Freedom Means Free Thought

It’s hard to manage the torrent of emotions I’ve been wading through while I try to maintain this new direction of my life. Whether it has to do with being more social or with getting my financial health back to where it should be, I’ve been struggling to keep a new existential crisis at bay.

And for what it’s worth, I think I’m doing a great job. It isn’t that I’m suppressing it. It’s that I’m actively making sure that I don’t step into one, like sifting over sand with a metal detector for land mines. And I haven’t hit one yet.

My goal in this new era of my life is not to think of the past in any sort of jealous way. I know, the idea of me being jealous of myself seems ludicrous and yet that is the biggest hurdle I find myself needing to overcome. The romanticizing of what I once had to the detriment of the stability I’m now living in.

Really, it isn’t even that I want what I had in the past. I want something better. Safer. Genuinely passionate. Honest and loving. Talking about relationships here, I suppose that was obvious. I miss being in a romantic relationship. I miss the emotional and physical warmth of one most of all. I try not to think of this too — but falling asleep alone is something I’ll be glad to be done with.

Really I have nothing to say, nothing poignant or meaningful. Sometimes it just helps to have a space to say nothing at all.

I’m waiting for some good news I think. I’m waiting to be hired somewhere small and easy to learn. I’m waiting for the chance to drive again and go places and see new people. But I hate that in all instances I am waiting for life to start again.

Perhaps it is that I have no ambition right now. All of my ambition rested in my academic desires and now that I have satisfied those I find myself adrift in a situation I hadn’t previously considered. Now what? is the real question.

I was driven. I wanted to get somewhere, so I found a path in and I followed that path relentlessly. I never had any doubt that I would reach my destination and once there I had the fullest confidence that I would succeed. Where did that go for me, is my truest question.

Really though, I don’t know if I need to be that single-mindedly relentless. I think more than the success itself I miss the proud moments that my family shared because of me. I miss being someone of worth to other people.

I go back and forth now about the positions I have been applying for. Have I fallen so far that I can’t find something in the field that I studied so hard to gain entrance into? That’s the question I have for myself after research jobs so close to minimum wage.

But then I really look at the state of things. I look at the outlook others have on our country, the escalating incidents of climate-change related weather, the growing mental health epidemic of which I am one solid statistic, and the — in general — strange and momentous events of my life. And then I say to myself, a full time job working up to a management position sounds like a win.

It really does. It would allow me to go to the gym, drive around a bit and see people at some public event or other. It would give me the resources to see my father more and would be a bit of weight off my mother’s shoulders. And mine.

It would give me a reason to get out of my house all day, to see the world as something worth living for again. It would make me feel like a place of my own is actually attainable (the idea of being able to freely burn incense and candles, doing all manner of strange spiritual things in the privacy of my own space is delicious).

I just have to be diligent. I was going to say patient, but diligent is the better word. I will get what I want because what I want is plentiful in the world and someone would even call it commonplace. So it is easily attainable, the problem is that it is naturally gatekept by those who do the hiring. I get past that hurdle and I get what I need.

I feel that I am standing next to a large door in life right now and it is not yet open but it will open very soon. I feel as though it is heavy and old, and that there is a lot of power on the other side of the door, so much that the sensation of the power is pressing up against my skin through the door.

I’m not really sure what that means, but I do know that if I am to take the feeling as given then there is something very good coming to me so long as I stay the course and maintain my calm and my mental health.

I do have to remember the other side of what’s at stake. It isn’t just about finding a job although that is a high priority. I need to maintain myself, to show not just the others I live with but my own self that I can have a good year of mental health. That nothing has to happen anymore. That this straightened arrow (is that the saying?) that I’m following is true.

I’m going to get what I’m after, of that I have no doubt. I just need to find things to do with myself until I get there and that is the whole problem. The whole of it, wrapped up very neatly — it feels much smaller when acknowledged.

I’m restless and I want a lover to spend time with.

I suppose now would be a good time to meditate and see where my mind is at. I think I’ve got some good things out of this particular free write so I should take it where it leads me. Ground, center, let the universe feed me. Until next time, then!