I feel exactly the same as I did when I was a depressed, boycrazy, lonely, self conscious 15 year old. I sometimes think I am forever emotionally stunted because I was 15 when my dad died...that seems really fucked up and yet I think that is one of my problems. I definitely have issues because of his untimely death. But that's another story for another blog...but it's not the only reason I am who I am. I have had this low self esteem and problems with depression and irrational sadness since I was a kid. I don't ever remember feeling really truly GOOD about myself, internally, intrinsically, without someone else having to tell me I was ok. I have always looked to other people for approval, for having some kind of value...it sounds totally ridiculous as I read this out loud, like I am this whiny little kid asking "please somebody love me"...but that is all I have ever wanted, for as long as I can remember.
I kind of randomly started this blog. I was reading a friend's blog and decided to create my own...I created this page months ago and it's been blank for ages, but for some reason tonight I felt compelled to write. Or vent. Whatever. I am going through some really difficult things with career etc. right now and I am kind of hoping this will help. To just get all this stupid shitty garbage out of my head and somewhere else, whether anyone else in the world reads it or not, I don't really care. I am in a dark place right now, darker than I have been in years. Writing is supposed to be therapeutic. We'll see.
I always wanted to be a writer. I remember the first poem I wrote. I was 7 years old and actually started writing it but I wasn't a very strong writer at that point and I remember telling my parent's friend Michelle (?) who was visiting us one summer afternoon, that I wanted to write a poem but I didn't know how, and she told me to dictate it to her and she would write it down. And she did. Sometime I will dig that poem out, I still have it somewhere...but anyway, I started writing poems and then stories and for the next few years was really focused on it...I won poetry contests and got a lot of attention from my parents and teachers for my writing skills...it was one of the only things I remember being good at, besides being a really early reader (according to my mom I was reading at barely three years old, I don't remember not being able to read, actually)...but for some reason even though I wrote a lot and kept journals/diaries/whatever for years and years, I never DID anything with my writing, really. I got a few things published, I used to take a lot of writing classes in high school and college just for fun, I aced every English class I ever had, and I wrote CD reviews and articles for a music website back in graduate school...but I never pursued it seriously. I used to tell my mother stories about my students and she would always say that I should write them down, that I should think about writing articles for magazines or newspapers...but beyond a couple minor things, I never really made any effort. When I first got out of college with a degree in (what else!) English, I thought about moving to New York or Boston and working in the publishing industry, but all my friends were here in Colorado and I was immature, I could not imagine moving away from home. And there wasn't much of a publishing "scene" here in Denver at that time. So I just kind of drifted in and out of temp jobs and then I went through a really intense relationship and ended up going to counseling to deal with all the pain after I was dumped...and through that process I found that I really liked the feeling of "teaching" people, that I wanted to do some good with my life, and I went off to Texas to graduate school for special education. The funny/sad thing is that 10 years after I started my teaching career, I don't have that same passion for teaching that I once had. I stopped writing completely a few years ago, during a relationship that I stayed in about 3 years too long (it was a 4 year relationship)...when I am happy, I didn't write. I was too busy being happy and living life. It was mainly during depressed periods that my creativity would explode...but then a few years ago I just stopped writing at all. I couldn't really explain it, except that it hurt to write things down, to make them...permanent.
I am not doing well at work right now and may lose my job because of it...and I am paralyzed with indecision right now...just like that sad lonely teenager I once was...I am too old to be feeling this way, and yet...here I am. So I started writing (typing?) tonight and it is like a dam burst or something (yeah yeah, cliche writing, I know) I just cannot stop.
The last few years I haven't even been journaling because my life has been too fucked up and full of stupid drama and it actually is painful to write anything down. I keep buying cool looking journals and go off places thinking I'm going to finally have time to WRITE...and I do nothing...I have been crying the whole time I have been typing this, because I am having to think about things that I have tried to become numb to. But maybe it's a matter of pushing past the pain to get to something REAL. Maybe even something good...if that is possible...
