modern guilt 08 012 2008

life is still bananas.

i feel like everyone is bummed out at me and like i’m making a lot of wrong choices. lately i’ve gotten a new job, given up the new job because it wasn’t what i wanted, went to chicago, planned interviews, ate a lot (a lot) of frozen custard and am now on a post-summer pre-semester break from my other job so i’ve got time to focus on things i didn’t think i would want to care about, ever. like lame artsy shit and making quilts. i didn’t realize it before, but quilts are like crazy puzzles that have to be organized in a beautiful way, and also you don’t have to make them boring or old ladyish at all. it’s kind of right up my alley and i didn’t even know it.

anyway — that shit is dumb. in other news, i feel like i’m being split in two and don’t know what to do about it. ha! a year ago i moved to north carolina and a year ago i never dreamed that a year from then i’d be where i am now. i still believe with everything in my still-beating heart that i am doing the right thing, but it’s hard to keep going on that kind of momentum when i still feel so secretly ashamed and bummed out about quitting & coming home. having panic attacks about what a lazy piece of shit i was for months and months at a time has not really trained me to make the best decisions for myself, and i am even now taking baby steps, all these hesitant stumbles in only sometimes-right directions because i am absolutely fucking terrified of being too selfish, too wrong, of giving up. it’s a weirdly bitter thing to realize, especially for me because i try so hard every day to be self-reliant and stand up to assholes who are making the world a worse place by being in it. case in point: giving up and quitting a job that i didn’t like, didn’t feel comfortable with, didn’t think matched at all with any of my professional ambitions, thinking my newboss was kind of a sexist weirdo, but feeling like total shit for it because what kind of idiot would quit a job after a week? me, that’s who. i can be a strong-minded, decisive woman who makes her choices absolutely in her best interest, but it doesn’t mean i’m responsible or happy all the time, and it’s hard. it’s a really fucking hard thing to balance.

tomorrow i am gonna: take my sister to the doctor, mail a package to galesburg, go to the fabric store (i know, right, seriously) and the boner store, apply for jobs with discretion, paint some shoes, look at how beautiful it is outside everywhere and not worry so goddamned much.