zwolf.achtzehn
Dec. 18th, 2004 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistA random person randomly left a comment on my last entry, where I hinted at the existence of this one, and I think it sums up the situation pretty well.
"Some men lead lives of quiet desperation. My desperation makes a pathetic whining sound."
I try not to let it, because it's no fun and I have a feeling this is one of the times when whining isn't going to change anything even slightly, but I'm not going to sleep so I may as well try to write.
Where to start? Recently in an IM conversation I told![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
soltice something like "I'm having one of those times when I don't think I'm good for anything to anyone."
This happens periodically, and I'm not worried about it as such (especially as it sometimes coincides with something else that happens periodically and I can plausibly chalk it up to hormones; this is one of those times). Sure, I'm always aware of my verifiable uselessness—not going to school, not working, not even talking to anybody much, not curing cancer, not contributing to society at all, not convinced I can do anything to change any of this whether I want to or not—but I don't always dwell on it. I'm not always so emotional about it. The last day or two it seems I'm always on the verge of crying. And I hate crying.
I'm not doing any good to anyone. Even myself. Especially myself. I can make logical counterarguments based on things other people have told me and things I've thought about myself, but I don't believe them right now. I need something I'm not getting; something has to change.
There's such pressure, like a big elephant is sitting on my head right now. So I don't think I'll stay like this for long. It'll get better.paninogirl made the mistake of asking me tonight how I was doing, and I tried to explain in a few ungainly, long messages, and when I looked at the collection of them there on my screen I added something about how I'd be better soon and put a smiley face after it. I know that to be true. I know the logic (such as it is) will kick in again. But since she hadn't said anything yet that message sat there on the bottom and I looked at it until I thought (and typed) that being "better" doesn't actually mean that anything has gotten better for me, it only means I'll have fallen back into the combination of affirmation and diversion that sustains me most of the time.
See, everything comes back to ugliness now. Everything brings despair and loneliness.
soltice asked me if I had any loans to pay back. A few thousand dollars, I said. My first year. (After that, State Services for the Blind covered what my other scholarships and grants did not.) She pointed out that both she and I have a condition that affects our ability to be educated—mine's vision impairment, hers is gender dysphoria—but no institution exists that could get her a scholarship. I know she, like so many of my friends, has tons of loans now. I know she also has the costs of hormones and surgery to consider, and that's keeping her from getting her own place right now, which is keeping her living at home in a domestic situation made rather prickly by the very same gender issues. She's had an unbelievable amount of shit to deal with her whole life, and it's scarred her deeply but it's also made her stronger than most people I know. I've often told her that merely having to think about and work hard for things other people take for granted has made her more thoughtful, mature and, in some ways, more sure of herself than most people her age.
And I'm just a girl who was given a free ride to college and threw it away. And why? Because I'm still too immature for it? Because I don't know what I want? Because I can't handle the responsibility? Because I didn't feel like trying any more? Yeah, pretty much. I know people who've put up with worse for longer. I was raised to be better than this, to not just be someone who quits things when I don't feel like doing them any more. I hate this.
I want to be better... but I guess I don't want it badly enough to do anything about it. I only want it enough to sit around and whine and feel bad for myself. I'm sick of that. I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of not even being able to tell exactly what it is I do want, instead of just listing things I don't want. It's not just quitting college, but that's a rather large and obvious symptom, so it makes a good example. I'm sick of my own incoherence, sick of feeling like a freeloader on society, sick of listening to myself whine.
Yes, I'm getting out of this damn house. If not in the next day or two, then after Christmas I will move my stuff to Mankato and look for a job and be reminded of how much it sucks that I don't have a driver's license or a college degree. I think that will help, but it just gives me new things to worry about, just moves my basic problem to a new arena. I still don't know who I am or what I want.
Like I said, I have the quiet desperation (which isn't that quiet any more) but haven't foound the Walden that will fix it yet.
"Some men lead lives of quiet desperation. My desperation makes a pathetic whining sound."
I try not to let it, because it's no fun and I have a feeling this is one of the times when whining isn't going to change anything even slightly, but I'm not going to sleep so I may as well try to write.
Where to start? Recently in an IM conversation I told
soltice something like "I'm having one of those times when I don't think I'm good for anything to anyone." This happens periodically, and I'm not worried about it as such (especially as it sometimes coincides with something else that happens periodically and I can plausibly chalk it up to hormones; this is one of those times). Sure, I'm always aware of my verifiable uselessness—not going to school, not working, not even talking to anybody much, not curing cancer, not contributing to society at all, not convinced I can do anything to change any of this whether I want to or not—but I don't always dwell on it. I'm not always so emotional about it. The last day or two it seems I'm always on the verge of crying. And I hate crying.
I'm not doing any good to anyone. Even myself. Especially myself. I can make logical counterarguments based on things other people have told me and things I've thought about myself, but I don't believe them right now. I need something I'm not getting; something has to change.
There's such pressure, like a big elephant is sitting on my head right now. So I don't think I'll stay like this for long. It'll get better.
paninogirl made the mistake of asking me tonight how I was doing, and I tried to explain in a few ungainly, long messages, and when I looked at the collection of them there on my screen I added something about how I'd be better soon and put a smiley face after it. I know that to be true. I know the logic (such as it is) will kick in again. But since she hadn't said anything yet that message sat there on the bottom and I looked at it until I thought (and typed) that being "better" doesn't actually mean that anything has gotten better for me, it only means I'll have fallen back into the combination of affirmation and diversion that sustains me most of the time.See, everything comes back to ugliness now. Everything brings despair and loneliness.
soltice asked me if I had any loans to pay back. A few thousand dollars, I said. My first year. (After that, State Services for the Blind covered what my other scholarships and grants did not.) She pointed out that both she and I have a condition that affects our ability to be educated—mine's vision impairment, hers is gender dysphoria—but no institution exists that could get her a scholarship. I know she, like so many of my friends, has tons of loans now. I know she also has the costs of hormones and surgery to consider, and that's keeping her from getting her own place right now, which is keeping her living at home in a domestic situation made rather prickly by the very same gender issues. She's had an unbelievable amount of shit to deal with her whole life, and it's scarred her deeply but it's also made her stronger than most people I know. I've often told her that merely having to think about and work hard for things other people take for granted has made her more thoughtful, mature and, in some ways, more sure of herself than most people her age.And I'm just a girl who was given a free ride to college and threw it away. And why? Because I'm still too immature for it? Because I don't know what I want? Because I can't handle the responsibility? Because I didn't feel like trying any more? Yeah, pretty much. I know people who've put up with worse for longer. I was raised to be better than this, to not just be someone who quits things when I don't feel like doing them any more. I hate this.
I want to be better... but I guess I don't want it badly enough to do anything about it. I only want it enough to sit around and whine and feel bad for myself. I'm sick of that. I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of not even being able to tell exactly what it is I do want, instead of just listing things I don't want. It's not just quitting college, but that's a rather large and obvious symptom, so it makes a good example. I'm sick of my own incoherence, sick of feeling like a freeloader on society, sick of listening to myself whine.
Yes, I'm getting out of this damn house. If not in the next day or two, then after Christmas I will move my stuff to Mankato and look for a job and be reminded of how much it sucks that I don't have a driver's license or a college degree. I think that will help, but it just gives me new things to worry about, just moves my basic problem to a new arena. I still don't know who I am or what I want.
Like I said, I have the quiet desperation (which isn't that quiet any more) but haven't foound the Walden that will fix it yet.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 12:13 am (UTC)One actually affects what goes on in a classroom (you can't read the board, etc...) the other doesn't. Yes, gender dysmorphia can affect somebody's personal life, which can then in turn affect their ability to learn. But so can just about everything else in life, from depression, to getting a boyfriend.
I know she also has the costs of hormones and surgery to consider, and that's keeping her from getting her own place right now, which is keeping her living at home in a domestic situation made rather prickly
Passing the buck of the worst order. We all have money issues to consider. If the homelife is that bad, then put off the surgery until later. If the surgery is that important, than deal with the homelife. We all have choices to make, we all have untenable situations to deal with (I assume we all do, everybody that's in the room with me right now does, so I'll assume that that's representative of the entire world ;) ) There's always a balancing act of plusses and minuses. This is no different than every other person who exists.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 12:48 pm (UTC)To be fair, though, that's all I was saying: she has a balancing act with really big and obvious and unpleasant things to balance. Which is unlike me, who have nitpicky problems I think I made up for myself in my own mind. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 08:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 08:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 11:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 12:23 am (UTC)You should channel your whininiess into writing a book. I'm sure it'd be a bestseller.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 12:32 am (UTC)To which I can only reply "Yeah, yeah..." and sort of grin where they can't see it. I've always wanted to be a good writer when I grow up. And I'm beginning to think maybe I will be.
As soon as I find something to write about other than my life... or lack thereof. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 12:43 am (UTC)Write under a pseudonym if you have aspirations of writing something else later. But geez, Holly... fame and fortune are right in front of your nose. :o)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 07:43 am (UTC)How bizarre of them.
I like your advice, though. 'Tis a thing to consider. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 07:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 02:49 am (UTC)You've done two huge brave things in moving to the UK and then taking the decision to move back and spend time back with your family. You must have the capacity for huge motivation and energy, or these things wouldn't have happened. It was you that made the big changes, and I'm certain you'll be able to make other changes in your life once the time is right, like the moving out and the getting a job and so on.
Urgh. I don't know. All I'm saying is that I admire you. I admire the way you do things so conciously, how you engage with the world, and how you write. You have some real skills, and I think you'll be able to use them in life to help you to get a situation that feels right for you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 07:50 am (UTC)I'm certain you'll be able to make other changes in your life once the time is right
I am too, actually. I've noticed that I seem to have a very good system of doing things when the time is right, and I can always be sure when the time is right because I never have any clue what's going on until right then. I can go from utter confusion about the world to utter conviction that I know what I want next (even if only on a small scale) and wanting to start right away. I think this is a weird way of my brain to go about things, but it didn't ask me first. So it's nice to be sure of things sometimes, but it's not nice before that, when I'm left floundering in despair. I always come out okay, though.
And it's largely because people are nice to me when I'm sad. :-) I have good friends. Sothanks for what you said; it helps.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 03:11 am (UTC)Knowing that, compared with some people, my life is really quite good, doesn't do anything for the depression. Feeling shit is subjective, and comparing yourself with others doesn't make you feel better. In fact, sometimes it makes me feel worse, 'cause then I know I have no right to be depressed.
Like you, mostly it's a phase I go through - something goes wrong, I panic horribly, cry a lot, throw up my hands and lament the end of the world. Then something clicks, and I get on with it. I've learned to know that the wailing phase is something I need to get out of my system in order to sort myself out...
*hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 07:53 am (UTC)I'm definitely aware that this is a stupid and even a dangerous thing to do, for exactly the reasons you mention ... but, like I said, sometimes the logical arguments just don't work. That's when it's best to be told things I already know; hearing them from other people helps. :-)
I've learned to know that the wailing phase is something I need to get out of my system in order to sort myself out..
Yep. I used to worry my boyfriend so; he'd see me crying and have no idea why and I'd just say "I'll be fine in a little bit, it's okay. Can I have a hug now, please?" :-) If nothing else, trying to explain it to him gave me some distraction from wallowing in my own angst, so that's okay. But he doesn't get it (for him, crying = bad, and that's the end of it), and I doubt he ever will, because it makes no sense; that's just the way it is.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 03:19 pm (UTC)You're making a lot of decisions right now ("right now" being in the last year or so) about how your life is going to go and about what's important to you. It's not fair to yourself to make a decision, and then berate yourself for making it before you've had a chance to see where it *really* leads. Versus where it might lead, or where you were told it would lead. Try not to make the whole self-definition process harder than it has to be by dismissing your own efforts, or yourself.
((hugs))
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 05:18 pm (UTC)I hope you realize you and I owe him several Twizzler-lashings by now. He just doesn't learn. :-)
It's not fair to yourself to make a decision, and then berate yourself for making it before you've had a chance to see where it *really* leads
I know. When I'm being at all sensible I'm the first to tell myself this. But sometimes everyone else is berating me before I've had a chance to see where it goes, and that doesn't help my fragile optimism very much. :-)
for everything there is a season...
Date: 2004-12-18 04:40 am (UTC)I don't think this makes you a bad or a worthless or a stupid person. I finished University but I don't think I made as much of my education as I could have. TBH I'm not disciplined enough, I have a lightning mind for things that interest me, but I don't do enough work on the things that don't. This meant I didn't get a First, but it doesn't mean I am a bad person for it.
My mother says that I was probably too young to go to Uni when I did, that I was immature, but I disagree. I probably was too immature to knuckle down for academia, but I was not too immature to grab the true gift Uni offered - taste of independence, and from the little i know of you you've also been finding the same thing - what with going over to spend stints in England and whatnot.
I was raised to be better than this, to not just be someone who quits things when I don't feel like doing them any more. I hate this.
Sometimes people need to quit and that's ok. There is no perfect life. I believe that a person works most effectively, achieves the most, when they are respecting their own rhythms. Finishing Uni doesn't mean you are clever. I know many brilliant people who never finished, and I do not think they are worthless for not completing their courses. THere are a lot of things I haven't finished, but the best advice i can give is to sit back. let it be a part of the process. People live a long time, and it's important not to waste your energies into things you have not enough long term interest in pursuing.
Life is a process, a journey, not a race. Think about what you want to achieve and what you want to do differently, but respect your own pace and route in getting there.
Re: for everything there is a season...
Date: 2004-12-18 08:06 am (UTC)Yep, that's me, too. Regardless of grades, I disappointed myself this way several times. But, also, regardless of grades, I learned a lot at school and it wasn't really a total waste for me to go. I made some great friends and started doing some things for myself, and probably even learned some things that aren't from my classes.
That is, in fact, my current perspective on the situation most of the time. But there are a fair number of people around me who, for some reason or other, view college as a binary thing: either you've done it or you haven't, either you're a person with a chance to be decent or you're a bewildering failure. Most of the time those people frustrate me but since a little bit of my own mind agrees with them, their perspective can overwhelm me sometimes (usually in the middle of the night :-)) and then I'm simply mad at myself, and nothing else, for a little while.
Sometimes people need to quit and that's ok....
Partly because I was raised by people who don't even see quitting as an option for nearly anything, this is sometimes hard for me to believe. Even though it makes sense for me not to have gone to college when I did; I don't think I was ready. I didn't really think I was at the time, but no real choice was presented to me. I was always told I was smart. I remember being in first grade (when it was slightly less normal for the entire population to go to college) and hearing about how I had to go to college.
But I don't know what the hell I want to do with my life at the moment. I mean, I just don't. I picked a major because I had to; I picked something I thought I could survive but then I couldn't, which doesn't surprise me, because that's not the greatest way to choose the current direction for your life.
Perhaps I'm just being self-absorbed but I don't think quitting college is the easy way out. I think I'm making things harder for myself by doing what I really want—taking some time off school, going to England, etc.—than if I'd just continued doing what I was told, finished my nondescript degree, and looked for a nondescript house and job and life afterwards. I'm not that good (chalk it up to lack of practice) at resisting the flow of "what I'm told," of "society" and things like that; I'm usually fairly compliant, if only out of habit or laziness or something. But from this spring, I've been making it up as I go along, and that scares me because I don't think I'm very good at it. If I can't even choose a major successfully, what am I doing running someone's life? :-)
Life is a process, a journey, not a race. Think about what you want to achieve and what you want to do differently, but respect your own pace and route in getting there.
Thanks. You've said many nice and helpful things, and to a near-stranger. I appreciate it.
Re: for everything there is a season...
Date: 2004-12-18 09:33 am (UTC)How narrowminded of them. :)
It's a viewpoint I've certainly got used to from my family and I've spent a great deal of energy trying to disabuse them of it. Life simply does not work that way. Human beings, and human successes and failures are way more complex than that. I think partially it's what drove me to try and prove to my kin that a person can be a highly intelligent, stable individual but still have piercings and practise astrology along with a more conventionally *respectable* career.
It is very frustrating to live with though, so I relate and sprinkle you with sympathies.
I think I'm making things harder for myself by doing what I really want—taking some time off school, going to England, etc.—than if I'd just continued doing what I was told, finished my nondescript degree, and looked for a nondescript house and job and life afterwards
I agree. I think standing up to do what you want is the road less travelled and a very courageous thing to do.
But from this spring, I've been making it up as I go along, and that scares me because I don't think I'm very good at it. If I can't even choose a major successfully, what am I doing running someone's life? :-)
I think many people make things up as they go. That's certainly been my strategy for the past fifteen years. ;) I've just resolved to try and look pretty while doing it.
And besides, you get better at everything with practice. :)
Ability to choose majors has nothing to do with the ability to run one's life succesfully. If academic life was a measure of one's ability to cope with the business of living and have healthy relationships, then most academics would be great at it and the opposite seems to be true.
I've been blessed with knowing for a long time exactly what I was going to do. I felt the call, and I was completely clear. I didn't have any doubt. My problem was knowing that the things I was drawn towards doing were the things that change the shape of the world and that I'd have a hard time of it, which I have. Even though I do good work a lot of people don't respect that and dismiss me as a charlatan, or some new age airhead.
Forgive me for going off on a tangent here, but it is related to my point, so if you haven't run away screaming yet bear with me.
But if there's one thing I've learned from doing astrology it's that many people (with a certain kind of planetary configuration) when searching for their life's direction will seem to be out of sync with time. THat it will take them a long, long time to learn who they are and what they want their life to be about. This is because I've learned about planetary cycles and it's easy to extrapolate from those the cycles of living. They describe certain processes of psychological maturation and self-awareness and discovery, and they quite simply cannot be value judged, or rushed. That there's many different kinds of being, and that you can't shake a fist at your image in the mirror shouting *grow you bastard* and that probably the worst thing to do is disrespect the self.
What are the things in your life that you feel passionate about? What do you love to do?
Re: for everything there is a season...
Date: 2004-12-18 10:20 am (UTC)I know it doesn't, really. But what meager self-reliance I've been forced to attempt hasn't worked out particularly well, so I'm a bit dejected sometimes. Inability to do college successfully does not necessarily imply an inability to do life successfully ... but it doesn't help either, y'know? :-)
you can't shake a fist at your image in the mirror shouting *grow you bastard*
I know; I've pretty much tried that. :-) It's hard to sit here and try to explain to my friends (I'm too scared to even try to explain it to my uncommunicative family) that I know I'm stuck but I can't magically fix it right now, and pretending I can (to make other people or myself happy, by being "normal") might just make it worse. But then I think I'm making people think that I'm just being philosophical and angsty and using long sentences merely to detract attention from the fact that I am a loser.
On the bad days, that's what I believe, too. But mostly I know better. I'm convinced that I am right; I can't make myself suddenly have life figured out. I just hope that doesn't mean I'm stuck like this, all unrealized-potential and whatnot, forever.
crying
Date: 2004-12-18 05:31 am (UTC)Here are a few things to ponder...
On the topic of hormones, cycles and crying.. scientific studies have found that tears are not merely salt water, and do not merely cleanse the eyes.. they also found high levels of all sorts of hormones, chemicals, etc.. depending on what the person had been ding/eating, etc..
Seems the body uses tears to cleanse itself-- when the levels of some hormones get too high in the body, it washes them out with the tears... so look at crying at this point in your cycle as your body's way of quickly shedding hormones that are playing havoc with your systems... it is a cleansing process. Have a good cry, you will feel better. The thing is to not cry on and on and on and on and on..when there is nothing left to wash away except for your soul...
I do not know enough of your history or life to be sure. but I empathize with the issue of dealing with disabilities. I was raised in a family of disabilities and have spent my life surrounded with people struggling with them. One of the things that became true, is that if you have a history of being cared for or illness. or a certain way that your friends or family perceive you... that is internalized very early on.. and one of the hardest things to do is to break free of that and become who your are inside, without being limited by the comforts of what is familiar. My sister spent a lot of time in the hospital as a child, and when she was a young adult and was on her own, AND not in the hospital, it was a very scary and rough time for her.. what was familiar and comfortable to her was being sick.. she was very good at that.. it was easy.. so being well.. AND learning to be on her own was overwhelming....
It might help to see if there are patterns or behaviors from your younger years that you may have internalized, break those first if you can, before striking out on your own. Being an independent self sufficient adult in this days and age is scary enough.. doing it if it goes completely against who you have embraced as "you" makes it nearly impossible....
Re: crying
Date: 2004-12-18 08:16 am (UTC)I have a boyfriend who worries whenever I'm crying. I try to tell him that it's okay, that it's just this thing and I'll be better in a few minutes. He doesn't get it, he's working on a simpler rule which says that crying is a bad thing, and that's all there is to it. I don't blame him, for my argument doesn't always make sense even to me, so even if he doesn't understand me now I can at least say "But scientists said it! A random person on LiveJournal told me they did!" ;-)
That'll fix 'im.
I empathize with the issue of dealing with disabilities....
I actually wrote about this a little bit recently, as regards my inability to drive and how that's kept me from having much of a chance to be independent. Added to the general overprotectiveness my parents have always had towards me, and I think that has something to do with how hard it is for me to grow up.
Re: crying
Date: 2004-12-18 10:27 am (UTC)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7294117&dopt=Abstract
( note that the increased protein levels translates to hormones and neurotransmitters( which are really a tye of hormone)
OR
http://www.awareparenting.com/tantrums.htm
which looks at first just to be about kids, but isn't and has some interesting secondary references to the usefulness of tears and crying...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 07:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 08:20 am (UTC)then I realized that you're really bright and very capable, and probably have enough people in your life trying to tell you who you are.
That made me smile. I'm doing okay, and I have good friends. Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 08:13 am (UTC)You are among the most interesting people I've ever met. You've got great insights into life and a remarkable ability to communicate those insights well. You're not afraid to be yourself, and when you don't know what "yourself" is, you are not afraid to find out what that means, instead of relying on what societal pressures expect you to be.
College may not have been your path right now. (Besides, you got the college experience, which is more important than the degree, IMO.) You have taken (to steal the oft repeated line of Frost by English teachers around the world) "the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference." You've done some amazing things. Going to England for five months? That's madness in the thoughts of most people and logistically difficult for the others. But you made it work... and I think you're a better person because of it.
I don't think you're going to have an entirely normal life. You aren't happy with things that are merely normal, because you know how well coffee, music, friendship, and life can be at its best. You aren't living the life of safe mediocrity, even though it might feel that way in your current living situation. Soon, you'll be off to Someplace Different, wherever that will be. When you take the kinds of highs that you do, there will be some lows as well.
But, please stop beating yourself up. Trust that you will find your way. I believe you will.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 08:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 08:43 pm (UTC)Besides, you got the college experience, which is more important than the degree, IMO.
Absolutely. I had to do my own laundry and pay my bills and everything. Getting away from my parents has done me a ton of good. And I would not give up you and SJ and Katie and Al and Josh and Rachel and everyone, not for the world.
I don't think you're going to have an entirely normal life.
That made me laugh. You know, that's what I wanted most when I was little: not to be normal. Seemed so damn boring to me. Besides, I was always convinced I was especially interesting, of course. And it was so impossible for me, I didn't even know how to go about it. But then I got to high school and met Darren and Ali and the Xaviers, and being less normal got easy because I had such good examples!
You aren't living the life of safe mediocrity, even though it might feel that way in your current living situation.
I do worry about this, so that's nice to hear. :-)
Soon, you'll be off to Someplace Different, wherever that will be.
That is, too. Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-18 10:37 am (UTC)I want to be better... but I guess I don't want it badly enough to do anything about it. I only want it enough to sit around and whine and feel bad for myself. I'm sick of that. I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of not even being able to tell exactly what it is I do want, instead of just listing things I don't want. It's not just quitting college, but that's a rather large and obvious symptom, so it makes a good example. I'm sick of my own incoherence, sick of feeling like a freeloader on society, sick of listening to myself whine.
I could have said the same thing.
Hang in there. We'll be okay.
And yes, I have heard that a thousand times and I know exactly how useless and shitty those phrases are. Blech. *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-23 02:38 am (UTC)If you do decide to go back to school (not necessarily now), my advice would be to add a practical minor to your English degree--something I did not do while at Moorhead State, unfortunately. I struggled with many of your same problems--had a free ride for the first 4 years, but had trouble finishing classes, almost dropped out. My English BA took me 6 1/2 years to get, & the last two were dismal at best. The worst part was not getting a teaching certificate or a business or computer minor, or something else practical to supplement my English degree; I suppose journalism would have been a good choice. I also considered teaching English as a second Language--which in your case could help with what might be a case of wanderlust, and would let you use at least some of your English skills--and you can go nearly anywhere in the world & get paid quite well for it, especially in Japan.
There were definitely times I didn't feel like trying any more in Moorhead--and even now, as I work on my 3rd degree, there are times I want to quit, even though I only have about a year left. Perhaps you could find some work helping other blind people--which would certainly help you in the "meaning-of-my-life" department--which by the way, I'm 31 now & still don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life. And I do still whine a lot about it. And I know exactly what you mean about being "better"--I've played that game with myself for years, always putting on a smile while inside I was rotten; it's exhausting, which is why, especially if you move to Mankato & your mood doesn't improve shortly thereafter, you should consider seeing a doc about depression. Not to lecture you on it, but having (barely) lived with/through it for over a decade, I know firsthand how debilitating & even dangerous it can be. I just finished William Styron's short memoir "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" about his battle with depression, friends of his who committed suicide, & how he almost did, & his road to recovery. It's a short read, about 2 hours, & well worth it--so I definitely have depression on my mind, although I've actually been feeling fair recently.
And while I don't always read all your posts (especially some of the really long ones), I read enough of them to know that you could make a fine career as a writer--wry sometimes dry humor & some very astute observations, and an ability to express yourself clearly are a few tendencies of your writing style that come to mind. I should write more myself, but, while I don't watch too much network TV, I do watch a lot of movies & spend a lot of time on schoolwork & my linux box.
BTW, it certainly did take guts for you to stand up to your folks & go to England, which I thought was really cool, so that's something to be proud of. Look at everything Helen Keller did--and you have better vision that she did, so just think of what you can do!
Guess I've talked enough for now. Hope I've been a help & not a lecturer...best wishes with whatever you decide to do!