So life is odd.
I’m rapidly approaching my thirty-first (31) birthday and my life is not what I expected it to be, by a long shot. I’m not even talking about it not living up to the hype, or the youthful dreams of glory and wealth. Instead I’m talking about still having absolutely no idea of what direction it is taking, what shape it is forming into.
Sure I can say my life is disappointing, but considering I tried and clearly failed to commit suicide at 19, I have achieved things since then. I’ve lived in a foreign country, been engaged twice, I was in a 5 year long relationship with a woman I adored, returned to school, received praised and media attention for my A-Level results, went to university and didn’t leave until I had bachelors in Law and Philosophy (2:1), completing a Masters in Law and the Post Graduate Diploma (Commendations) needed to practice law in the U.K. I made a ton of friends. I loved and I lost.
But on the other end of this fantastic journey that I had no hope of having when I was still
mired in my teens, I’m living at home, with little prospects, little social life and staring down the barrel of hopelessness again. I’ve lived my entire adult life with depression and agoraphobia. At my worst I find it hard to step outside my home, sometimes my bedroom because of the panic and anxiety coming into contact even with my own family can cause. At my best I have stood in front of a lecture theatre filled with 500 people, given speeches and won student body elections based on my performance.
Despite being tipped for big things, and achieving academically all along my student years, the law career simply never happened. I applied, and applied, and applied for every job that even looked like an in into a legal career and despite interviews going well and C.V’s being well received, no one took the chance. I still apply, they still don’t jump. On a more personal note the love of my University days, craved freedom rather than the constraints of a relationship and the friends I made, went out into the world and scattered forging their own paths.
I’m crippled with indecision, with the financial burdens of Post-Graduate education, and with the encircling certainty that somewhere along the road I’ve just plain fucked up through that indecision way too often to drag it all back.
I’m the oldest of 3 siblings, and my Dad was 21 when I was born. Ten years further along a journey I know ends only one way, I feel a million miles away from that existence.
So why am I writing, I’m hoping that as I ramble I become entrenched in an idea, a notion, a plan of action. Whether it be of my own devising or someone else’s I don’t care. But the last time my life was so listless, I wrote. I wrote constantly. It lead me to education. The last time I was happy, at University, I was writing constantly.
The more I delve into my own mindset, the more I explore my thoughts and feelings on the world, the more I care about what is happening around me, the more I engage. I need to engage again.
Aristotle famously said that all paid work absorbs and degrades the mind. Well my mind is pretty much unsullied, I wish someone would let me get dirty every now and again. The next time I’m told I’m overqualified for an entry level position I might crawl into a foetal position there and then and cry myself into a coma. The job I want wants me to have more experience, the job I can get that experience in thinks I’m overqualified. The idea of returning to and hiding in academia for all eternity via a Ph.D. etc. scares the hell out of me, because I know how negatively the Masters and the P.G.Dip have harmed my employability.
Where’s Picard to tell me to just “Make It So” when I need him.
If anyone made it through this, I apologise for it’s lack of flow and overarching plot, it was indeed a rather inane ramble. I’m going to be posting thoughts on ethical and political topics as I see fit generally, but also Nerd centric social topics and of course the disasters I face personally.
anon, anon
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