Update on Life

I'm going to try and write a post that's not a giant metaphor.

Life is good and school is good and I'm happy to go to work every day and I'm happy to come home every day and that's good. I get home and I hate home and I go and do work to distract myself and then I can't switch off from work and then I'm up at midnight crying uncontrollable and laughing hysterically simultaneously and I know that something is wrong but I don't know what it is.

And then the holidays come and I get a break and I colour in and then I injure my wrist and I can't write for a week and this is why I can't have nice things. I go and look at houses and talk to important financial people and plan for a life where I don't have to avoid home or eat dinner at 8:30 or do the things I don't want to do. That life is so close I can taste it. It tastes like food I've chosen. Like a high vegetable to meat ratio.

So I feel guilty for every dollar I spend that puts the Happy Life off by another 2.4 seconds. I feel guilty when I buy a nice dress to wear to my awards ceremony at uni or a $4 lipstick or the tank of petrol I need to drive a friend home. And then I make lists and budgets and spreadsheets and I track every cent and I classify everything in my crazy categories and I keep my job at Coles to justify buying my membership with the dragons. And the lists work. The budget eases the guilt. My whole life is easing guilt.

But I need a hobby that can keep me sufficiently distracted from work that I only question my mental health every other day. The only problem is that I don't like doing anything and I never have. I have never held a hobby for longer than about twelve months. And all the suggestions I get are impractical or unappealing. No thank you I don't want to participate in a team sport the only thing worse than sport is teams. Sorry I don't have any land but I would love to start a veggie patch. No I can't do anything involving writing or colouring or even using a computer to be honest because the pain in my wrist is always unbearable.

I don't really know what I'm doing with my life but at least I have a vague direction and I'm getting all the career opportunities I want and I can afford to buy my own home which is becoming increasingly rare in my generation so I'm not here to complain. This is just what my life is now. This is what I've worked for unwavering for as many years as I can remember. This is why I studied and worked instead of every going anywhere or seeing anyone. It's nearly time for me to set some new goals. How exciting.

The future

And I am really excited about the future. I'm happy for autumn to bring its crunching leaves and hot chocolate and blankets, I'm happy to get home to a warm dinner and wake up to a warm shower but I don't want to wake up on cold mornings and I don't want to walk home when it's cold and I hate the cold. Even at 8:30 in the morning my hands are still freezing and I don't like it, I don't like going six months of the year without being warm. I wish it could be summer forever.

And I am really excited about the future. I'm happy to start a new job and be able to devote all my time to something I really care about, I'm happy to start marking work and writing reports and doing all the things I've been looking forward to for years. But I'm worried that I'm going to be terrible at it and I'm worried about having the responsibility of all those little faces staring at me, hoping I have all the answers.

And I am really excited about the future. I'm happy to move out and find my own place and get to make my own decisions and do what I want when I want to without people complaining that I work too hard. But I don't know how I'm going to afford it because house prices just keep climbing and what seemed affordable a few years ago is now so far out of my reach that I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford to leave home.

But I'm excited about the future.