284 days

I think I’m at some sort of crossroads in my life. It feels like the world I’ve always lived in, the world that I’ve worked so hard to make my own, is crumbling around me and there’s nothing I can do but watch. I’m stuck in a place that I hate more than anywhere in the world, doing a job I hate more than anything in the world, for people I hate more than anyone in the world, and all for a cause I can’t even say I believe in anymore. All of my friends back home are in college, in healthy long term relationships, starting their lives. I made the choices I did in early adulthood in the hopes that it would give me better life experience, a leg up later in life. But were those choices worth it? Would I have been happier if I just pushed through and did the same thing as everyone around me? Or is the grass always greener… I don’t know. I’m sure as hell not happy right now. I tell myself it’ll get better. 284 more days. That countdown keeps drawing nearer but it feels like the walls are closing in faster than that clock can run out. I’ve fallen into this rut and I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of it until I’m out of here. Until I’m back home. Am I wasting the best years of my life? I feel like I’m already broken and I shouldn’t have even graduated college yet. In some ways, I am. My knee won’t let me run for more than a few miles anymore and who knows how much worse that’ll get in the years to come. Being outside in nature is one of the most important things in my life and to my mental wellbeing but I can’t even bring myself to do that anymore most weeks. The only solace I’m able to find is through talking to friends online and making these stupid maps, and the former is getting harder and harder as everyone around me grows up. I guess I’ve grown up, too, in this time. Just in a different way. A worse way, I think. 284 days. I don’t know if I need to start over or if I need a return to normalcy, back to the way things were before. Is that even possible anymore? Even the career path I’ve hoped to follow is in jeopardy - in fact, the whole field of work is at risk of being dissolved in this country. Crumbling. That’s what I said at the beginning of this blog and I think it’s an apt description. I can see, I can feel that everything I want is still there, and it seems like it’s within reach. But every time I do try to reach for it, it just turns to dust in my fingers. Maybe this is just what adulthood is. The feeling of being constantly behind, of having the ability to accomplish what you dreamed of, but having roadblock after roadblock put in your way until you reach such a point of desperation that you either throw everything away or resign yourself to the life you’re living. I think I’m at that breaking point right now. I just need 284 more days.