Hashtag three-eighths life crisis

 With many pardons begged for the intense navel-gazing about to follow. I swear I have a point. 

 

Eleven days into the new year, I came home exhausted, having driven all over creation for meeting after meeting after meeting, on top of my regularly scheduled work, clocking a ten-hour work day I wouldn't get paid overtime for. My job duties had just changed, and my stress levels were snowballing. I slouched into the shower and spent most of that time slumped against the wall, scarce of the will to move, thinking Gob Bluth thoughts, spiraling. Hello darkness my old friend. The thing is, I'm unhappy. The thing is, I've been unhappy for years. 

 

When the economy tanked several years ago, I went unemployed for well over a year, exponentially more convinced of my worthlessness as a human being with each passing day. I wrote fanfiction to fill the time; it was something I was decent at, and it gave me a purpose, small as it was, other than wishing really hard I could magically disappear into an alternate universe where I didn't suck at life. Quite by accident, I stumbled upon the idea for my current profession -- it was relatively interesting and, more importantly, seemed doable. I didn't have the right credentials for it yet, though. I'd have to go back to school. First, a year of post-baccalaureate courses to fulfill all the prerequisites, and two years of graduate school after that. Doable. Less horrifying a prospect than being permanently unemployed. 

 

I finished my first novel just a few days before grad school was to start. Writing a novel had always been something of a pipe dream, something for other people with scads more talent than I to do. But I wrote it and I finished it, and it felt amazing. For the first time in my life, I thought, maybe this can be my job, maybe I can actually have a job I love. My foray into graduate school, the thing I was spending so much time and effort and money on, it was a means to an end; it was to get a job that I could work at until I could afford not to do it anymore. I hated the idea of it, as much as I was tantalized by the idea of the opposite. My best friend had to talk me off the ledge and make me be responsible and go to school. 

 

A lot is said about reaching for one's dreams, living one's passions, doing what the heart wants. I get that. I want that. But I also get the need to be financially stable. And have medical benefits. Short of winning the lottery or being the surprise benefactor of a heretofore unknown, eccentric billionaire great-uncle's will, that's not going to change. The lights have to stay on somehow. 

 

Twelve days into the new year, I called in sick. I was tired to my very bones. I wanted to go back to a time when I didn't dread waking up in the morning -- and actually, I didn't have to reach far to find it. It had happened only a couple of weeks ago during the holiday break, it had happened over a summer three years ago when I was writing The Other Guy, and it had happened in the long interim as I continued to contribute little stories here and there to fandom. It had happened while I was writing. I'd bound out of bed at seven, make a cup of coffee, forget to eat breakfast, let the coffee go cold, and write. I'd shovel lunch into my mouth only because I got lightheaded, and write. I'd write and write until it was time to go to sleep, and I'd head to bed, excited that I'd get to do it all over again the next day. 

 

By contrast, the first thing out of my mouth when the alarm clock goes off during a regular work week? Fuuuck. Or on less dreary days, nooo. 

 

I had been here countless times before, knowing perfectly well I didn't particularly enjoy what I was doing, knowing there was something else I'd much rather devote my time and energy to, and could, but I was terrified of it. What if the thing I loved to do didn't love me back? What if everyone did have a novel in them, and I'd already met my quota and had nothing left? What if everything I'd ever written was actually pure garbage dressed up as prose? But also... what if I never got off my ass to find out? 

 

Normally, when beset with these thoughts, I'd journal them, wait for the worst of the feelings to pass, and trudge on as usual. But I was getting sick of writing down the same old crap; my journals have literally at least five years of the same damn thing, pages and pages of how I wished my life could be different. And I'd reached a saturation point. Instead of journalling, I went to YouTube and searched for motivational speeches. I needed someone to yell at me and slap me in the face and tell me I could do better. I don't know if I can even find those videos again; I went through four or five of them largely indiscriminately. It didn't matter, because boiled down, they all said the same thing: it takes work. 

 

I'm not disciplined. That's why I don't go on diets or make resolutions. Failure is foreseeable from the start. What I am good at is throwing confetti showers of excuses at myself. I'm too tired. I don't have time. I don't have ideas. I'm stuck. But as it turns out, I'm also a tadl full of shit. My life won't change unless I change. 

 

Which is not to say I'm going to run out and quit my job right now. Like I said, I have to keep the lights on. But I can also make time to get happy. That means working at it every single day, whether it's doing research or writing ten words or a thousand. That means not waiting for the stars to align with my muse's schedule as she flits in and out at will (mostly out). If I want to reach a point in my life where I can wake up on a daily basis and not groan like a dying beast at the thought of the next twelve hours, I have to put in the work. 

 

It's possible I'll never reach that point. My fears may all be true and I may not be good enough a writer to ever get there. But the difference between trying and clinging to the status quo is that the latter is iron-clad insurance that I will never be happy with myself. If I try, at least I have a fighting chance. 

 

So this is an open invitation. You are all invited to hold me accountable. Demand daily word counts from me, tweet me in all caps, remind me Tumblr will still be there tomorrow, send me pictures of squishy baby animals. (The last one probably won't help with motivation all that much, but who doesn't like pictures of baby animals? Give them to me! They are so cute.) Be my cheerleader, be my drill sergeant, be my motivational speaker. If you want it, I will do the very same for you. 

 

Three hundred and sixty-five days into the new year, I want to look back and see a difference, if not in my life, then at least in me.