Valid

            I have been sad for some time.

            It’s not the kind of thing where one is always sad.  I don’t walk around always sad.  That would make me a cartoon character.  I have met very few people who are always sad.  I think they want people to know they are sad.  I don’t know what that feels like, so I can’t relate to their struggle.  I don’t like other people knowing I’m sad.

            I work very hard at being happy.  Perhaps I focus on it too much, and that’s why I find a lasting version of it to be so elusive.  Perhaps I overthink things I should just mentally toss away, as if thinking about past events could somehow change them, or as if constantly thinking about someone’s actions could give me the answer on how to make them like me.

            It isn’t to do with the people in my life.  I have been so very blessed.  My support system is large and present.  I am very lucky. 

I have every reason to be happy.

            I have hopes and goals and dreams that I want to achieve but I can feel myself not working hard enough to make them happen.  I get scattered.  I tell myself other things will make me happy too, other more attainable, easier goals that can replace the ones I’ve always had.  But I always find once I start going for it that I’m wrong, that they won’t make me happy, and then I’m stuck trying to figure out how to either pursue a thing that probably won’t work out or find a thing that will work out but isn’t what I really wanted to begin with.  Would the latter make me happy?  If I chose happiness and worked at it hard enough, would it appear?

            Does any of this make sense?

            I recently quit a job that paid well and was never going to fire me.  I quit because I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like the culture, I didn’t like the mentality of “this job above all – even your own family” when it wasn’t something I could get passionate about, I didn’t like the hours, I didn’t like the stress, I didn’t like the job itself, and I didn’t like the customers.  And I never got a break to take a step back and develop my own life and keep some perspective because the job was six days a week, except for when it was seven.  The job made me jump through hoops to go to my goddaughter’s first communion, to go to my cousin’s wedding, to make it on time to Christmas Eve mass with my family.  It guilted me when I wanted to go home on time.  It tried to take over my life, but it didn’t offer a reason beyond money.

            I had looked around for other jobs.  I’ve had a few interviews.  But the only thing I was really enjoying (besides hanging out with friends and family and my boyfriend, which are not career paths) were the classes I was taking or the extracurricular activities I was doing for free.  I couldn’t get excited about applying to account manager jobs.  Some interviews I got I didn’t want – I thought I might as well stay at my current job than take another job I would hate just as much.

            I sometimes feel like I’m swimming in a body of water, and I’m tired, and I want to get out and come ashore, but I have no idea where the land is.  I feel like, when I take a step back and look objectively at what I want, it’s easy to see what I’m supposed to do, but once I get back to actually doing the thing, my mind fogs up and my productivity freezes.

            I quit my job and I cried all day.  And I cried for the next week.  And the week after.  The job was comfortable, and secure, and it was killing me.   It was killing me because it made me feel like I was a thing that I wasn’t, and it made me feel like I would never be anything else except for this thing I’m not supposed to be.

            Does this sound like entitled bullshit?  It feels like entitled bullshit.

            The breaking point came a couple weeks ago, when they changed something that made me feel like they couldn’t be bothered to even pretend to care about their employees more than the bottom line.  And I wondered – if I stayed after that, would I ever be able to leave?  If I don’t leave after that, when do I leave?

            I’m trying to figure out how to live the life I want to live.  It started with quitting a job I hated, even if I didn’t have anything 100% lined up afterwards.

            I wish I wanted different things.

            I wish it was easier to be happy.