Life Update

Hello all,

It has been awhile. I could calculate just how long, though it doesn’t matter. I actually need to write this out and publish it as quickly as possible before I stop myself for the umpteenth time. I’ve written several drafts of posts and nothing ever gets published. It’s a special kind of torture to have over 50 drafts that have lost context. Soon becoming irrelevant, unmotivated pieces that sit and accumulate over time. My saved draft section becoming a graveyard of blog posts.

So quickly now, I must write.

I’ve been working a ton. I’m still nannying, added babysitting more regularly for more families, added housesitting as well. Still catering, I took two weeks off for the first time since I started the job, it was perhaps too nice to want to go back.

I’ve stopped seeing Paige. It is still too much of an open and unprocessed wound to talk about. I’ve stopped because I’ve started with someone else. A different kind of therapy, an off-shoot from DBT called RODBT (Radically Open Dialectic Behavioral Therapy). I’m on week 11 of 30. It is challenging, and that seems to be an understatement.

Imagine week after week analyzing every little thing you do and why you do it. Feeling like nothing is hidden or safe from the world. Like everyone can simultaneously see everything you are feeling and nothing at all. Becoming hyper-aware of this and getting discouraged about how much you need to work on, how much you need to change. There are few details to focus on before more details are brought before you. I’ve been struggling with wanting to continue.

I’ve been struggling recently with my lack of success in the dating world. Cursed with crushing on people that aren’t interested in me, and not being interested in people who are interested in me. I turn 27 this year and it would be nice to have more progress to show for that. Career progress, familial progress, financial progress. I feel behind, I know that is imaginary, there is no standard pace for life.

I feel stuck. One moment thinking that I need to do it, I need to jump into change. Get a new job (one job to rule them all), I need to decide whether I’m going to graduate school. I need to work towards living somewhere new, perhaps buy a plot of land somewhere, move out of the city. I need to be more socially open to people.

The next moment I think about how great I have it. I hang out with amazing kids nearly everyday, week in and week out. I am blessed to be able to have such a bond with them and watch them learn and grow. Catering is nice because I have progressed in it. I have achieved a standard within the company and have proven how hard I can work. I’ve gotten good at it. People enjoy working with me, and I love the family that they have become. My apartment is great. I have a balcony I want to use more, I want to invite people over. I want to enjoy it more, have it more organized, and perhaps nicer furniture to furnish it with. I live in a good area of the city. I live so close to Forest Park, and I want to take advantage of that more.

So what am I missing? I’m missing intellectual stimulation. I’m missing the space I want, a larger space where I can work on things, have things to take care of, have space to move about the world without feeling like I am suffocating. I want to accomplish more. This drive is what makes me the Slytherin I am. I am incredibly ambitious, my head fills with ideas of grandeur. I want to be renowned. I want to do things that are note-worthy. I want to learn, I want to grow. I want to be the best in some capacity, to some people. There’s a hunger there that isn’t satisfied. It may never be satisfied, but I’m not feeding it right now.

I haven’t fed that hunger in a long time. I let it chew on thoughts and ideas in my head. Make it think, if only for a moment, that I will feed it. My actions don’t follow through. I stay where I am, with what I know and what I am comfortable with. You see, all of these ideas and thoughts seem unachievable. And they will continue to be unachievable until I start working towards them, which I haven’t yet.

One thing I am working on in therapy is getting my mind to open up a bit more to the possibility of trying. The what ifs turn from what if things go wrong to what if things go right.

Instead of focusing on the potential backlash for whatever weird writing I am publishing on this blog post (that backlash never has happened in the sense that I am referring to), I should focus on the fact that I am sharing my life, my thoughts, my ideas, and those matter to some people. Instead of grooming my writing to be perfect before letting anyone read anything, perhaps I just need to write it. Write my novel, let my friends read it, because what if it is a story that they need to read. What if the concepts and ideas are clever and great. What if the story is one that changes lives and becomes bigger than the work I create. I’m sure I can handle some feedback for that to happen. I’m sure I can handle grammar changes. It’ll be okay.

It’s funny. I sound like everything has been going really well in my head. And sometimes, it really is. I’m trying, every day I am trying. I’m getting better as well as I can. And I hope that in some way, that helps the world as a whole.

So yes, I am working a lot AND I am trying to add the stimulation I need. Because I can, I can use this time to also work on my novel, to also study the brain, to also fix things and enjoy the outdoors. Someday, I will have a crush on someone who will have a crush on me, and someday I will own a plot of land and have a nice place with a library in it and nice furniture. I will be home. And until then, I will do my best with what I have to get there.

Best wishes to you all. Thank you for continually supporting me, and for reading my blog. It means more than I express.