So This Is The New Year

It is my birthday today. It has probably been the heaviest birthday I have had for quite some time. I consider myself rather blessed in so many parts of my life. But I cannot ignore the things that are glaring at me. My health has been quite bad almost the entire year since my last birthday.
My job has been a source of constant stress and cause for far too many days of crying to count.
I feel as though my family and I will never be the same again since I so boldly crossed an uncrossable line. They love me but there is still a very palpable shift and I am overrun with guilt. I feel as though every time I make a decision that is closer towards the life I want, I cause them great disappointment.
I have great and many friends, but all of them are also in transition and this is the first time in a long time that I have been this acutely aware of the distance between us. Not of our own making. But people get older, priorities shift and responsibilities suck up too much time to leave much left over.
I know things will get better. I even have hope that they will get better soon. But I have been so drained, emotionally and mentally, that I am having a hard time just maintaining some sense of OK.
I am very lucky to have a solid and healthy relationship. It is one of the few things that eases the discomfort from the difficulties. But I worry so often, despite the denial of it, that I am dragging him down into my turmoil. He is so balanced that I would hate to tip him over into the big mess of my cyclical mind. As a good friend of mine once told me, I feel everything and I feel deeply. It is one of the things that some people like best about me and also one of my biggest burdens.
I do not remember the last time that I was able to be content outside of a very controlled environment. If I stay in the bubble, I can find some sense of calm for awhile. But I cannot just be a hermit. And I cannot breathe inside of my anxiety. It tumbles and falls into other parts. From one aspect to another. I get so worked up and wrapped up in tiny insignificant conversations, spinning around until I want to vomit them out. It makes no sense. It means that I fear being forced to live life at all most days. Because being human means feeling pain and experiencing trauma and not always being good enough. I wonder how people are able to feel as though they can take on the world, when I feel incapable of just dealing with my own tiny piece of the planet. I know that I will come out of this on the other side a stronger and more able person. But the growing pains are leaving marks.

First World Problems of an Educated Millennial

It is a strange contrast. My personal life feeling so fulfilling. My professional life feeling so lacking. In my relationships, I have never felt more secure or grateful. But although I am not doing meaningless work, I have no sense of accomplishment anymore.

I think it comes down to a few things. First of all, I am getting to the point when I do not want to be someone's assistant. Not that I think it is beneath me. I just feel like I have done it and I would like to start whatever phase is next in life. I am too motivated and hard working to stay at the bottom. I want to make a difference. I want to have some sort of control in the path of my career. I would like a career and not just a job.

But even just finding a job is difficult these days. There a hundred workers for every position and so few ways to be able to distinguish yourself from the rest. Those who are the best employees don't always have the greatest resumes. And those that are charismatic and charming are often just that.

People keep telling me to go back to school. But to study what? Many fields are in decline, others are over-saturated. I have no desire to take on thousands of dollars in debt. I have been working full time for too long to take a pay cut. I have been living as an adult with adult bills since I was 19. I feel stuck and unable to change the situation. I keep working and striving and looking and researching but it yields nothing. And even if it were to yield something new, would it just be new and not better?

I realize that this is just the existence of a 20 something. We all must go through awkward and unsatisfactory periods to appreciate what comes in later days. I am not in a bad situation. It could be far worse. I have some education. I have the trust and respect of my coworkers and bosses. I have a retirement fund. I am far ahead of most of my generation. This is the era of delayed adulthood. And I managed to dive head first into it before it become impossible to achieve.

But here is where I divide. The jobs that pay well and would support me as an adult and not just a part-time worker/college student with four roommates are jobs that are in offices. They require stuffy clothes. And tidy hair. And less eye-makeup. And covered up tattoos.

I am going through a strange process in which I feel as though I must undo all that I have done to make myself the way I want to be, undo the things and unlearn the ways that I present to the world to express who I am as an adult. Both because of the competitive job market and because I only have experience in conservative fields. But the idea of doing that, as silly as it may seem, makes me feel like I am separating from my identity. Like I am compromising what I want for what everyone else wants. I have been sitting and stirring and thinking about whether I would be willing to seem "normal" again if a potential employer asked me to... and I actually feel like I would have to mourn the loss of my old self in the event that I decided that it was worth it.

But here I am at the age when these things are not accepted as a silly juvenile phase but as an outright rejection of nice society. I live in a great city that embraces weirdos, but even Portland cannot change the minds and biases of those who make the decisions surrounding my future. Those of a previous generation have become like their fathers and their fathers before them. They reached a crossroads as I did and gave up on being the next great rock guitarist or the next great football star and accepted the job that would allow them security in which to raise a family. And although not everyone can be a rock star and not everyone can be a pro athlete and there is nothing wrong with pursuing a happy home life, many look down on those that did not do the same once their age marred their visions. These are the men and women that get to decide whether or not I get to move forward with my life, however unconventional it may seem to them.

I wish I had more faith in people's ability to see goodness in others. I wish that I myself had the ability to see goodness in others. But there are too few left that are willing to take a chance anymore. We are bogged down by a terrible economy, crushing debt and a fear of the end of so much. I have long given up my dream of being in a creative field, of being paid to be artistic. I would just like to be somewhere that does not drain me so much that I cannot find the will to pursue it on my own time.