I am only a few days away from 27. This time of year usually makes me feel good, makes me feel like the future is happening. This time of year holds great memories in my life, and is also a reminder of choices that I made in the past that I am not too proud of. This year, I feel like I am in shock, like my life is happening and I'm barely a part of it. Granted, there are things in my life that I love. I love them dearly. My friends, my family, my talents and the ways I can express myself creatively. I do not love the fear I feel when I wake up in the morning. I do not love the inability to go to sleep at night.
For a long while when I was in Chicago, I was not working at all. This, combined with the cold weather, made me very depressed and ill, made me drink to excess and complain and bring people down. I tried to find something, anything that I could do to make myself just work and be happy. I ended up with 2 easy part time jobs and was desired in more ways than one by the people at those jobs. The jobs were not paying the bills, though, and the bills kept piling up.
Time passed and I left Chicago, came here to NC to be with people who love me, to be in a supportive creative environment where my talents and abilities would be respected and nurtured. Sure enough, these things happened. And still happen. But that is not what this post is about. This post is not about the things in my life, its about me in my life. I feel like my jacket is too small some days, too big others. That I have too much to wear, too much to breathe. So I'm suffocating, but I realize the hands around my throat are my own. I put them there because that's what I'm supposed to do. Not to sound dramatic, but I feel like I spend most of my time dying and less of it living.
So what's the problem?
Well, there is room for growth, certainly. I know that. There are hundreds of directions to choose from. The problem is balance. I know its impossible, or at least very unlikely, that everything in your life is going to make you happy. Rather, it is unlikely that you can be satisfied with everything in your life. But is it worth it when the one or two things in your life make you so unhappy that you regret them? That you loathe the thing or you loathe the feeling it gives you? What, then, do you do about that thing? Do you give it up and find something that works better? Or do you hack away at it, hoping the bark will give way and expose the trunk? The truth is, I don't know. If I did, I wouldn't be feeling this way, and I wouldn't be writing this post.
The fact of the matter is that I have to do something soon. I have to get out of my current dilemma, or I will never get out of it. I don't know what it will take, but I can't keep living my life in fear. My chest has a sinkhole, the feeling before you drop down the big slope of the roller coaster. The feeling of your arm being asleep when you wake up in the middle of the night and the reality of the room and walls around you don't add up with what you've been dreaming.
The panic.
The lack of control.
The teeth falling out of your mouth.
