Mood: Pathetic.
Around the time that I wrote my end of semester report, we learned that our landlords are planning to sell the house we rent. This has thrown my personal life into a bit of upheaval, and is causing serious emotional strain for all concerned, but for me particularly. I don't fully understand why, and can't really articulate what I suspect, but this is my attempt.
Warning: Aimless whining sob-story ahead. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Moving, by itself, is not the issue. In fact, it's probably the easiest aspect of this situation to solve (possibly the only one that I can solve in the short term). Rather, it's more like the wrong straw at the wrong time breaking the camel's back.
To begin with, I'm coming off of a bad semester, probably the worst I've had since I've been in school. It has made me question my choice of major (although I've always been fairly honest with myself on the prospects of an Art Degree), my job prospects post-graduation (a deadline which is looming ever-closer). My grades were the lowest they've been (not bad, just a touch lower than normal) mainly due to the compromises I had to make just to get stuff done. Then, just when I think it's over temporarily and start to relax, I get this in the face (a week after making a non-trivial cash outlay on a luxury item, no less).
I was depressed after I first heard, but was relieved when we later learned our landlords were willing to work with us on the timing. That relief evaporated the other day when I suddenly realized that Gena was actually planning to be gone at the end of this month (due to miscommunication and miscomprehension on my part, it was a bit of a surprise, despite her saying as much last year … I had been under the impression her plans had changed in the meantime, and that she was as relieved to stay another month or two as Pete and I). That would mean we'd have to pick up her share of rent and bills, which neither of us can afford. Ever since then, the situation has been fluctuating day-by-day.
This instability has made me seriously question the state of my life, and the results aren't pretty.
I'm tired of living day-to-day, check-to-check, accomplishing little except killing time and bringing myself a step closer to inevitable death. I see and feel a desperate need to plan for my long-term future while I still can, but I don't know how to get there from here. So much time has already been wasted. Fifteen years since I graduated high school have passed by in the blink of an eye, and I'm still functioning hand-to-mouth. I came to school in part to give myself time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Not only do I not know, but I have even less idea of what career I want than when I started.
Last Friday was my 33rd birthday. Distressingly near the midpoint of my life expectancy. I feel older, physically (in the slowly eroding health sense), but I feel precious little wiser or more accomplished. The only things I presently feel I've obtained as a result of my most recent life decision (college) are memories (good and bad), a few new friends, some minor artistic development, and several times as much debt as I've ever had in my life (tens of thousands of dollars).
Most of my friends in both of my current “circles”, and even my brother (11 years my junior), are married now. Some have houses and/or new cars. I'm not jealous of those things, and I don't exactly judge success by those milestones, but it brings up issues that I've been trying to cope with for years now and pokes them really hard. I feel like life is passing my by (indeed, like it has long-since passed me by). I've been feeling that nearly continuously since my mid-twenties, but it was never quite this potent, for this long.
When my married friends have the sort of problem I'm having right now, they at least know they have someone right there, sharing the burden.
I can't bear to be around my family for long right now, because they have drama of their own in their lives right now, much of it long-term situations that I can't do much about. This just makes me feel guilty that I can't help, and in some ways, also guilty as a contributing factor. The problem isn't that I'm unsympathetic … the problem is that I'm more sympathetic than I probably need to be, but feel largely unable to do anything to help. I know it's not my responsibility to solve everyone's problems, but I feel like it is nevertheless. Indeed, karma and the golden rule would seem to operate here.
Mom is working in a factory doing manual labor. I know she won't be able to keep working there for too many years (she really shouldn't be working there now, actually), and her prospects for retirement are basically nonexistant. She is crammed into a too-small apartment with my brother and his wife, and maintains two storage buildings for property that she really should rid herself of.
My sister is in the middle of a somewhat messy divorce, and is trying to get her own life back on track. She's been dealing with the crises leading up to this for some time now.
My brother is actually in a halfway decent position right now. He's still young, married, with a stable (if not high-paying) job, benefits, and a reliable car. I gave him some advice yesterday on something I wish I had listened to when I was his age: start saving now, even if it's only five or ten dollars a week. Plan ahead. Don't live hand to mouth.
He says that that is what he currently intends to do: pay off bills to start building savings. I hope so. By the time he gets to my age, he'll be glad for it.
My friends are generally busy with their own lives, and drawing on them too much for support tends to remind me that I'm in this situation and they are not.
On top of all of that, I have worries over the global situation and the domestic economy, and I've long since lost faith that this country stands for anything except crime, conformity, and making a quick buck at the expense of others.
At any rate, whatever the reasons, it's affected me pretty seriously in the last two weeks.
And yet, I've never been very pro-active about solving housing or employment problems, and I'm not very good at it. I feel defeated before I even try, which I know is stupid and only guarantees defeat, but I can't seem to get around the mental block. I don't have a lot of patience with extended sessions of searching … because of the unlikelihood of success on the first try, the process tends to easily trigger bouts of introspection.
The only relief I get is from all of this is when I manage to distract myself from thinking about it too closely (which is getting harder and harder to do).
The really annoying thing about all of this is that I KNOW my current crisis is just temporary, and that I will most likely land on my feet one way or another. I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel … I can see it. I'm just having a hard time coping in the here-and-now.
As for the long term issues, none of them are new problems to me … I've worried over them all before at one time or another, some of them several times. Although I like to think that my current situation will carry through to action when I'm in a better position, I can't be sure that anything will actually change. I know that I'm the only one that can make that happen, I just don't know if I will … or even if I can. I fear that once I am settled again, I will fall back into my old complacent patterns. What's worse, since I've gotten like this over something so minor, what will happen when something more serious hits (like, say, the death of close family or friends, or a major illness)?
One other good thing has come out of this: I've been forcibly reminded of the value of family and friends, which I sometimes tend to take for granted, being reclusive. (I am a humanities student for a reason. I love being around people I know, but I hate being around people that I don't know, and I'm not overly fond of travel. Which usually means that I'm stuck wishing my friends and family would visit more often.) If not for the people in my life, I doubt I'd be coping even this well.
I can't be sure it isn't just my reaction due to stress, but I've probably already been more social in the last two weeks than I was in the prior two or three months. It's possible I've fallen out of the years-long “reclusive” part of my social cycle (believe it or not, I'm not always as reclusive as I've been in recent years).
I leave you with this thought.
“Life's not a song.
Life isn't bliss.
Life is just this:
It's living.
You'll get along.
The pain that you feel
only can heal
By living.”