She arrived home and tossed her bag onto the chair. The journal peaked out from one corner. The green colour caught her eye each time she walked past the chair. She imagined it quietly calling out to her to pick it up and begin the work. She wasn’t ready. By Sunday afternoon, she had tossed her jacket over the bag and the beckoning journal. That should muffle the imagined sounds.
The next few days were a blur – not that her life was full of activity. Her life was one of boredom and repetition. She went through her days on autopilot. Her “homework” was forgotten. The journal had been pulled from her bag and now sat on the kitchen table. It was still as pristine as the day she had received it. She’d glance at it as she went about her evening routine. But that was all she would commit – glances.
On Thursday night, she stood in front of the journal. She had to get working on this. She couldn’t show up on Saturday with a blank page. Dr. Bancroft was expecting something. She’d do it later. Tomorrow. Yes, that’s it. Friday night. The work week will be over. She can focus on the journal. With that silent promise, she turned her back on the journal and walked over to the couch.
On Friday night, she stood in front of the journal – a bowl of pasta in one hand and a large glass of red in the other. She had set the table and was prepared to write until she had completed her assignment. She put the bowl and glass down and walked back towards the kitchen counter. She grabbed a bottle out of the wine rack and headed back to the table. She wanted to be prepared for a long night and wanted no excuses to get up from the table.
She reached for the remote and turned on the music. She had spent Thursday night preparing a playlist of songs that would get her in the mood to write. The music filled the room. She hit shuffle on the remote, headed back to the table and sat down. She ate her pasta, interspersed with sips of wine, all the while staring at the blank pages of the journal. She nodded her head to the beat; hoping for some inspiration. Nothing came. She set the empty bowl aside and frowned. She wondered why nothing was coming to mind.
She picked up her pen and wrote the words “If I had a magic wand” at the top of the page. Satisfied, she put down her pen and reached for the glass of wine. Empty. She refilled her glass and stared at the six words. She had been avoiding this all week. Her house was spotless, her laundry was done, her fridge was full and she had a playlist. In fact, she had also catalogued most of her music files. All were tactics to delay the inevitable. She didn’t want to do her homework. She didn’t want to think about what was missing. She didn’t want to think about what could be. She didn’t want to think.
She knew she had to write something. She couldn’t show up tomorrow empty-handed. She reached for the glass of wine and drained it in one gulp. This had gone on long enough. She reached for the pen. Her pen hovered above the page. She began……
I have given your question some thought and this, in no particular order, is what I would change and why:
She paused. She reached for the glass, saw it was empty, and put it back down. She started writing. She wrote with raw emotion. She wrote about her financial situation and not having any money. She wrote about her dead-end job and how she was overworked, underpaid and taken for granted. She wrote about how she wanted to get healthy. She wrote about wanting to live somewhere else. She thought a new place would equal a new her. She wrote about her loneliness and wanting somebody to share her life with.
All of the above contribute to my feelings of low self-worth. If you believe you are nothing or act like you are nothing, then what do you get out of life? Answer: nothing. I have days/weeks/months where I think that I am nothing. I cannot remember when I actually felt good about myself. I have developed a “who cares?” or “what’s the point?” mentality. I have given up. I will be honest when I say that I did have thoughts of ending my life. Those thoughts were what motivated me to complete my divorce. I knew that I would have to have my “house in order” before I died and I wanted to ensure that my ex had no claims to anything. The thoughts were persistent and they scared me. I had nothing to live for and when I look at my life I don’t see anything to live for. I cannot say what has stopped me. It’s not like I had an epiphany and realized life was worth living. Sometimes I think it’s just because I couldn’t figure out the logistics and the best/easiest way to do this with the least intrusion on somebody else.
I think I still cling to some faint hope that there is a life out there for me. However, I don’t know what that life would be like. I try to imagine what I would be doing if I had a few more dollars in the bank. Would I be doing more or would I just squander the money? I try to imagine the job I would have. Would I be a raging workaholic? Would I be happy and fulfilled or would I end up in the same shit just a different pile? I try to imagine myself 80 lbs lighter. Would I dress differently and flaunt my thinner self or would I hide it? Would making these changes change my whole outlook on life? Burning questions and no answers.
I feel like I am stuck and can’t move forward. I am blocked. I’m not sure why. Clearly I have my list of things to change and I know that it is only me standing in my way. I just can’t get out of my own way. Sometimes I feel like I want to change everything and then I think. “You can’t change everything at once”. I have to make choices/decisions and take baby steps and when you change one thing then the other things will naturally fall into place. And then I get stalled on trying to figure out what is the thing that I want to do first. And, the more stalled I get the more I think I am wasting precious time – my life, and the life I could possibly have, is passing me by.
I do not make decisions quickly. I really weigh all the pros and cons and look at it from different angles. I make lists and go over them. I think and think until I no longer want to think about anything. Then I give up. And, yes, when I decide to do something I am focused. However, I can just as easily stop/give up and slide back to the way I was. I think I am overly cautious because I don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want to make the wrong decision and end up further in debt or unemployed or living in a crappy apartment.
As I write all of my wants and secret shames down, I keep hearing cliché quotes about fear: “You have nothing to fear but fear itself” and life: “If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always get what you’ve always got” and, oddly enough, an old song by Barney Bentall called “Something to Live For” keeps playing in my head. So clearly some part of my brain is trying to tell me to get on with it. I just don’t have the energy to do it anymore and the path of least resistance or, in my case, the path that I am continuing on seems to be the one to take.
She put her pen down and breathed a heavy sigh. She was finished. She had filled over 10 pages. The room was silent. She had been so focused on writing that she didn’t realize the music had stopped. She stared at the pages and resisted the urge to reread and edit her writing. She closed the journal and rubbed the embossed leaves on the cover – a soothing gesture she would repeat when the only words that oozed from her pen were sadness.
She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. She slowly walked towards the bedroom; turning off the lights as she walked down the hall. She crawled into bed; still fully dressed. Her purring cat ambled slowly towards her and then curled up against her stomach. The cat playfully nudged her hand – her way of asking for a belly rub. She reached out and gingerly rubbed the cat’s belly. After a few minutes, she gently rested her hand on the cat. The cat’s breathing slowed as it fell asleep. She pulled at the blanket and tucked it under her chin; the cat’s rhythmic breathing eventually joined by her own.
Diary of a DOW 