still for too long. At Harding, it got so bad that I would sleep for fifteen minutes at a time, get up to walk around and numb the pain under ice cold tap water. Half an hour after I woke up, I would sleep for another fifteen minutes, if I was lucky. I didn't tell anyone. That was why I slept in the Student Center all the time. I know I was doing it before that, but that was the reason I slept in the Student Center then and that was why I walked the halls of Grad Hall at three o'clock in the morning the fall of 2004.
I didn't have any goals or dreams, other than getting married and being a writer. Those dreams are still there, and they are goals that I am working toward, what with the things I've been writing lately and the job that I have, allowing me some modicum of self-sufficiency once my paycheck comes through.
However, after I got sick, everything changed. I thought everything I had worked for was gone, but I hadn't worked for anything. I didn't want to admit it, so I didn't. I still knew that everything that was taken from me were things that I had taken for granted and didn't do anything to deserve. I didn't study, lamely and falsely saying I didn't know how. I didn't work for my money, blaming the difficulty of finding a job in Searcy. I even took my friends for granted, never trying to give back to them. I wanted to go back because it was a place that felt like home and I didn't belong in Merrimac the way I was at 21 years old.
Now I want to go back so I can make it up to people. I want to apologize for what I jerk I was and for what a jerk I've been for the last 24 years of my life. Over the past three years, I did a lot of changing. I stagnated in my self loathing. I nearly lost my mind, hanging on by simply hanging on the knowledge that the people in my head weren't real. It's still really hard to remember that fact sometimes, but it's getting better. In the past year, I took a full 180, growing nearly as fast as my waist shrunk. (Which puts me at just less than 180, ironically.) Now I have a job that I've held for just less than a week and seem to be able to hold it for longer.
The job. Now we come to the crux of the matter that started this ramble. For the past few months, I've been incredibly depressed. I thought the reason was the fact that I didn't have a job. Now I have a job and I'm still depressed. I could blame it on the fact that the job is only for the Christmas season. I could blame it on the fact that it won't really get me anything but a month of work I could parlay into another job, of whose existence I'm unsure. However, I'm tired of blaming. I'm tired of blaming others, circumstances, and myself.
I wrote a poem. It's 135 lines long. I really like it, and that fact makes me uncomfortable. I've never liked change. It's trait of Asperger's Syndrome, but I won't blame. I'll deal. I want to get this poem published, but I'm scared. I'm not scared of getting rejected, no. I'm scared of getting accepted. I'm scared of actually doing something good, something that I actually worked for, something that I didn't just knock out in a half hour, or whip together from whatever's in the fridge, or sit down to write without ever studying. I'm scared of actually doing a job that I keep because I'm actually capable of doing the job. I'm scared of actually finishing one of my stories and having be good enough to show someone else who can say, "That's good."
I want to move on in my life, but I'm scared because I don't know where it's going to lead me. I don't know if I'll be working at Starbuck's or Coffee Society or anywhere in January. I don't know when that interview for the electrician's apprentice program is going to be set. I don't know if I'll be able to go to school in January, or if I'll actually get my poem published or anything that's going to happen. I'm scared because I know something HAS to happen, because it hasn't seemed to happen yet. It scares me.
I'm scared because fear seems to be all I know. It never goes away. I don't like it. I want it to leave. I don't know how to make it leave. I don't know how to fight it. That's what I am most afraid of. Fear.