Only thinking..
How do people figure out what they want to do for a living? How do actors know they want to be actors? Musicians becoming musicians? Doctors becoming doctors. It's something they're passionate about right? Something they find and just feels right. Like it's a part of themselves. So how do I find that? Do I feel passionate about drawing? Sometimes. Pilates? Sometimes. Video games? Sometimes. Photography? Sometimes. Writing? Sometimes Interior Design? Sometimes. My life is filled with sometimes and it's driving me mad.
There's some people who are retired and still don't know what they want to be when they grow up. Except that's not what I want. I want so badly to know what I'm supposed to do with my life. I don't want to fall into a shitty job that 'Hey at least it pays the bills' and just get so used to it that you forget. You forget what being happy all the time feels like. You're just going through the motions. Don't get me wrong, I understand why life is the way it is. If there weren't people who didn't have ambitions who would stock the shelves? Who would answer our questions on trivial things like, "Where's the bread at?" "I can't find this specific soup." "It's you're fault that the store doesn't carry this one thing anymore." "It's you're fault that the store is getting rearranged." Who would we blame things on?
I see these people and wonder, how? Why? I loved going to school, learning new things. Certain things more than others. Nothing stood out though. I was only fairly good at everything I enjoyed. It didn't seem like I was getting better. There it is. You don't try hard enough. You expect to be good at things right away. I do. It's a part of who I am. In school I normally understood things, if I didn't get it right away I worked hard until I would understand it. Except Geometry. There was no getting that. I had a routine. Moments of pure happiness to myself. Simple things like staring out the window in my open hour at the school library. Seeing the leaves turning colors and falling. Feeling that crisp air as I walked home. Walking down the boulevard with my dog as huge snowflakes fell listening to my own music that fit the tone around me. Walking down to the library with my sisters and spending a good chunk of the day there. Waking up so early that the sun is rising and you feel that freshness of mid-spring air. The soft warm tones hitting the green of the plants outside. The smell of the early summer air mixed with lilacs.
I would take walks with my dog, no where special. Just up the hill and sit on this rock wall with her. Just listening to my music staring out at the world. That's when I feel the most at peace. When I can just look out at the world. Not think. Not be. Just sit and take it in. Take in the music, take in the earth, take in the air. Take in that I'm alive, my dog is a live, my family is alive. Things may not me 100% okay, but at that moment. It was.
In my youth, that's the one thing that has stood out to me. Unfortunately for me. That gives me nothing.
My fear is almost overwhelming. I grew up where only one parent worked and we struggled every month. Barely any food, sometimes basically none to none. Bills not getting paid. The constant anger. Most teens step up. Eventually I did. Except I was weak and grew angry. My mom didn't work, for her own reasons. Then it became on my older sister, our dad and myself's shoulders. Food. Bills. All of it. Then Dad got pneumonia and with asthma it's worse. We went so long where we couldn't work and it was only my older sister and I. They kept saying it would be okay. We would get through it like we always did? What did they consider okay? Us being miserable? Starving? I know there are plenty of others going through worse than myself. In which I didn't tell any of my friends. Not like I had very many anyway, even so. I kept it to myself.
I finally snapped and moved out. You can only imgaine how fast things went downhill.
Several years later, here I am. In a nice apartment, one that has central air. Which if no one told all you who grew up with central air conditioning, it's quite the luxury. I feel grateful every day. My boyfriend is an amazing man. The most kind and compassionate and thoughtful man I've ever known. We can pay our bills, buy a bunch of food and still be okay. So why am I so sad? I work on overnights at a warehouse store. It's not a bad job. It sucks sleeping during the day and being up at night. Especially since I've always been an early bird who loves being outside during the daytime. Maybe it's messing with me. Rarely getting any sunlight except for basically 1 day a week.
So then what do I do? I look for jobs, but why go from one sucky job to another sucky job? So I keep looking and looking and looking. I'm so tired of looking. I'm so tired of thinking. I want to be better. I want my boyfriend and our someday future children to look at me and be proud. I want to look in the mirror and be proud. I don't want to second guess myself anymore.