amw

I heard those words again today, from my psychiatrist. They've said it a lot over the years. It's always when i'm in this mood. You know i go through phases where there is all this crisis and flux and then i fall back here - working, cleaning the house, doing groceries, laundry, paying the bills... And i feel like i'm missing the excitement, the the creativity, the effervescence of my youth. I feel constantly discontent. Not depressed; the world isn't falling apart, it's just so flat and pointless. And that's when they say it. "Has it occurred to you that this is it? This is life as an adult." Like being a grown-up means accepting the 9 to 5 paradigm, like that's all there is.

I never stop hoping for more. I started working in this career as a means to a misguided end. I persist now and the end is chiefly subsistence. This isn't who i wanted to be, the life that i saw. It's not that i need some fantasy world of love and adventure - i know there are bills and chores and responsibilities, but i'm just not ready to accept that that's all there is. I can't be happy with that.

Doctors don't really encourage me to dream. They don't see me that way. What drives me nuts is i see friends following their hearts, pursuing their passions, even with a job on the side. Why can't i do that? Why do i feel so fucking paralyzed? It's been this way over 10 years now. The specialists say well you have other concerns now, other priorities - and that's true - but i don't see the part where that has to eclipse everything else, everything good. I feel like the me people see today is so very far from the me i once was, the me i feel i still am, trapped somewhere inside. I got lost in the cracks of my mind.

There's nothing worse than someone looking at you and saying hey you're a success story, you have a house, you have a job, you have a partner, you're not committed or incarcerated or dead. Yeah yay fucking me. I'm still not happy. I'm still not home.