While my life probably seems pretty ideal on the internet - and it is actually as close to ideal as it could get for a person in his/her early 20's with massive student loan debt and thunder thighs - I sometimes spend hours thinking about all the non-specific ways I'm failing myself and others.
I'm not blogging enough to create my "brand." I'm too consumed with the idea of creating a brand to truly create a brand. I'm eating way too much chocolate and not saving enough money to pay off my $30,000 worth of student loans in two years. I'm relying too much on my mother, who still pays my phone bill and health insurance and has recently begun subsidizing my monthly internet payment, too. (After realizing how poorly I treated my mother and grandmother when I was in college, my biggest fear is not showing them how truly grateful I am for everything they do.)
Shouldn't I be wildly successful by now? Where's my Pulitzer, or at least a certificate stating that I'm mostly adequate?
I was complaining about how I sometimes feel stalled to Gideon's mother, and she told me that I need to focus on the present and that the money/opportunities will follow from that. That's what I'm trying to do; in fact, that's mostly how I keep others thinking that I'm a perpetually optimistic person. (I heard the peanut gallery laugh on that one.) I go to work - at a job I love, might I add - and I talk to people and I share stories that might not have been shared otherwise.
I know I have a purpose. I know I'm doing a good job. But still, I can't help but lament on the past sometimes and think about how I should have saved more money in college or how I shouldn't have accidentally run that red light one time and gotten a $300 ticket or how I'm never going to be famous for writing self-aware memoirs because you have to like the person whose work you read and I'm about as likable as a Republican who demands more government control.
My self-esteem wavers day to day, but it depleted today after I started looking up quotes for bedroom sets. I've previously noted that Gideon and I have a mattress. That's it. We have a mattress. Most days, I know I'm lucky to even have that, much less a nice apartment with running water and working electricity.
But I grew up sleeping on a super comfortable mattress with a bed frame and a dresser and bedside tables. Sometimes, I wake up with back pain because I'm still not used to sleeping on such a hard mattress. So I looked up prices on bedroom sets and mattresses and realized that I can't afford that extra payment if I am to pay off my student loans and start saving up for another car, which we will need in the next three years or so.
It made me feel like a huge failure, as you can see from the title of this post. While I wish I could write something optimistic here - because I know I have it pretty good by all accounts - I don't have anything positive to say right now, and that's okay.
I'll let myself be cranky and I'll let myself complain at the world today. We all need to do that sometimes. Tomorrow, I'll return to posting sassy observations and accepting that I've got a pretty awesome life, all things considered.
Oh, and please don't think I'm looking for sympathy here - that's actually why I tend to resist publicly discussing how I feel I'm the biggest failure in the whole world. I know I'm not. I just need to rant. If you need to rant, too, feel free to comment or message me and we can cry together, but not over a pint of Blue Bell ice cream (the best ice cream ever) because it's been temporarily discontinued due to a bacteria issue.
I am quite upset about this.
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