Working

I'm starting to understand so many of the things that my parents used to talk about, and as much as I hate to admit that they were right...well, they were. I'm depressed about it, maybe for real this time, though the weather may have something to do with that as well. I absolutely hate my job, and every day that I wake up, I think about what would happen if I just decided not to show up. It's not that I mind the people I work with. No, I actually like them a lot, and I'd love to pursue friendships with them outside of our little store. But what I actually have to do is so unbelievably stressful that it feels like I have no time to do anything for myself when I leave work because I am too busy trying to cleanse myself of the frustration that's built up over the past eight hours. And this makes me feel even worse about myself, and it only adds to the stress that accumulates when I realize that everything is piling up again. I thought that feeling was supposed to go away after I graduated college. After four months of living like this, I realize just how much I'd rather be back in school. Maybe it's the desire to have that part of my youth returned to me, but I feel that it's more along the line that I have no patience for rude, ignorant, obnoxious, pretentious, insert-your-favorite-adjective-here people. If I'm not getting yelled at by someone who needs piss cleansers so he can pass a drug test, I'm being talked down to by some corporate moron who knows absolutely nothing about health or fitness. I wish I could tell these people like it is. And there are some people I wish I could throw in front of a bus, like the man who decided to make fun of one of the St. Jude's cancer kids whose pictures we have on the counter this month. I thought it would be fun to try to teach people about working out and staying healthy until I realized that I work downtown, and you don't get nice suburban families coming in to your store. You get real people. And maybe that's what scares me the most. Drug dealers, crazy people (like...REAL crazy people), homeless people, stuck up rich people...never any families. People don't want to listen to me. They could care less what I have to say. They want to be right. They want their QCarbo or their inositol. They want to show me in every way that they can that there is indeed a difference between us. They need so badly to believe that they are better than I am. I deal with it so much that I guess I'm starting to believe it.

I'm starting to get the feeling that I'll never have the kind of stable life that I've always wanted. Maybe that's what I'm just supposed to have wanted. Even so, I know I'd be less stressed out knowing that I'd have enough money and not having to scrape everything together at the last minute. I wonder if going back to school is even going to help me at all. It may not, but I KNOW that I can't get anywhere with what I have now, and that's depressing as hell. It makes me wonder why I even went to college. I went because I believed it's what I had to do. I wanted it, yes. But that's because I wanted to be smart and important and all of that. I'm neither right now, so a lot of good that did me, huh?

I hate being made to feel like a loser. I want a normal job. I want these next few months to be over. I want things to make even a little sense right now. I want them to be clear. And I can't even prioritize. That's how bad it's gotten. I have no idea what should be the most important thing.

This was a really circuitous way of coming to the conclusion that I can't do everything that I want to do for the rest of my life. Some things are going to have to stay memories, and that makes me really sad. I don't want to give things up. But I know that I have to. Over the years, more and more things have led me to believe that growing up is letting go. And you have to keep letting go of things the older you get. And then there's nothing left. It's pretty morbid, but it's fairly accurate, even in a purely physical sense.

I feel like I have so much more that I could give. I could be doing something more useful with my time. I want to do something better. I want to do something for people who will actually appreciate what it is that I am doing. I just wish I felt less alone in trying to figure out the next step. I am fairly certain that I want to go back to school. But how do I know that I'm not just saying that because things are so miserable right now? What if I am, but what if that's okay? What if that's the only reason anybody chooses to do anything? Not to attain happiness but to avoid misery?
It's something I haven't had to think about in a while.

Even though I feel like I have too much going on right now, I want something more. I want that stability. I want my own place and my puppy and my license. The latter is mainly because I'm tired of it taking 3 hours to do something that should take 40 minutes at most and because I absolutely hate being dependent on other people. I want to want people in my life because they make me happy and because I value their companionship, not because I need them.

Did I mention that I want November to be over?

I didn't even have a costume for Halloween this year. I didn't get to give out candy. I had to work, and the only children I saw in costume were the daycare kids we drove by as they were walking down the street in the morning. I'm losing the things that are important to me, and I hate the way that feels. Why is it always that my job destroys my life? Maybe that means I'm in the wrong job. How do I know what the right one is? I feel like I'm going to fuck up a hell of a lot more in the near future trying to figure that out. And then I won't be young anymore.

I must seem like a miserable fuck, but really I just need to get these things out because they are constantly on my mind. I'm generally a pretty chipper person, but that gets tiring when all of these other things are weighing on me. I don't want to put up with this shit at my job for much longer, but I need to find a better one first. And that hasn't happened. I keep applying and applying, but I get nothing. I may be made a manager soon, and that may make things a little better. If I got paid more than minimum wage to deal with these fuckers every day, maybe I'd be okay with it.

Agitated. Confused. Trying to get over it.