Recently, I've been encouraged to write more about myself - my internal thoughts and emotions. I tend to shy away from such written discourse in this platform, favoring instead to offer my insight on various topics of interest in order to showcase my personality. I don't like to complain and I don't want to come across as doing so. Consequently, writing about my feelings becomes a dangerous proposition. But, I find myself struggling as of late, so maybe it's worth it to heed the advice and open up through my fingertips...
Life's hard - and it should be - but lately it's been too hard. I live in an expensive city in a region of the country I really don't care for. I've had some bad luck/made some bad choices professionally. And despite having an amazing woman in my life - two if I count my sister, and I do - I feel very isolated here. It's as if I'm stuck, not able to move forward and in some instances taking steps backwards. At the age of 30, I terrified that a lack of progress now threatens all that I hope to have in the future.
I feel that I have incredible potential to achieve greatness, both professionally and personally. But I also feel an incredible amount of pressure to realize that greatness, and my inabilities to establish myself professionally, financially, personally to this point in life cause me an incredible amount of frustration. I know the pressure and frustration is compounded by living with a heart condition. I can see personal success in my future, but it feels so far off and, because of my health issues, I'm terrified my life will end before I can grasp it.
I left a great job three years ago, in a place I loved living, to attend grad school in order to open up more opportunities for me in the future. Now a year removed from grad school, I'm very unsure of myself, the direction my career is heading, and feel as though I made a mistake by going to grad school - a mistake from which I'm not sure I'll be able to recover.
I've lost touch with friends and family, here in Boston, down in VA and back in PA. Most of this is my own fault - I've secluded myself in detrimental ways. I seem to live vicariously through myself - which I'm sure makes no sense at all to anyone else but makes perfect sense to me - and that's not good. I do attribute some of this to where I'm at - it's not that Boston and New England are unfriendly, but rather that there is an element of exclusion in the culture here making it an unfriendly place to live if you don't have roots in the area. Regardless, I fear I've forgotten how to reach out to people, make friends, and have fun.
More and more I feel like I need a fresh start, but I know that's not coming anytime soon. I know there could be good professional opportunities for me in the Boston area - though I've already experienced that my lack of roots here are an impediment to those as well. Yet I'm scared of being stuck here the rest of my life. I want to enjoy a home and a family of my own in my life, and this doesn't seem like a place where I would want to have those experiences.
Obviously, that's a silly thing for me to worry about at the moment as neither of those achievements are at all imminent, but that's how my mind works sometimes. I've gotten over lamenting the past, but instead get consumed with worrying about the future and stop living in the present. I'm not sure if writing about any this will help me or not - I hope so. I also hope that it doesn't come across as me whining or making some pathetic cry for help - I'm not exactly sure if anyone reads this blog or not, so it wouldn't be an effective one anyway. I know what I need to do and am doing it, and hope that using the blank form for a blog entry to deposit the clutter in my mind proves to be a suitable receptacle.
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