Where Am I Supposed to Be?
I keep getting pressured by my family to get a job, specifically my mother. She is "worried" because there supposedly won't be any bartending gigs from November to February. The thing is, I have a job. I just can't find anything else right now. And I'm already working on a lot of things that I know aren't paying me yet. I have my one business, other things I'm trying to build, ideas that I'm trying to figure out, and plans for what I actually want my life to look like. I know that none of those things are necessarily giving me a steady paycheck right now, but that doesn't mean I'm sitting around doing nothing.
I need to post about my one business and say that orders are open, but I'm scared to do it. I'm scared of what people will think. I'm scared people will judge me or think it's stupid. I'm scared that I'll put it out there and nobody will order anything. I'm scared that it will fail. I think part of me is afraid that if I try something and it doesn't work, it will just become another piece of evidence that I'm directionless.
That's what I'm afraid people think about me. That I have no direction.
My mother is basically already telling me that. She keeps saying that I need to get a job, and I understand where she thinks she's coming from. But when I hear it over and over, it doesn't sound like a concern anymore. It sounds like everything I'm doing right now doesn't matter. Like none of the things I'm working toward are realistic or worth taking seriously. Like I need to stop focusing on my dreams and start focusing on reality.
But I am aware of reality.
I'm 23. Well, technically I'm 23 for another few weeks, because I'm turning 24 in less than three weeks. And being told that I'm 23 and basically nowhere in life doesn't exactly make me feel better about turning 24. I already know I'm not where I thought I would be. I don't need someone else to point it out to me. I'm painfully aware of it.
The frustrating part is that I finally feel like I know what I want.
My dream is to be an event planner or event manager. I don't even know the exact title I should use yet, but I know what I want the work to feel like. I've always been interested in marketing when it involves direct interaction with people. I've always been drawn to food and beverage, travel, music, and experiences. I want to be involved in things that people actually experience rather than sitting behind a computer doing something that feels disconnected from everyone else.
It took me a while to figure that out.
I've had quite a journey trying to figure out what I actually want to do with my life. I've changed my mind. I've questioned myself. I've thought about different careers and different places I could live. I've spent a lot of time feeling like I had no idea where I was going. And now that I've finally started putting the pieces together, it feels like I'm being told to give up on it because it doesn't immediately look practical.
I know dreams don't automatically become reality. I know I need money. I know I need a stable career eventually. I know there are practical decisions that have to be made. But I don't think being realistic means I have to abandon everything that makes me want to move forward.
And I think that's why the pressure from my family hurts as much as it does.
And Then There Is My Family
The job comments aren't really just about the job. They are connected to a much bigger feeling I've had for a long time about my family, especially my mother.
I don't really like calling her my mother anymore. At this point, I think of her more as someone who "helped" raise me. I've talked about this with my siblings, and there are things about growing up that make me feel like she didn't really do as much as people would assume when they hear the word mother. I feel similarly about my dad in some ways.
At this point, I wouldn't say that I love my mother. I also wouldn't describe the affection she has toward me as love. I know that sounds harsh, but that's honestly where I am. It's not something that happened because of one conversation or one argument. It's more of a feeling that has built up over time.
She judges everything I do.
There is a point where someone saying "you need to get a job" over and over again stops feeling like advice and starts becoming the only thing you hear about yourself. I don't feel like she's proud of me. I don't feel like she's impressed by anything I've done in a long time. It's hard to explain because I can't point to one specific thing and say this is the reason. It's just the overall feeling I've gotten from her for years and at this point I don't think my opinion of her will ever change. So many times I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt and let her in again, just to be let down yet again.
I also don't feel like there is much point in trying to have a deep conversation with her. I don't feel like she would actually care enough to sit down and understand what I'm saying, or put the heart into it that would be necessary for me to feel understood. And that has made me incredibly independent.
I've had to take care of myself.
I've had to get myself out of so many situations, especially mentally. I've been in such a pit of hopelessness for the past couple of years, and a lot of the time I've had to figure out how to get myself back out of it. There have been times when I've been depressed to the point of barely functioning, and the response from my family has still been that I'm lazy.
Sometimes I think if they actually looked at me, and I mean really looked at me, they might realize something is wrong. If they had an actual conversation with me instead of making assumptions about what I'm doing, maybe they would understand that I'm not simply choosing to do nothing.
But I don't think they see that.
They see that I sleep during the day. They see that I'm awake on my computer at night. They see that the kitchen isn't clean. They see that I'm not eating enough. They see that I'm not working a traditional full-time job. They see all of the things that look wrong from the outside.
They don't necessarily see why.
And maybe that's where all of this starts to connect.
When Everything Becomes Too Much
My sleep schedule is terrible. I sleep all day and work on my computer at night, and my mother yells at me because it's not normal. I know it's not normal. I'm aware that sleeping through the day and staying awake all night isn't exactly healthy or productive. But knowing something isn't good for me doesn't automatically give me the motivation to change it.
My eating is horrible too. I barely eat sometimes. Nothing sounds good. I'll know that I should eat, and I'll know that not eating is probably part of why I'm so tired, but I still don't have the motivation to fix it.
It's frustrating because I understand the cycle.
I'm tired because I don't eat enough. I'm tired because my sleep schedule is terrible. I'm less motivated because I'm tired. Then because I'm not motivated, I don't fix the things that are making me tired. And eventually everything feels like too much.
That's how I ended up here before too. Anxiety builds, things become overwhelming, and eventually I don't want to do anything.
Sometimes I get lost in TikTok or music or sleep because it gives me a break from my current reality. I know it's an escape. I know sitting on TikTok for hours or sleeping through the day isn't going to solve my problems. I know there are healthier ways I could be spending my time.
But sometimes I also think that those things are the only reason I get through certain days.
If I can disappear into music for a while, I don't have to think. If I can scroll through TikTok, I don't have to think. If I sleep, I don't have to think. For a little while, I can just exist without constantly wondering what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.
And I know that isn't healthy.
But sometimes getting through the day is all I have the energy for.
The Thing I Can’t Name
I don't like using the word depressed.
Even with my doctors, I don't really like saying it. I call it the pit, the depths, the hole, my mood, basically anything except actually saying that I'm depressed. I don't have the same problem talking about anxiety. I can talk about anxiety. I can explain it. I don't feel embarrassed saying that I'm anxious.
Depression feels different.
Saying I'm depressed almost feels like admitting weakness. I don't know why I feel that way, but I do. I think some of it comes from my family. I don't think they really know or accept that I have depression. They've never directly said it's fake, but there have been comments that make me feel like they think I'm just saying I have it, or that I'm using it as an excuse.
Even though I've been diagnosed with it.
Sometimes I wonder if that's why I'm so embarrassed about my own feelings. If the people around you repeatedly make you feel like you're lazy or overreacting, eventually you start questioning yourself. You start wondering if what you're feeling is actually valid.
I'm also afraid that I'm going to end up in the same place I was before.
I'm not exactly sure what that feeling was last time. I just remember how anxiety eventually seemed to lead into depression. This time, it doesn't feel like it's necessarily about missing someone or one specific event. It feels more like a lack of direction. Not having a plan. Feeling like I'm at some weird quarter-life crisis before I've even had a chance to figure out what adulthood is supposed to look like.
Everything became too much last time, and eventually that led to me not wanting to do anything.
I'm scared that I'm slowly heading back there.
Wanting to Feel Something Again
Sometimes I don't think my depression is as bad as it has been before. But I also don't feel like I have the same range of emotions that I used to.
If I try to think about what I feel most often, it's depression or sadness, anxiety, tiredness, and then small moments of joy that never seem to last very long. That's about all I can come up with.
I don't really get angry anymore.
Even with the way my family treats me, I don't really feel angry. I could be angry. There are plenty of reasons I could be angry. But being angry takes energy, and I don't feel like wasting the little energy I have on it. It's more disappointment than anger.
I'm disappointed.
Sometimes I can't even name another emotion that I might be feeling.
And maybe that's why I've been thinking so much about romance lately.
I've been watching romance shows where there is all of that tension between two people. The butterflies, the excitement, the anticipation, the relief. The fear of not knowing what is going to happen. The feeling of waiting for something and not knowing whether it's going to work out.
I've started watching those scenes and wondering, I wonder what that feels like.
It's been so long since I've felt anything like that that the thought almost feels exciting on its own.
Even the fear of the unknown sounds exciting.
When I used to have those feelings, they could become overwhelming, but it was overwhelming in a good way. There was something about having emotions that strong that made everything feel vivid. And I think that's what I miss.
It isn't necessarily about another person.
It's not really about wanting someone to come along and fix everything. It's not even necessarily about the things another person would do. It's about the wave of emotions itself. I want to feel something strongly enough that I can actually feel it.
I want to be surprised by my own emotions again.
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever have those feelings again. Not because I actually believe that I won't. Theoretically, I know I probably will. I'm still young. There is a lot of life I haven't experienced yet.
It's just a thought that crosses my mind because I've been numb for so long.
And when you've been numb for long enough, it becomes difficult to remember what it felt like to not be.
The Ball Always Drops
I've been numb for so long that emotions don't seem to last anymore. I'll have a good moment, and then something happens. Something always seems to ruin it, and sometimes I feel like I'm already waiting for that to happen. I don't necessarily mean that I know something bad is going to happen. It's more that I'm not surprised when it does. The ball drops so much that I expect it to.
That's probably the difference. It's not that I'm constantly sitting around thinking something terrible is going to happen. It's that when something does happen, there is almost a sense of, Of course it did. I've had so many moments recently where I've been genuinely happy or excited about something, only for it to end with a phone call from my family and me crying afterward, or just feeling completely numb. Sometimes I'll be in a good mood before I call them, and I'll actually have the thought that maybe I shouldn't call. Maybe if I don't, the moment won't be ruined.
I don't like that I think that way. I don't want to feel like I have to protect a good mood from my own family. I don't want talking to them to feel like something that could take away whatever happiness I had five minutes earlier. But that's where I am. And when the ball drops enough times, eventually you stop expecting the good moments to stay.
When Does This Stop Being My Life?
I keep thinking, When will this stop being my life? When will these feelings go away? When will I stop feeling like this? When will my life actually become different? I can't think too far into the future because not knowing when things will change becomes overwhelming. I can imagine the life I want. I can picture pieces of it. I want to move to New England. I want to work in events. I want to travel. I want to have friends. I want to experience things. I want to feel connected to the life I'm actually living. But right now, where I am and where I want to be don't feel connected.
It feels like a dream. Sometimes it feels almost as impossible as the idea of traveling to Narnia. I can imagine it. I can see it in my head. I can think about what it would feel like to actually be there. But I don't know how to get there from here, and that is probably one of the hardest parts. I know what I want my life to look like, but I can't see the path between where I am now and where I want to go. Everything I do feels like it's working toward nothing.
When I look back at the past five years, I feel like I have nothing to show for them. It's been five years since high school. In 2021, I had so many dreams and aspirations. I was hopeful about where I would be in the future. I thought I would be somewhere by now. I didn't expect to have everything figured out. I just thought I'd be somewhere. Instead, it feels like everything has gone downhill since then.
Sometimes I think about the frog in the pot analogy, where the temperature slowly rises and the frog doesn't realize it's being killed until it's too late. That's what the past few years feel like. It wasn't one giant thing that changed everything. It was a slow accumulation of things. One thing happened, then another, then another. And eventually I looked around and realized I didn't recognize my own life anymore.
If the version of me from 2021 met the version of me now, I don't think they would recognize each other. I feel like I've become a shell of the person I used to be. The more I've learned about the world, myself, and reality, the more it sometimes feels like it has destroyed me instead of helping me. There used to be a filter over life that made everything feel bright and vivid. I didn't question everything. I didn't think about every possible way things could go wrong. I didn't understand people or myself the way I do now.
The filter is gone.
Everything feels muted and dull.
And sometimes I miss the person who had that filter.
Twenty-Four
Maybe that's why my upcoming birthday feels so heavy. I'm turning 24 in less than three weeks, and instead of feeling excited, it makes me think about everything I haven't done yet. I know that 24 isn't old. I know that objectively I have so much time. I know there are people who don't figure out their careers until much later, who move somewhere new later, who make friends later, who fall in love later, who change their entire lives later. But knowing that doesn't automatically make the feeling go away. Right now, turning 24 feels like another reminder that I thought I would be somewhere else by now.
I'm supposed to go out to eat with some portion of my family two days before my birthday because there is wedding decorating happening at the venue. Maybe it will just be me and my mother. Maybe my dad will come too, although I don't really want him to because I already know he won't like the restaurant we're going to. My birthday is on a Thursday, and my friend said we could do something that day, but I don't really know what to do. I don't know what I want. And part of me is already thinking about how many people will probably wish me happy birthday. Maybe seven. Maybe five.
I know that sounds like a stupid thing to care about, but birthdays have a way of making loneliness more obvious. My birthdays have historically just been another day. My family has never really made a huge deal out of them. I'm not saying they need to throw me some enormous party or make the entire day revolve around me. I don't need anything over the top. I just want someone to actually care. I want to feel like the day matters to somebody.
And if I'm being completely honest, I'm already thinking about what happens if I end up alone that night. If my emotions keep going the way they've been going and I'm alone on my birthday, I know there will be a part of me that wants to drink until I feel buzzed, just to feel something. I know that isn't a solution. It wouldn't fix anything. It wouldn't suddenly make me happy or give me direction or make my family understand me. It would just be another temporary feeling.
But sometimes temporary feels like enough.
That's probably one of the things that scares me most about where I am right now. Not necessarily that I think I won't ever be happy again, but that I've gotten so used to feeling numb that sometimes even an unhealthy feeling sounds better than nothing. I don't want to spend the rest of my life waiting for the ball to drop. I don't want every good moment to come with the expectation that something will ruin it. I don't want to keep wondering when my life is finally going to start. I don't want to keep looking at the person I was five years ago and wondering where they went. And I don't want to keep asking when this will stop being my life.
I don't know when any of that will change. I don't know when I'll get the job I want. I don't know when I'll move to New England. I don't know when I'll feel like I'm finally making progress. I don't know when the numbness will go away, or when happiness will stop feeling temporary. I just know that I still want those things.
Somewhere underneath all of this, I still want the life I've been imagining. Maybe that's why I'm still scared to post about my business. Maybe that's why I'm still thinking about event planning. Maybe that's why I still think about moving. Maybe that's why a concert can still inspire me, why a song can still make me feel something for a few minutes, and why watching a fictional romance can still make me wonder what it would be like to feel those emotions again.
The feelings might not last.
The ball might drop again.
But there are still moments when I feel something.
And maybe for now, that's what I have.