Shaky (draft of post from 2008 or so)

To contrast with my recent happy turn of events, here's a post which I never bothered to publish when I wrote it. I couldn't even muster the heart to finish it, and just stopped in mid-sentence as if it was just too horrible an effort to continue. I'm so eternally grateful and thankful to the appropriate deities that they have allowed me to survive the following:

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Ah, another morning. That means laying in bed awake for at least an hour with my hands shaking and the 2000 thoughts in my head short-circuiting and overlapping in crackly short bursts like AM radio on a winter night. Getting up and taking a Wellbutrin usually helps some.

It's overwhelming, all this Real Life shit is.

I wonder how much more of this I, or my mind or my body, can take. On the one hand, we are getting by for now, even if it does seem an extremely creaky boardwalk to travel. One screw-up or unexpected change in the routine could unravel everything, until we have a bit more financial breathing space, and right now we have just about none.

Going home, I have to say, is always an option. Emotionally it would be tough on me, not to mention that moving out of state based on fevered emotions without a job lined up has gotten me fucked before. And there's always the spectre of having given up, of having failed, which has already pretty much decimated my self-image and confidence. But I don't know how things will play out, and at some point it may be the most sensible thing I can do. If it comes down to saving my sanity and getting myself back on firm ground financially (if, for example, I can tranfer to one of my firm's outlets in Columbus, or somehow get back in at the YMCA), I may decide to cut my losses and re-relocate. I'm sure it'd make a lot of other people happy. Maybe me too. I do admit that homesickness has been gnawing at me relentlessly for at least a month or two. I suppose, like the old Joni Mitchell song says, I didn't know what I had till it was gone.

I gave Columbus a hell of a bad rap; New York--well, the New York area--seemed like such a glamorous land of opportunity by comparison. I was gonna go into the city often, and just hang out. Maybe even find a job there! Ha fucking ha. The closest I got to New York in the nine months I've been here was the riverfront in Hoboken. When I went there to try out for a (temporary) job. That I didn't get. Meanwhile, bills kept piling up, accounts got behind, savings ran out, credit maxed out, my credit rating has undoubtedly tanked, and--just before Christmas--we even got threatened with eviction. Landlord's sick of being paid late and only in part, you understand. Now he also tells us that, because of his insurance company, we have to clear out everything we have in the basement within, like, a month or two. There goes another unspecified slice of our meager income every month, toward a self-storage space. You know, if I didn't have to throw away half of my fucking income on rent, I might be able to get ahead a little.

Yeah, I'm disillusioned. Not quite ready to quit yet, but definitely I'm not under any illusions anymore. No more stars in my eyes. If the Real World does anything to a person, it takes away every spark