Lately freaders, I’ve been feeling a little down. A major Negative Nancy if you will. Mostly though, I’ve been feeling like I’m engulfed in a life that is not my own.
As I sat at home last night redesigning my blog, I wondered if this was what I had planned for myself almost three years ago when I moved to DC. Is this where I wanted to be? Working in a dead end job, being disgruntled, barely having the motivation to get out of bed each morning, with a huge lack of direction.
I realized I feel like I’m riding shot gun and my life is just driving itself. I’m no longer in the front seat.
You see freaders, once upon a time I vowed to make a difference. I was twenty-three. I had been president of my college democrats, a delegate to the 2004 DNC, and Legislative Director of the State College Dems. I was supposed to be going somewhere. I had interned on the Hill and I was going to go back and change lives! I was going to do something and go somewhere. My life was planned out. Practically to the 400 person wedding that I was going to have in Boston.
Best of all, or so it seemed at the time, the ex and I were determined to be a power couple. We were going to move to DC together! We were going to make a difference! We were going to work! It’s so cliché and I realize that, but at twenty-three as a college grad, isn’t that what we all want?
Funny how life tosses a few curve balls at you and on a sunny May evening half your life has just blown up in your face. Then on a Monday morning in late September your life further blows up in your face and you get the first sense that you might not be cut out for the big leagues. You might not be up for this, maybe you’re just not good enough.
I moved down here, on my own a month after that May evening while the Ex moved over seas. Fiancé and I started dating a couple days after that dreadful Monday morning. I didn’t land my dream job. In fact the first job was just the opposite. So were the following three jobs (that includes this one). But now, as I struggle to figure out what I want to do to make that difference, I feel…just that…not good enough. Like I worked hard for five years for nothing. Maybe for something, maybe something profound and inspiring and maybe my dream job is still out there. Maybe I just haven’t had the epiphany that I need to get my life back on track.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what I want to do so I don’t see that epiphany coming any time soon. I sense I have an idea, but I’m so lacking in confidence to feel like I can get there. For five years I got every job I wanted, every internship, I made it all happen for myself. But then I get here and it’s a whole different ball game that breaks your heart, that leaves you feeling small and unworthy. These days as my job gets worse and worse, I find myself lacking more and more direction and feeling more and more like I’m stuck and I’m never going to find that dream job.
At one point a few weeks ago, I actually said to Fiancé “maybe I should just become a stay at home mommy blogger.” Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I don’t think I accrued $120k in student loan debt to be a stay at home mother at twenty-five/twenty-six.
(Not gonna lie though, it still has a ring of appeal. Except I don’t picture myself being a mother for a couple more years. At least.)
But, what do you do when you look back on the past few years and realize you’ve gotten so far off track from where you wanted to be, or thought you would be at this age? What do you do when you feel like you’ve put your dreams and ambitions on hold for someone else? Worst of all what do you do when you feel like what were once your dreams and ambitions aren’t anymore and you don’t know what are?
I’m feeling lost, unmotivated, uninspired and in general unworthy. I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all. *sigh*
