You know how I told you all about the kicking
and screaming? This morning I transferred the last of my savings into my
checking account and had a meltdown. I’ve been working since I was sixteen, and
through college and today I feel as though I have nothing to show for it. I
usually don’t talk about this kind of thing but I promised myself when I made
the commitment to write this blog that I was going to do the damn thing – I was
going to be as open as possible.
I had this notion that was completely unrealistic.
I was going to start 2014, and all my problems from 2013 would disappear. I
know I am not being realistic. The problem is I just spent a full calendar year
trying to keep my head afloat and I have nothing to show for it. I missed out
on so many things, I’ve been a real shitty friend and to top it off all my hard
work for seven years has been drained – at least that’s what it feels like. I
promise I am about the shut the pity party down, just give me a moment. I try
to stay up beat and positive. In fact the only few people who really have seen
me struggle have been my family (because its impossible to escape me) and my
best friend (Bless her for she is stuck with me). My family, while dealing with
problems of their own, really has been the one to get the brunt of me being
sick, home, and sad for that matter.
But the reason for the post is to explain it. I have been sad for some time and now I am ready to talk about it.
When I initially had this cyst, I didn’t
think anything out of the ordinary. Oh perfect, I can take hiatus from life for
two weeks. What is better than a two-week break from a dead end job? And it
gave me time to recuperate from my social life. And I had just finished
college, so it gave me two weeks to have all to myself. A year later, 5
surgeries, a wound Vac, and an infection later – it has been a hiatus and one
far too long. Daily nurses check my vitals and change my dressing but none of
them and no one has asked me about how this has affected my emotional
well being. And let me tell you in two words. It sucks.
My college years were mostly filled with
working full time and going to school full time. I lived at home and got
through the semester by dreaming of weekends visiting my best friend away at
college. I made college friends. Worked really hard for professors. Landed a
few research opportunities, internships, and teaching assistantships – I worked
hard because I threw myself into these two aspects of my life. I was
consistently on the go and tired all the time. But I always pushed through it.
Enter being 21, and I added a third piece of the puzzle – my social life. Not
that I had a heavy one, but when I was out drinking, I was drinking. And I was
going out five nights a week. Maybe the hiatus was what I needed to slow my
roll but a whole year? Not fair. The point I am trying to illustrate is I was
always a busy person. I was never home, this passed year has been new to me.
And its not a new that I like, in fact, I am much happier when I feel as though
I am contributing.
But I can get over the not being busy. It is
this idea of not moving or growing forward that I have a hard time with. I look
around and I am in the same place I was last year but with less money, and a
year older. Want to talk about post-grad blues? My whole plan for graduate
school has been altered. Some times I feel like I am wasting away everything I
worked for. (Insert the kicking and screaming). My mother always told me when
something is handed to you; you don’t want it as much. Boy, let me tell you how
badly I want to be back at school – working on my Master’s/PhD. Words cant
describe it. Right now, I have been focusing on finding a job that will
eventually pay for it. But I always wanted to do graduate school different than
my undergrad. But I know things
happen, and now I am rebuilding. Sometimes it hard to watch friends enter the
beginning of their careers, graduate school, move out and move on while I am
still here. Sometimes it’s just really hard to be the only one left out –
brings back all those feelings of being sixteen again. Not that I had this
awful experience of being sixteen, but that feeling of not really knowing where
you belong. I feel as though I am trying to figure it all out and everyone else
is moving on from that. That is what feels lonely. That is what makes me feel
alone. That is what makes me feel like I am just kid again. I don’t like to ask for help. And I
have had to ask for help more in the past year than I think in my whole life. I
am just ready to be back on my own again. I am ready to move forward in my
life. I want to move forward.
I am not looking for pity from you or for you
to feel bad for me because hey, we all have problems. And mine are tied to a
lot of my anxieties. And I am working through it and I am moving beyond this.
And I’ll be okay. But I don’t like to talk about how I am feeling a lot and I
am trying to move past that. If someone can learn from what I am feeling than
that is what I am trying to express. We aren’t always going to be in the same
place at the same time – I understand but I am working on the constant
struggle with myself. This is my journey. I just want you all to be a part of it.
I am struggling and I am learning from it and I'll be okay.
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