Unrelated to Dani, except i will be taking a night drive to recover

    "People who think you can be all you can be by pulling up by your bootstraps are typically people who never had to worry about having boots to start with."

    Eileen Cook said that in The Almost Truth and I have never gotten over it.

    Today I was told that I was miserable and hadn't had a day off in months and should really think about getting one better job to replace my two miserable ones. 

    What a fucking concept, right? What a goddamn fucking novel concept that had never occurred to me. Did you guys know I'm apparently so stupid that these thoughts had never occurred to me? It's the epilepsy, I swear. My epileptic brain saw two jobs and thought that meant double the money of a well-paying singular job, and said WHEEEEEE two jobs!

    What actually happened is this: I meant to quit my first job when I got my second one. But I was making more money at the first one, and thought it couldn't hurt to test out having multiple jobs, at least for a while. Plus there were a lot of things I didn't want to think about, and staying busy was my version of avoiding it. And it was financially healthy. I could also avoid eating, which is a totally different topic, but probably ties into the whole mental health thing.

    Today, I was told I wasn't self sufficient. I will admit that living with my sister does give me a bit of leeway, money-wise, but if I wanted to, I could get my own place, pay my own shit. It wouldn't be great, but it would be self sufficient. Why does self sufficiency have to be about decent shit? I'm 23, for God's sake. Everyone has a beater car, everyone has a shitty apartment, and I'm expected to have better right off the bat?

    And if I don't, because I'm 23, then what? Then what?

    People who think you can be all you can be by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps are typically people who never had to worry about having boots to start with.

    I got my first job at 15, and it has never ended. As soon as I got that job, more and more financial responsibilities fell to me. I never created any savings because I didn't think I'd live that long. Then I kept living, and kept not dying, and kept surviving, and then failing at dying again, and now here I am, semi in a better place, thanks to my car. I still want to die, but I have savings now. Does that make me more grown up?

    Is that the standard?

    Get a grown up job to have regular set days off so I can actually plan my beach trips-- which, while I do plan them, some of their joy comes from their spontaneity-- and to rise up the ranks.

    Plant roots, have responsibilities... And then what?

    Do any of these pseudo career counselors have any advice for when I wake up in five, ten, fifteen, twenty years and just scream and scream and scream and never stop because I hate my life? And then I run. But I can't just leave my life because I have responsibilities, and more entanglements, and that requires a firmer sort of closure than just leaving. The more you have, the harder it is to leave it all behind and find something new.

    At any point in time, with my jobs right now, I could leave. I could just leave, and drive and drive and drive, and no one would care. Job abandonment for jobs I hate. Congrats, I'd be exactly like my parents. In that respect, I'm okay with that. If I have been abandoned and turned into someone who abandons, then I want the ability to abandon.

    I carry my passport, birth certificate, social security card, and a week's worth of medicine on my person at all times. What if the time comes that I want to drive to airport and hop a plane out of the country, but can't because I have to stop at home? I lose all my momentum, and never leave. And I'm stuck.

    I am exhausted. I am physically exhausted. But I am emotionally exhausted. I am tired of people telling me I am living my life wrong, or that I'm better than this, and shouldn't settle. What part of me says I'm settling? What part of me says this is what I'm planning on doing my entire life? Just because my goals, and the steps I take to achieve them, look different than yours, mostly because mine are less tangible. I already went to school for my dreams. They're a little harder to accomplish, because writing doesn't use a degree. Publishers don't care if you have a degree. They care if the book is good and if it is done. 

    My jobs right now suck, but they let me stock away money in my savings, pay off my credit card, keep my car running, and I can write on my downtime. 

    We're not all walking the same path at the same time in the same way. Honestly. If someone can't see that, hopefully they can see the door.