All These Things That I've Done -- The Killers

[originally written March 2019]

I'm pretty good at telling stories so I'm just going to stick to what I know.

So much has happened and I don't know where to even begin. Jonathan's birthday reminded me of how much I'm still grieving. I have started so many somber blog posts that I never finished and never published. I don't want to share these things with anyone else sometimes. So I'm not going to, and you'll just have to deal with it.

I tried to get a second job. In fact, I had one for one work week. For one week I worked six days, and on the seventh day I had a fever and my whole body ached. And early that morning I got a message wanting me to *surprise!* come in for some work related training. I declined, and, after raging for a while to myself and my friend through text, sent an email stating that I didn't think that the position was right for me after all. So that was that.

I have spent several hours last night and this morning job hunting online. And instead of spending too much of my time looking for another part time job, I'm just going to treat my writing as my other part time job. It's probably what I should have been doing this whole time anyway.

This whole time I've been really worried about being good enough. Is my writing good enough? And for what? It doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is that I do it. That's why I'm here. Let's have a story...

Most people get asked, when they're children, what they want to be when they grow up. I've never really grown up so I still think in terms of, "when I grow up I'm going to ..." It feels really silly, and naive, after I've written it down, but Anna Lee pointed out to me that I can do whatever I want. And the way she said it is crucial. She did this whole face where she raises her eyebrows, tilts her head, and looks at me like I'm an idiot, and says, "You can do," and here she gestures with both hands, "Whatever you want!"

Maybe, if I ever grow up, I want to be everything??? What if I want to learn it all? Everything that I can possibly absorb? My entire life? What's to stop me? Apparently nothing. I can one-class-at-a-time it through various degrees until the end of time. So that's what I'm going to focus my energy on--learning everything that I can possibly learn. Everyone my entire life has told me, pushed me, "encouraged" me, if you will, to teach. And I thought that I would eventually develop the patience for  it. Perhaps, in time, I will. I still think that what I originally said about writing a great book is applicable to teaching...maybe a certain level of learning and life experience is necessary for me to do either one of those things to the ability to which I both know that I can perform and execute them (which obviously has to be perfect). And--before you point it out from your armchair--therein lies the problem. I seek perfection. In all things. My current job--I expect perfection of my performance there. I don't always achieve that, but I consistently out perform everyone else.

The more I write, the more I realize things about myself. Things that are not easily changed in behavior therapy. Maybe I'm just completely fucked as a person. All righty then.