An Update on Me!

I am surrounded by people telling me not to settle for a lesser version of myself, to strive for better things, better self, better dreams.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re not.

I wanted to write this because I don’t think I’m a good writer. I don’t think I have very much to say, despite thinking a lot of things, because most of what I’ve thought or said or dreamed was inherited from someone else’s brain first. I don’t have original ideas. In so many ways, I am not sure who “I” am and what is just the personality I’ve inherited from the people I’m drawn to.

In writing, in journalism, originality is a currency. If you can pitch new ideas, if you can think from a fresh angle that’s yet to be considered, you have traction. You have power. There is no appeal in a twice-baked formula, no editor begging you to write another trod-path story about what mental health in a pandemic looks like.

But where does that leave the brain-drained? The ever-online, the now-more-than-ever distanced? If I glean so many of my ideas from daily conversations and those conversations evaporate from my daily life, how can I write?

Because mine is not a unique perspective: a middle-class, white man living at his parents’ house post-college, working through the ins and outs of his political ideology one day at a time. I spend two days a week wrestling with religion, another four angry at politicians who will never know about it, and that leaves one day for writing but I’m not in the mood to do anything but lounge mindlessly or go on a date.

My batteries are rarely charged, my coffer always emptied into the pocket of Sallie Mae, and I am left with no more writing than I had at the start of this horrendous COVID-19 pandemic arc. Forget getting my foot in the door; my shoe isn’t even in the same building.

I think I’m caught between two minds: one, that this inability to progress forward is my fault and not being driven is a personal weakness that I could overcome if only I could reach into myself and pull it out, and two, maybe I’m just not made for this. Maybe I need to accept that I cannot do what I thought I was meant to do; maybe life just has to happen to me in ways that are undesirable but at least safe and practical. That’s terrifying. I’ve been at the same part-time job since the summer I graduated college. I’m no closer to doing what I majored or minored in. I’m not exercising those muscles at all. My friends all have jobs now; they are doing cool things and I am so so proud of them but I’d be lying if I said their success doesn’t feel like a referendum on mine. On long nights, I wonder whether I was ever good enough to do it. I’m two weeks from 24 and I feel like my window is closing.

Maybe you’re reading this and chuckling because you’re older. You’ve been here before and it worked out for you. But what did you do? What did you want to do? What went right when you were 24? Did you get lucky? Right place, right time?

That’s not even addressing that I’m not sure what I enjoy anymore. I like people (maybe?) But only in small numbers. I am not mentally stable, I am not hardworking, I am not sure of anything I believe in. I have no identifiers to hold as “myself”. I am never going to pay my student loans unless the government gets rid of them or I jump in front of a Ferrari.

I am tired of looking for my purpose in work, I am tired of trying to find a “sustainable” passion. I want to sit around and do nothing because nothing is exactly what I wake up for every day. Tonight, the night I’m writing this, I had a silent anxiety attack while making crunch wraps in the comfort of my parents’ kitchen. I don’t even know why! I’m in therapy for problems I cannot fix, I am taking DayQuil if I think I might get sick later in the day, I am holding onto relationships that are unhealthy and trying to build new ones like a man caught in the rain who fashions himself a raincoat instead of just looking for shelter.

I am in love, or maybe I’m just infatuated with the idea of a person who could love me. I am unsure of what is healthy, I cannot run without hurting myself. I cannot tell people what I am feeling in case it makes them uncomfortable. I am panicking and I am trying to present myself as a person who could, given time and a chance, put it all together because I am desperate to be validated through affection. I think I am poisonous; I think I’m a bad person to spend time with. I don’t believe in my ability to keep friendships going.

I meant to write this to talk about my frustrations with employment and instead I’m just panic-writing, my fingers are moving and I’m seeing the thoughts float onto the screen. I am not editing in real-time; my sentences are choppy because I’m feeling the same hot bubble rising into my rib cage, the one that I was choking on earlier tonight as I rubbed my right thumb into my left hand and hoped the beans wouldn’t burn. I have a college degree and I feel less like a functional human being than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I’m scared.