On Being Grounded

My family very much values strength and a certain level of toughness. All of life's problems are made out to be simple with very simple solutions:

• You just had your heart broken? Meet someone else.
• You're depressed? Get over it.
• You're broke? Work harder. Make more money.
• The dog's sick? Shoot it.

Hell, even when I had a miscarriage years ago - While sitting on my bathroom floor, losing so much blood I thought I'd need a transfusion, I called my Dad first. He told me to NOT go to the hospital. That it would be a waste of money. Issues or problems in my family are simply considered a weakness. We are able to fix everything ourselves, so to acknowledge any different is pointless.

I don't really know how to ask for help. And I feel that all the times I have, help has been rejected. Which is precisely why I talk to myself, write on this blog, and neurotically lean on my friends to help me sort things out. There is one thing that I have been so ashamed of that I have kept it buried for over a decade. No one knows about it. Not Sister. Not Bodhi. Not Robo. Not Trinity. And definitely none of the demons. I have a binge eating disorder. It started, as pretty much all of my other issues did, after the accident. For the last thirteen years I have dealt with my paranoia, depression, loneliness, and anxiety by stuffing my face with whatever bad-for-me food I can find. I will literally clean out my refrigerator in one night. And if I don't have what I am craving to satisfy the binge, I will get in my car at 3am to go find it. Two nights ago, I ate two (whole) frozen pizzas, three large bars of expensive chocolate, and twelve slices of Kraft singles, finished with four ice cream drumsticks. In the time it took to watch two hours of Ted Talks.

But I don't purge after a binge. I punish. When I am finally so full, I cannot fit anything more down my throat, I go weigh myself on my bathroom scale. Then I lay in bed, telling myself how fat, ugly, and undeserving of love I am. I then proceed to "counter" the calories consumed during the binge by starving myself for a day or more. I will get to the point I am so weak, I cannot get out of bed until I either binge again out of hunger, or attempt to drown my emotions with beer. (Which of course, leads to getting black out drunk from drinking on an empty stomach). These "episodes" usually occur a couple of times a year. Depending on my mental state at the time, they can be a one-off misstep that happens one time and I get over it. Or, it can be a cycle that goes on for a month or two. This time, the cycle started somewhere around the time I lost My Girl. For a few months, I had been losing weight at a steady and healthy rate (as well as staving off any binges), through closely monitoring my diet and exercise. I was regularly finding myself in the hills, hiking with consistent partners, and my spirits were high. Then, life just happened and the spiral down to binging followed.

As I have said before, the beauty I am finding in this blog project is I am forced to face the ugly and horrible truths I keep buried and hidden from view. By posting these intimate details to the universe, I have to acknowledge that it is real. I also have to release it and let the burden start to slowly leave me. Life is not happy for me because I don't let it be. Face it, my life is a cluster fuck right now. I have so much negativity inside of me, there is little room left for happiness, joy, or love. I have less than five months left in my twenties and if I am going to begin my thirtieth year with a more stable foundation as I set out to do, I have to get to work. Professional help may be out of my reach, so the only person I can count on to fix me, is me.

I recognize that at this moment in my life, my biggest depressor (and instability trigger) is my lack of financial stability and what it is doing to my social life. My friends and loved ones work very hard to afford their luxuries and should rightfully enjoy them. But while they are attending concerts, music festivals, mini-vacations, movies, brewery crawls, yoga workshops, dinners out... I am alone. I work very hard too, and in a fair and perfect world, I would be joining them. But as we all know, the world is not perfect, and certainly not fair. Often times, friends will offer to spot me. But this generally makes me feel even worse about my situation. Pride is something I have little of, but shame is something I am have in excess. I find that I generally have two choices: Have a social life and go broke, or save money and be lonely. I almost always choose the former. I now realize I will never reach my goals continuing on this path.

I have to buckle down for a little while, perhaps even a few months, just to build some better habits within myself. I have to get my eating disorder under control. The emotional toll is becoming worrisome. The hurtful things I tell myself become more brutal the longer it goes on. I have also got to get my finances in order. Sure, I don't make the salary I should or deserve, but I have to figure out how to live comfortably and securely with what I have. I have re-enlisted in my diet and exercise plan and I have started to track my daily spending. So far, my research has proven I can look forward to missing out on most (if not all) of the "extra" activities with my loved ones. I just hope that when I come out the other side, they will not have forgotten who I am.

Cavities

 Sweetness has given me a toothache. And not by acting the kind of sweet that I want to go brag to my girlfriends about. Instead, he has acted needy, clingy, and insecure. By simply trying too hard, I am completely annoyed and turned off. I know that letting him down after a whoppin' three times of hanging out is going to be difficult for him so I have thus far taken the wuss road and simply avoided him. But I know he deserves something so I will eventually woman-up and call him this weekend.

The first time we made plans, it wasn't even an official date. In my mind, it was a playdate for our dogs and catching up with an old friend. The playdate turned into beers for the humans, dinner at one of the local restaurants, then back to my apartment. During dinner that night he mentioned that he wanted a relationship with me. I should have taken that as a red flag, as no one in their right mind would proposition something like that a measly five hours into getting to know a person. But upon sensing my shock, he apologized for his boldness and I just laughed it off, assuming the sun and beer had gotten to his head. I politely explained that while I was interested in getting to re-know him, I would not be anyone's girlfriend right away. I suggested that until we are both comfortable moving forward, we remain "interested friends". He assured me this was satisfactory for him.

This Tuesday, we had a real date scheduled. He met me at my place to take me to dinner. He showed up with a large bouquet of flowers which I thought was a little much for a First Actual Date, for Indian food nonetheless. Aside from him ordering his beverage and meal only fter receiving my approval, dinner was actually pretty fun. So I tried to brush aside the "trying too hard" bit.

But then came the hike. I had plans with group of friends to celebrate the holiday with a hike. Upon hearing of this, Sweetness asked if he could come and I obliged. The day was miserable. My time in the mountains with my friends and my dog was filled with anxiety and obligation to coddle this man shadowing my every move. He insisted on stopping at a certain scenic waterfall, which was certainly beautiful but didn't beckon a picnic in front of it. I knew, just knew, he was going to be all cheesy like and seize this as a super romantic place to try and make out with me so I hightailed it out of there. After that, he refused to stop to sip water from the bottle buried in his backpack because he didn't want to make me wait. Dude! We are fucking hiking at elevation. If you die or get altitude sickness from dehydration, you aren't doing me any favors. Grow a fucking pair and drink water when you're thirsty, dumbass!

Shit like that materialized through the whole day. During apre-hike beers and lunch, he would refuse to make a decision on his choices until I had made mine. In the car he said something so lovey-dovey and gross, it was nearly vomit inducing. And he said it while some of my friends were in the car, which made it embarrassing as well. That afternoon, after having some ice cream in front of my swamp cooler, I was so exhausted I literally fell asleep on my couch in an upright position. Apparently because I wasn't all over him, he got up and said he was leaving. He then came back into my apartment, stood above me as I slept and nearly started crying saying he doesn't think I care about him. It's been four whole fucking days! Too much. Way too much. Who does this? I reminded him that from the get go I expressed that I was not about to rush into a relationship and he needed to cool his jets. He left feeling a little better.

But the more and more I think about it, the more I realize just how utterly turned off I am. If I once had hope that we might work out as a couple, that hope has been smothered to death twice over. So now I have to put on my big girl panties and break the heart of a boy who really never left high school. In many ways though, I am proud of myself. Yeah, it is a shitty thing that someone else has to suffer for me to realize my self-growth. But in my younger years, I definitely would have settled for dating him because I liked the attention. Now, I refuse to put up with it. And for him, he is a nice guy. I have no doubt his heart is in the right place and he still, has a genuine kindness about him. He just needs to be looking for a woman who will appreciate his over the top antics, rather than gagging from them.

Anything but boredom

I did it. I chopped off my hair. An entire foot of it, actually. It was my first professional hair cut in almost a decade. And I got professional highlights for the first time in my entire life. To me, that is just crazy. I have never been a spa or gussied-up type of girl. I usually just trim half an inch or so off my flat, lifeless, boring mane every few months. The new hair makes me feel a little more "adult". Grown women get their hair done, right? It also has given me a good dose of confidence that I seem to have been lacking lately.

On Friday, just hours after writing my last post, an odd and somewhat traumatizing incident occurred. I was on the phone with a client when a mini-tornado swept through my office parking lot. I glanced over and saw a coworker struggling to close the glass door that was swinging open and threatening to blow away, right off its hinges. Then, in eerily perfect unison, I hear the gasp of several other coworkers and a cry of "C, your car!" I politely excused myself from the call I was on and hobbled over to see the wreckage. A fucking tree was on my car. On top of my goddamn car. Surprisingly, I didn't completely lose my shit. The hilarity of what my eyes were seeing was just too strange and too odd to get all worked up about.

By the time I arrived at my regular stomping ground for a beer, I was done. I was ready to tie one on. My friends and other regulars raved about my hair and expressed their sympathies for my now defunct ride. I caught up with an old friend who has moved back to our little town for the summer and we agreed to meet later in the evening to get a little shitty. And shitty we got. After, oh I don't know, three or four shots of Patron, I noticed a very tall and very handsome bearded man in our establishment. He was a new face and obviously not a local in our town. When my beer needed a refill, I slid up to the empty bar stool next to the hottie and placed my order with the bartender. While waiting, I felt brazen enough to introduce myself and compliment my new friend on his astounding karaoke skills. (I am nowhere near confident when it comes to approaching good looking guys. I blame my assurance on my new hair and the fact that I simply just didn't give a fuck after the tree vs. car shenanigans.)

Hot new guy seemed absolutely shocked that I had approached him and rewarded me by purchasing my beer when it arrived... as well as inviting me to keep chatting with him. Just as I thought, he was not a local in my town. He lives in the big city and had been at a picturesque wedding in my neck of the woods. After closing the reception, the party turned into a bar crawl and he had found his way into the bar my friends and I were at. Eventually, his friend popped over to say their limo back to the city was on its way to pick everyone up. We exchanged numbers and he expressed his disgust over having to leave the conversation with me. So I did something a little nuts and said "Stay here then." He kissed me. Then did a walk of shame from my apartment to meet his friends for brunch the next morning.

Now, in my last post I exclaimed how badly I needed to get laid. But as luck would have it on that fateful night, Aunt Flow showed up to make sure I didn't put out. Which is probably for all the better. We kissed and cuddled and made out like a pair of horny teenagers but we didn't get intimate and I told him I was glad for that. I said "I think I'd like to see you again, but if we had sex last night, that probably wouldn't happen." He laughed and tried to convince me otherwise. We chatted a lot and seemed to have great conversation that flowed and he didn't hightail it out of my apartment at the crack of dawn. In fact, we woke up early and laid in bed, talking and drinking coffee for a solid five hours before parting ways. He even called me on the walk to tell me he thinks I'm awesome and he cannot wait to take me out on a proper and "sober date".

My favorite part of meeting him was when I initially did the twenty question interrogation to find out why he was single. He said there is a running joke among his friends that he is always the guy a girl dates just before she meets someone she wants to marry. I was astounded and said I use the term Wife Fluffer for myself, as most of my demons end up married or close to it soon after their relationship with me ends. His response? "Well, I think we should date then. Because if things don't work out between the two of us, at least we'll meet the loves of our lives right after." Brilliant. After spending some time today, stalking him out on facebook and linkdn, I found that he is actually legit. His job, interests, education, and upbringing are exactly as he said they were. Oh, and he is also not on any sex offender registries.

So we'll see. Maybe he won't call and I can continue on with my whining ramblings. Or maybe he will and I'll have some good or bad dating posts in the near future.  

To whore, or not to whore?

While I very obviously have no shame about men and such, I tend to refrain from delving too much into the best parts of it: S.E.X. Perhaps I want you all to think I'm sweet and virginal. And perhaps I just want those moments to be sacred and not read by the masses. But truth be told, I am bored. And I need to get laid. Badly. I'm talking yelling, hollering, ass-slapping, going all night, nooky.

When I was younger... shit, who am I kidding? As recently as the end of times with The Wrecking Ball, I would sometimes find myself looking for validation with my cooter. Lately, not so much. In many ways, I feel like I enjoy sex more when it is monogamous and has meaning behind it. And as I get older, I find myself more sensitive to the idea of not being taken seriously because I drink beer with the boys. The last thing I need is to actually give the haters reason to think I'm just "one of those girls." Yet, It has been a good six months since anyone other than my OB/GYN has been anywhere near my bits. Currently, there are few things I would love more than to break this dry spell.
*Yes, I know. There was The Writer. Unfortunately, due to his insecurities and neurosis about his 135,678 unique and unheard of health problems (hypochondriac much?), and the uncanny ability for said issues to turn me off, we only did it a handful of times when we first started dating. And it was never very fulfilling. Yeah, that relationship was doomed.

But here's my dilemma. Even if I managed to allow myself a booty call just to clean the pipes, I don't exactly have ready access to any subjects. Sure, I have a handful of the aforementioned man-friends. But there is NO way I would subject myself to any extra curricular activities with any of them. They are actually my friends. Even the few that are single, I respect and frankly, think of them as family, thus have no desire to see their junk. And Phoenix? Hell, he'd be lucky to get friend-zoned at this point.

What about the option of getting shit faced and going home with a random? Unfortunately, I live and play in a small "everyone knows everyone's business" type of community. It most certainly has it's perks. Just not in the way of finding an easy, non-awkward, and discreet lay. If I were to execute the random bar hook up, I would have to venture to the Big City and bring my conquest home to Trinity and her gay roommate. They wouldn't mind one bit. Hell, they'd probably encourage it. But something about turning 30 leaves me unwilling to get on all fours on my BFF's couch.

So I guess that leaves me to do things the old fashioned (and more respectable) way. While draining my C batteries, I might have to actually find a guy who likes me and wants to date me. Between my love for my small and close-knit town, and my dedication to my career, my hopes of meeting someone "organically" seem to be dwindling. Sure, I have recently declared that I may not be ready to give the whole relationship thing a go right now. But that was before I got horny. Things suddenly seem a little more urgent. Perhaps a new haircut, new dress, and new match.com account?

Face Plant to Freedom

So...um...yeah. Phoenix is sort of fucked up. I will spare you the play-by-play but here's the gist:

Last Saturday, after way too much inhebriation at a friend's party, Phoenix offered to walk me home. During the walk, some drunken slurs were made from both sides. Ultimately, he became downright nasty and mean. His behavior and his words actually scared me. It was as if he turned into some sort of vicious stranger.  He wound up leaving me to find my way, disoriented in the middle of an unfamiliar neighborhood, at two in the fucking morning. Who does that? Seriously. What kind of stand up man in his Thirties leaves his female friend to fend for herself, lost, at two in the morning?

In a way, I am relieved by it at this point. Though our conversations and bond appeared to be growing, we never became intimate so I do have that to be thankful for. And if I ever find myself struggling to divert my attention away from a particular someone, them behaving like a bipolar douche is sure to do the trick. I could sit here and over-analyze his every word, along with the drastic change in his behavior. But I really just don't care much. Anyone who can treat a person as awfully as that, is no person I care to get to know any better. I will admit that for me, there has been some awkwardness. I have been avoiding my regular haunt, as it is now his regular haunt as well. But that really isn't the end of the world either. For now, I need some distance from Phoenix. And not drinking so much (while saving a little bit of cash) isn't exactly a bad thing.

So, I'm free. And better off. For now.

A Hard and Heavy Shell

As long as I can remember, I have loved turtles.  I find them to be soothing. For years, friends and family often pick up little turtle figurines for me to collect.

Years ago, at a souvenir shop in the desert, I was eying a piece of turtle jewelry.  Attached was a tag detailing a Native American tale of how the great turtle is thought to carry the weight of the world on its back.  The turtle is carrier of all things in the world.  I have no idea if that tag accurately described the legend, or if it was some fabricated bullshit to entice tourists.  But it stuck with me and it is something I have always remembered.

When we were kids, Mom was kind of a piece of shit.  Being the older sibling, I put myself in charge of Sister's safety and well being.  When Mom took off on a bender in Reno and left the two of us girls alone (at ages 7 and 4), I was responsible for getting us to school every day.  Thankfully, a concerned neighbor notified our elementary school and Dad was awarded custody of us.  I still feel I failed in protecting Sister.  She had some serious shit happen to her and I couldn't stop it.  As we got older and Sister went through hard times, I had no choice but to not fuck up.  The burden was on me to be "the good one" and make Dad's life a little easier.

When it came to saving our relationship, it was not up to The Wrecking Ball to curb his cocaine habit.  Instead, it was my burden to learn to accept and live with his cocaine habit.  His vice resulted in mood swings.  He loved me in the morning and loathed me at night. He once showed up to meet my relatives an hour late, wearing sunglasses indoors, at night.  Of course, I would tell myself over and over "If I try really hard to be a better girlfriend, he will love me so much that he will want to stop."  We all know addiction doesn't work that way. Yet, the fall and demise of us, was somehow my doing. My begging and pleading and ultimately standing up for myself, even if it meant fighting for us, was responsible for the end. 

These are only a couple of ways that I take on the responsibility for the failings of others.  I surely inherited this trait from my father. I see how this has affected him and I know that I cannot continue to take on the world this way.  The burden has been too great.  My back will not hold the weight for long.  As my body ages, I feel the impact of the stress.  The chronic headaches, the anxiety, the bouts of depression. For once, I want someone to be my rock.  I want someone to face the burdens with me, not let me carry them alone.  I want someone I can count on to be there.  To have my back when the shit hits the fan.  I long for camaraderie.  Fucking hell, it is my turn.  Well meaning loved ones often say to me "Patience Grasshopper.  It happens when you are not looking for it." 

While I wait, I will continue to admire the beauty of these strong and patient creatures.  I will reflect on the weight I have carried and recognize that it is a testament to my loyalty and devotion to the world I live in, and the people in it.  It is proof of my nature, what I am capable of, and the type of person I am.

Please do not poke the bear

It has been 2 whole weeks since my last post.  In fact, this is the longest I have gone without posting since beginning this blog.  And for that, I feel like crap.  I really do.

The fact is, I have been in a completely miserable and pathetic excuse for a human being since I got sick.  The scary part of Pneumonia was short lived, thanks to my Dr. and the amazing pills she prescribed.  But it's been quite some time since I have been able to NOT hack out a lung while inhaling the cold winter air of this climate.

I have not been able to attend yoga class. Sniffles aside, I actually feel well enough now, but reaching a yogic state while enduring the dirty looks of paranoid germaphobes in their Lululemon pants does not appeal to me.  I have only once joined my BFF Bodhi for a beer at our favorite spot.  I have (though gratefully) had an ass-load of work that has rendered me and my immune system exhausted.  Oh, and just when I thought I might actually try to hike this fluid out of my lungs, winter finally fucking decided to show up and covered all my favorite trails with two feet of snow.

Needless to say, I have been unable to do the things I love most.  The things that make me...me.  The one thing in my life that I have been able to stay somewhat consistent with is The Writer.  Aw...  Go ahead and vomit. He continues to show himself to be a very generous and kind man who just wants to see me smile and for that, I feel blessed.  However, I only said somewhat consistent.  In that I have been a royal bitch and pain in his ass.  I was all whiny, mopey, and demanding while I was sick. In turn, he was forgiving and even told me it was "kinda cute". Now that I'm not bedridden, I am restless.  Yet, snowstorms, sniffles and lung snot are beyond his control so he does his best by watching movies with me and calling AAA when my car gets stuck on the ice outside his apartment.

Through my struggles with the past demons, I readily recognize this pattern.  When I am stripped of my personal pleasures, I tend to sabotage the only thing going right for me.  Whether that be a relationship, my work, or something else entirely.  In reality, I know I am just pissed off at the lack of my pleasurable activities.  A lack that leaves me less able to cope with other imperfect yet unimportant-ly imperfect things in life.  Without my anchors, something as uncontrollable as a snowstorm will toss me into a fit.  I am to the point that if I do not get to yoga class or finish a hike with a hoppy fermented beverage, I may be writing this blog from a padded room. I suppose I just feel a little down that I started this year with such high ambitions, vowing to not repeat old negative habits from my 20's, such as hating life below 40 degrees.  And here I am.  Cold, Vitamin D deficient, tired, and grumpy.

Just wanted to check in.  Perhaps the doom and gloom tone of this post will motivate me to come back at ya with something good.

Ground Zero

After only an hour's worth of real sleep, I woke up to the morning alarm.  I was in his bed but his half was cold.  He had slept downstairs on the couch.  Not incredibly unusual, as we had a fight the night before.  Also, not incredibly unusual.  Then I remembered that this time was different.  This time the fight was a fight that I knew would likely be our last.  He heard my alarm and came upstairs to hold me and cry with me for the next hour.  I eventually showered and somehow got myself ready for work.  I gathered my things and we kissed goodbye, telling each other to have a good day, pretending it was any other morning.  It was the last time I ever saw him.

During my first few moments of consciousness that morning, my only desire was to close my eyes, wake up later, and discover it all having been a bad dream.  For the next few months, but what seemed like eternity, I spent every morning (and nearly every waking moment) that way.  Every morning, I woke up in a cold and half empty bed, realizing where I was, what the reality of my life was, and only wishing it to not be true.  This morning ritual in my psyche made me afraid to sleep at night, for I knew that in my sleep, my dreams would be of our normal life.  But when I woke, my nightmare would still be the same.

I had been through breakups before.  I have lost friends and family to death.  Hell, I have had physical, life threatening injuries that took months to recover from.  None of it prepared me for the pain I felt after that morning.  My entire body hurt from the inside out.  I had a perpetual migraine, I was unable to take full breaths, my stomach was in a constant somersault.  My daily diet consisted of coffee, cigarettes, beer and whatever food my friend Robo forced me to eat when I was drunk.

I hadn't just lost my partner and best friend.  I lost half of my friends (his friends), I lost my (practically) in-laws, I lost my dreams and hopes - OUR dreams and hopes.  I also found myself metaphorically homeless.  I was renting an apartment in the city that I only used as a week-day hotel room for when I needed to be close to the office.  I now was forced to call it home. His home in the mountains was no longer there for me.  No more nights of cooking in the log kitchen while he stoked the wood stove and fat snow flakes fell from the sky.  No more lazy days of him chopping wood while I sewed up the patches in his work pants.  No more long weekends with our friends filling the spare bedrooms.  We had plans together.  A wedding, dogs, eventually little DNA clones of us playing in the acreage surrounding our house.  Our nest was gone.

And just like that, my life as I knew it was crushed.  Though it had been crumbling for quite some time, it seemed to happen in just an instant.  Everything I loved and cared for, my goals, my dreams, what kept me going every day, crumbled that morning.  I felt as if a category 5 tornado rumbled onto everything that was "me."  A tornado with a giant fucking Wrecking Ball in the eye of it.

The Kids' Table

I know I have sucked at blogging this week.  My sincerest apologies as I have been just itching to write. I certainly hope everyone has enjoyed their holidays thus far.

The main reason for my lack of posting has been a lack of material.  My other excuse is I am currently on vacation in my family's mountain cabin where the bandwidth has been in short supply.  Which brings me to this current post for your reading pleasure.  Looking back at my very first post, this whole blogging experiment is to help me sort out exactly what I have done with the last decade of my life while preparing myself for the next.  And yes, I am in a bit of a freak out knowing my time in my 20's is running out.  My family certainly doesn't help with that anxiety.

Let me firstly say, I love my family.  I abnormally love my family.  We are all amazingly close to where even friends have commented it's a little freakish.  Just last night, some cousins and I were joking that we are perhaps more accurately considered a cult than a family.  The blessed life I have had would be impossible without them.  But here's the thing, I am almost 30 years old. (I know, I'm beating the dead horse with that one.)  Yet, although I am the oldest member of my generation in my family, I am still treated much the same as the other members of this generation.  My family is young.  I have an uncle less than 10 years older than me.  His wife is only 4 years older than me.  An aunt of mine is the same age as my last serious boyfriend.  However, they are in The Grown Up group.  And I am left somewhere at The Kids' Table.     

Yeah, it's unfair when I don't get offered a glass of wine because the host or hostess "forgets" I am 7 years over the legal drinking age in our state.  And yes, it's unfair that I don't get introduced or included in meetings and conversations with adult family friends and neighbors. I must admit though, if I were to tell my parents how I feel about this issue, they would hammer home the following:

•  You didn't finish college so you aren't a grown up.
•  Because you didn't finish college and get an engineering job, we still have to help support you so you aren't a grown up.
• You don't have a mortgage so you aren't a grown up.
• You aren't married so you aren't a grown up.
• You don't have children of your own so you aren't a grown up.
•  If you were a grown up, you would be paying for this cabin. So you aren't a grown up.

Fuck!  No wonder I have a complex and insanely major anxiety about turning 30!  What about 40?  Will I still be at the Kids' Table at 50?  Am I required to have a high paying job, husband, home owners insurance and children to finally be considered an adult member of this family? I feel stuck somewhere in limbo.  In a parallel universe.  Alone amongst my own people.  Truly, I feel like shit about myself.  This is just more proof at how much I suck at life and what a failure my 20's have been. 

What's Going On?

This shit's been going for almost a year. And just today I realized I have a little under 400 days left in my 20's. 393 to be exact.

Unfortunately for my mental well-being, society would have us believe what exactly twenty-somethings are supposed to be doing with their lives:
Graduating College
I stopped pursuing an Engineering degree to go full-time at a job I love but pays me barely enough to survive
Using College Degree to Obtain a Decent Paying Career
See above
Purchasing a Car
Thanks Dad!
Owning a Starter Home 
I rent a basement apartment I can barely afford
Falling in Love
The only long-term relationship I have managed to NOT completely fuck up would be the one I share with my dog
Starting Families (Or at least thinking about it)
Hah!

Honestly, I have perhaps always been a bit of a rebel.  Thus not exactly keen on what society or its authority expect of me. And I do enjoy my life.  I'm busier than hell, have a great group of friends, I love my job, my family members are close and amazing, and I have had the opportunity to love.   Yet at some point, I have begun to ask myself if I made the right choices?  Where did I go wrong?  Why am I here?  Does it get any easier?  WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

So here I am.  In my basement apartment snuggled to my dog. For the next 400 days, I will be chronicling what I do with the last of my Twenties, all the while exorcising the demons and bullshit that got me in this mess. Who knows?  Perhaps this will help build a less rocky foundation for my third decade at life. Sure is cheaper than a therapist.