I get discouraged sometimes. Which is why there isn't going to be a February post. Well, not a real one. This is technically a post, I know, so shut yer trap! It's not a proper post, I'm mostly just complaining. Totally different than all my other posts. Totally. Different.
OK, here goes:
I'm almost done with college. Like 18 credits away, that's how almost done I am. That's including this current semester of 12 credits. And I'm floundering. And I totally know why, but I can't seem to stop my brain from feeling super anxious and scared and just dive in and get it done. When I graduate, there isn't going to be any excuse for me to not start living my life properly. My 'real' life is going to be there, all shiny and expectant like a new baby, and I just know that I'm going to drop that squirmy thing.
I'll have to find a job, start paying back my student loans, be an 'adult' and do all that normal shit that those of us in our 30's are supposed to do. Both my kids will be in school full time this fall, I will be done (or very nearly done, depending on summer class availability) and things that have been on my self-imposed back burner will start boiling over, demanding attention.
I got my associates degree in 2010 and looked for a job in the corresponding area of the market. For a year. I didn't even get an interview. So, I went back to school to get my bachelors degree. What if the same exact thing happens again? What if everything I've been waiting to do (I don't even really know what I've been waiting for, some kind of magical self-actualization, complete with an army of trained monkeys that I can command to do my bidding. Or something), everything about myself that I haven't been working on or thinking about or trying to improve because of having kids/going to school/watching my dad die/dealing with anxiety and depression/experiencing the inevitable stresses that come with being alive are broken or have evaporated or are simply boring and disappointing?
Anxious people like me typically don't handle the unexpected future very well. We worry and fret and wring our hands while our hearts constrict in our chests and we fight until we've worked up a sweat to stay on the edge of that cliff, because once we've slipped, once we fall down that deep, dark, cavernous pit, we are lost. It can take a long time to climb back up, mostly because we have been beaten so soundly by the terrible monster that lives down there. I call him Panistrosity (which isn't a great name, I know, but it's hard to be creative when you feel like gouging out your eyeballs just so you can stop seeing the terrible thing trying to tear you apart). It's completely exhausting and traumatizing to have your brain misfire and cause your body to panic like you are about to die when you're not. It happens over and over and over again to some people, and it is unpleasant. I haven't had an encounter with my ooze-dripping monster in a long time, but a few days ago I fell down there close enough to see that puffy, orc-like face, and I'm still feeling shaky and uncomfortable and sad.
Um, this is all figurative, by the way, in case anyone that's reading is tripping on acid or mushrooms or something and thinks there's a real cliff somewhere with an actual monster below. Just saying. Drugs are bad, Mmmkay?
So I'm preoccupied, is the point I'm trying to make, I guess. I'm doing the best I can, so please don't judge me too harshly for missing my self-appointed deadlines that don't really matter because I don't think anyone not related to me by blood or marriage reads anyway. That was very sad sackish of me to say, and I take it back. I don't take it back enough to simply delete that sentence, but I do take it back to the point that I felt the need to say something about it. Jesus, what the hell am I talking about?
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