moving forward. or trying to.

Tunes:"taxi cab"// vampire weekend

Good lord, I am in a rut this week. I've hit the proverbial wall and just want to pound my head against it until I'm seeing clear again.

I'm fairly certain I hit this kind of wall once every year-- it's that space that exists when things are pretty much all going smoothly, but there's no excitement in calm waters and things that go according to plan.

There's a lot of little things behind this.

What's become the most painfully obvious is how alone I am all the time. And it bums me out most days. I have 3 friends here-- and they're really 3 co-workers. Everyone else that matters lives (what feels like) eons away. It seems as I get older my friends just keep spreading out wider-- like an oil droplet spreading over the water's surface. Spending a week in constant company of friends, GOOD friends who mean a lot to me, I find myself back in New England and trying to determine what's really left for me up here besides family. And family is worth it, but I have become so much of my own entity separate from them-- I need my own life besides my life as a sister/daughter/cousin/granddaughter/niece...lately, I feel like I don't have much of one.

In the summer I get bogged down by the day-to-day of living where I work because it's the same thing, day-in and day-out. I do paperwork. I answer phone calls from irritated parents. I sift through the mess of my office and try to find motivation to move myself forward on my 'task-list'...really, I just find myself to be listless.
I don't hate this job. I like it a whole lot, really. It's just that the victories and good moments are so small and so irrelevant to everyone else but me that it's not the things I share. It's the ridiculousness and the frustrations that my non-res-life counterparts can relate to. So I tend to dwell in those spaces when I talk about work with anyone. And at the end of the day, I live where I work-- so for better or worse, my life is my job. That fact has been making me so antsy and uneasy lately.

Missing from my life is more connections with people-- my own age, outside of my field. I connect with plenty of 18 & 19 year olds every day of the school year...and their parents...and my coworkers here and across the field. But I miss having regular friends around me, too. We like the same music and movies and I don't have to explain every reference I make. They have a shared past experience with me, so we're able to just move forward effortlessly. Is this what I have to look forward to as an adult? It scares me.

Where I'm living is essentially void of any community that I feel I could be a part of. It's easy for my coworkers with children and family nearby to feel at home here. But for me, I am young but am feeling forced to be a grown-up too soon. There is nothing about the community that is endearing to me. I feel disconnected AND disinterested because it is just another white, sleepy, boring town. They're a dime a dozen up here. It's why everyone moves to Boston. I am so not used to being away from things to do...from people my age or with my point of view. It's helping me see how important connectivity is in my own life and how I need to seek if out more in the future. But right now, besides Worcester--30 minutes up the road--this is all I've got.

And then I've found myself getting in this relationship with a boy who lives 4 hours away from me and who communicates really differently from me. It consistently intrigues me and challenges me and forces me to learn a patience that I have never known. He matters a lot more to me than he probably realizes--he's the most consistent part of my life. Everyday, when nothing goes right and when I eat shit all day for one thing or another, I at least know he'll be checking in to say hello and share the woes or victories from work and to talk about music and he'll laugh at my stupid jokes and he'll say things that remind me how sweet he is, which all work to make me feel less alone. But with 4 hours in between us, I'm barely able to hold his hand and smile at him. And that sucks. A lot. It would figure I find someone I could be with, and I can't really literally be with him very often at all.

People tell me that I'm doing the right thing-- I'm being responsible, I have a job, I have a salary, I have a roof over my head and wheels to drive me here and there. I have food in my cupboards and I have music and movies and I am not, by any means, discrediting any of these things or the accomplishments I've made--or the LUCK I've had-- but I keep finding myself wondering what the hell is the point without having people to share ALL of these things with. None of it matters if you're always alone. I've been told by too many people that 'things will get better' and that 'you can do anything for a year' but if I die tomorrow, will it matter that I was waiting around and doing the right thing? No. It makes no sense to wait around for your life to show up. You need to be living it, right? I'm trying so hard to find what it is that makes me tick--and I know it's not just one thing. So the big question is really 'what now?' and 'how?'...

It's all about moving forward these days.