objects at rest

I hereby issue the following warning: the following post is probably going to be a little emo, even for me. If you're not interested in that sort of thing please feel free to move along now.

I wanted so badly for it to be spring. I'm still looking forward to the arrival of Beltaine. I'm better in the summer half of the year than the winter one. I like the way summer smells. I like the way the sun feels on my face. And though we are still in that part of April where I'm wary of even mentioning the arrival of spring for fear of jinxing things and bringing on a week of cold rain, the last few days have been undeniably nice. Since they're working on our roof my family can't exactly let the dog run free in the yard (bound only by her electric fence) as is our usual habit. But our next door neighbors are out of town and their yard is fenced in, so I've spent a good amount of time every day sitting in the sun with a book while Mia expends energy chasing a deflated soccer ball around over there.

Unfortunately what I didn't realize is that when it got to be spring it would be coming up on a year since I had graduated from college and begun unreservedly pissing away my potential. Since I stopped working for Zimmer I have visited friends in Chicago and spent a week skiing and really have nothing else to show for the time that has passed. This is my life, right now. Its happening. And I'm sitting here typing this, terrified of transforming into a 'Twixter by increments.

I used to have such rampant, quiet disdain for people who did what I'm doing. When I was in high school I had friends, and I won't name names here, older friends who graduated from high school or college and then didn't do much of anything. They got jobs as manual laborers and waitstaff and in retail and just hung around. And although I would never have said it to their faces, I did say behind their backs that I thought they were such losers. I wasn't going to be like them. I hated Connecticut, and I was getting out of here. I was going places. Chicago was as far away as I could think to fling my net, and I was only too happy when it caught and I hauled myself hand over hand away from the swirling black hole vortex of my home town.

And now I'm one of them. Starting now I'm not only competing against my own shitty resume and lack of experience at doing anything, I'm also competing with a year's worth of college graduates every bit as qualified as I am, and more, only they're all fresh and shiny and new and straight out of college. And I wail about needing someone to take some control of my life, to tell me what to do, to point me in the right direction. But would that even be enough? God help me, but I know what I ought to do and I just don't know how to get it done. I don't even know where to begin. I'm not ready for this sort of thing.

And I know I've become a downer. I've got old friends who don't even seem to want to talk to me anymore becuase I'm just so damn depressing lately. I hate it. I used to see myself as so vibrant, so enthusiastic, even funny on my good days. It was maybe the only thing I really like about myself, my indefatigable spirit. Now I'm tired, and I'm down, and I feel helpless. I know that I have made mistakes, and some days they just seem insurmountable.

I know they are not. I fantasize that I will find my way, and judging from my life to date, sooner or later something will happen and I will get my act together enough to get out of this place. To carve out something new for myself, maybe even in Chicago like I long for so desperately. But I hate myself, just a little bit, for the failures I've already made. For moving away from Evanston, for throwing away every ounce of my inertia in favor of nothing at all.

Right. Give me a few minutes and I'll put the happy mask back on, and you can pretend you never read this. And tomorrow I'll pick my butt up and start trying again.