Life
I'm sitting in my parent's home, in the room I've had since I was a child, with the computer my parents got me in my lap, feeling like I'll never be independent. I had a brief taste of it at school - a flickering, tantalizing whiff of what could be. And yet here I am, no job prospects in site, completely broke, and dependent upon them at the age of 21. I know there's so much I could be doing to change that, and yet I feel this terrible inertia. I'm miserable, and yet here I sit, on livejournal instead of tweaking my resume. On facebook, instead of sending out applications. Because I know I'm safe here, though still miserable. I know if I fall on my face here, my parents will pick me back up. Because it's easier to be miserable than to be active. I yearn for the freedom of a real job, my own house, my own bills. And I'm terrified of the burden, the monotony, the trap of it all. I'm scared of making that one choice you can never take back and don't even realize was important until twenty years later when you're working at a job you hate, living in a neighborhood you hate, and you don't know where it all went wrong. That's what happened to my parents. Why shouldn't it happen to me? I'm very like them.
I have a degree now. A B.S. in Conservation Biology. And yet I still feel like a high school student, with no pretty pieces of paper, no skills to put on a resume. Nothing to appeal to the big jobs in the high places. I feel so much potential screaming to do nothing in me. Scared to show itself. Terrified of doing anything about it. I felt safe in school. I had a plan, four years laid out in front of me. There were options, but not too many. Just enough to breathe in, not too many or too few to suffocate. I was doing something worthwhile; I had a goal before me, and a clear path to get to it. Now I have a yawning emptiness. So many paths, leading nowhere important. So many monotonous possibilities; so many deadening options. It crowds in on top of me, this lack of a plan; it presses me into the floor and makes me scream out for mercy and avoid doing anything about it at all costs. So I knit and I read and I plan little things to fill the emptiness. But I don't apply for anything. I don't look at grad schools. I don't do anything that would get me anywhere but further in my hole.
Everyone feels so far away. The people I once cared about seem to be laughing at me from behind their hands. The ones I thought myself closest to don't seem to recognize me anymore. Burgeoning friendships whither and die under my callous indifference. No, that's a lie. I do care. I just can't muster the energy. Under the fear of my life I do nothing to better it. The terror clamps onto me and I just hide in the corner. I never call someone, or ask a friend for help. I avoid them, whimpering to myself in the dark. And I lose them all. ... But what's going on on their side that they lose me as well? That's the fear that keeps me away.
I sit here lonely and alone, wanting contact, wanting help and comfort. And there's no one to give it. Alex, the one person I've clutched to the tightest, the one I know I can't lose, is in another country where I can't reach him. Other friends... I don't feel close enough to to bother them at this hour. So here I am, venting my fear and loneliness to an uncaring internet.
I look at my future and I only see one thin ray of hope. And I don't believe in it. I don't believe anything I want will happen. So I sit and I stare at my mortality and I hate my fears that keep me here, clinging to those feeble hopes. Deep within me I know I'll never be happy. It's not in me. I hate myself, I hate the world, I fear everything. I don't know how to be happy. I feel fleeting moments, swallowed up by a larger darkness I can't control. And I know at the end of my life I will look back at all of my trials, all my accomplishments, all the people I touched and who touched me... and wonder why I bothered.
I have a degree now. A B.S. in Conservation Biology. And yet I still feel like a high school student, with no pretty pieces of paper, no skills to put on a resume. Nothing to appeal to the big jobs in the high places. I feel so much potential screaming to do nothing in me. Scared to show itself. Terrified of doing anything about it. I felt safe in school. I had a plan, four years laid out in front of me. There were options, but not too many. Just enough to breathe in, not too many or too few to suffocate. I was doing something worthwhile; I had a goal before me, and a clear path to get to it. Now I have a yawning emptiness. So many paths, leading nowhere important. So many monotonous possibilities; so many deadening options. It crowds in on top of me, this lack of a plan; it presses me into the floor and makes me scream out for mercy and avoid doing anything about it at all costs. So I knit and I read and I plan little things to fill the emptiness. But I don't apply for anything. I don't look at grad schools. I don't do anything that would get me anywhere but further in my hole.
Everyone feels so far away. The people I once cared about seem to be laughing at me from behind their hands. The ones I thought myself closest to don't seem to recognize me anymore. Burgeoning friendships whither and die under my callous indifference. No, that's a lie. I do care. I just can't muster the energy. Under the fear of my life I do nothing to better it. The terror clamps onto me and I just hide in the corner. I never call someone, or ask a friend for help. I avoid them, whimpering to myself in the dark. And I lose them all. ... But what's going on on their side that they lose me as well? That's the fear that keeps me away.
I sit here lonely and alone, wanting contact, wanting help and comfort. And there's no one to give it. Alex, the one person I've clutched to the tightest, the one I know I can't lose, is in another country where I can't reach him. Other friends... I don't feel close enough to to bother them at this hour. So here I am, venting my fear and loneliness to an uncaring internet.
I look at my future and I only see one thin ray of hope. And I don't believe in it. I don't believe anything I want will happen. So I sit and I stare at my mortality and I hate my fears that keep me here, clinging to those feeble hopes. Deep within me I know I'll never be happy. It's not in me. I hate myself, I hate the world, I fear everything. I don't know how to be happy. I feel fleeting moments, swallowed up by a larger darkness I can't control. And I know at the end of my life I will look back at all of my trials, all my accomplishments, all the people I touched and who touched me... and wonder why I bothered.