Rant?

I guess I am seeking permission to not know what I want to be when I grow up- while pushing 30. There is a point in life when you're supposed to be committed to something that will be your career, something that you can say "This is what I do", and years on retirement in that field. 

I don't know what I want.

Starting over at an entry-level job feels self-abusive and impossible to manage funds, but I also feel like I am not qualified for much more than that. I mean, an ex-teacher who transitioned to sales is not what I imagined for myself. Money is incredibly tight. There is an invisible hand squeezing me harder and harder until I can't breathe and my heart feels like it will burst from the pressure. The pressure of performance, upholding my family's expectations of me that I have constantly under-delivered on, providing for my wife who is struggling to adapt to our new life, and pressure to perform in a workplace that is blatantly failing. 

At the dealership I'm at, there are so many problems internally that it bottlenecks the ability to perform where they need it. The weight that is on the shoulders of management to perform creates a barrier to new concepts and ideas that would be risky, time-consuming, or just difficult to execute, but without these, there is no progress to be made on my end with sales. Relying on people walking up will never become successful without the direct implementation of sales tactics that bring people off the street inside. Online advertisement is misguided and severely underfunded. What can I do? Give up, try something else, and restart again? The lack of healthcare has been eating away at me to the point where I am genuinely worried I will have lasting damage to my body from unchecked high blood sugar. I am married so my combined income is too much to qualify for state insurance, but I make too little to even get a $100/mo loan approved. There is no logic in this. 

I should note that I hate my job. I don't like selling things people cannot afford, and I don't like not having many opportunities to even do it. Both sales jobs I've been at have been so abysmally slow that, even when I am performing at an incredibly high percentage above, it looks like an average day for a busier area. I miss my pay and coworkers from my previous job, but hated living in Washington. I hate my coworkers- who are racist, classist, and genuinely selfish people (you know, literally everyone in a dealership). Working here for minimum wage, where I now am in debt to the dealership from underperformance, has caused my mental health some serious damage. On week 3, it began. There was a noticeable feeling I had coming into work. Dread, impending doom, depression, and hatred (Jeane and Vicky if you ever read this you are a majority of the reason I hate it here, and you're awful people to be involved in any type of work or conversation with). 

I had my hopes set on a job that was almost promised to me by a recruiter. I've learned my lesson on this- never trust the recruiter's enthusiasm. That's their job to keep you as a potential hire with interest. But, when it came down to it, the hiring managers wanted nothing to do with me because my area of management was not the type of management they were looking for. I hope their crops whither, their cows become plag- just kidding, but I do want their hiring choices to be terrible until I look like a diamond in the rough. I hate being glanced over and passed on. Give me an opportunity, and I overdeliver every time. Even where I am now, there has been a decent amount of growth in my ability to sell cars. While I don't have several referrals and a book of business built up, I do have a much better ability to close on a sale with someone who walks up. Take last month: I sold 4 cars. Eleven days into this one, and I have sold 4 cars. That's a growth rate of 66% if it holds.

Maybe I'm glazing myself to cheer up. Hard times make for hard men. I've gotten incredibly shrewd at cutting costs. Budgeting is now one of my better skills. The way I stretch a dollar is impressive when I make less than I have going out. Eventually, it will become worse, but I am prolonging it as long as possible.

I think I will keep searching, and hope to find a job that both satisfies me and allows me to survive. 

Brain Fog

Unending mist envelops my mind as I try to think clearly for what feels like the first time, but I can't get through to the sunshine that I used to feel when I had clarity in my brain. It is as if my thoughts are being choked and cut off- becoming incomplete and incomprehensible. Basic things become incoherent. Living life naturally has become impossible. Stimulants to increase the function of my brain and depressants at night to shut it off are the only way I can wade through the never-ending fog. Day by day, I wander around unable to see in front of my own face until I run into a wall. I know this isn't who I am. There is something wrong with me, but I can't figure out what it is that keeps me from being normal again. I seek help out through vices and other people, but none of it helps. Antidepressants seem to be working less and less, things become unenjoyable because I can't think clearly. I don't eat; if I do, my stomach turns. If I sleep, I wake up shortly after, periodically, from vivid dreams and nightmares. What is causing this? Why am I plagued by vivid thoughts in my sleep, but unable to think clearly while I'm awake? 

Through the use of copious amounts of caffeine, I can somewhat get back to what I felt was a clear head, but even then, I still have moments where I can't think linear thoughts. I find it hard to remember simple things that I shouldn't have issues recalling. Am I defective? My whole life I have felt that my physical self was never and will never be good enough to meet the standards that the world has created, but I never doubted the integrity of my mind. This past year, I have begun to question even that. It feels as if I am degenerating slowly across all the fields of existence. Am I exaggerating? Probably, but nevertheless, something is wrong. 

Children of Divorce

When I was a child, I was so very happy to be alive. I would wake up with a smile on my face, ready to experience everything life had to offer. My mind would race around like a dolphin gliding through water. Sunday mornings were my favorite. I would wake up, have breakfast prepared by my mother or father, and watch my favorite cartoons on TV until I went outside to play the day away. My siblings and I would pretend sticks were swords and slay mighty beasts or go on a mystical crusade through the patch of trees that, at the time, seemed like a forest to our tiny bodies. We would ride our scooters and bikes down the hill by our house. Many times we walked downtown together to play in the park. After a long day of playing in the sun, we went to get frozen custard at our favorite ice cream parlor called the Yum Yum Tree. Days went by so slow and were filled to the brim with joy. 

Something began to change inside me when my parents sat us down and told us they were getting a divorce. I didn't feel anything at first other than an icy sensation crawling up my spine like a spider. I shivered and it hit me all at once. I bolted out the door and ran to hide somewhere. I spent hours outside hiding from my family as they searched for me. Those words could rend any child's heart from within the cavity of their chest and split it in two. How could one choose a parent? We would never be whole again. 

They brought us into the courtroom to speak to the judge: "Who would you like to live with?" she asked. "Both of them!" I cried as she looked at me with a stone-cold gaze that could freeze even the hottest embers in a moment. She didn't accept that as an answer and asked me again. I refused to answer. I could never pick between my parents, but the choice was decided for me. For almost the entirety of my teenage years, I barely saw my father. He had to fix himself to be a part of my life again, but in doing so left me broken. I desperately yearned for a father figure in my life. I wanted to feel that paternal love that I was missing inside me. When I would see other kids with their fathers and hear them say "dad" or a loving exchange between them my battered heart would sink into my stomach. I could feel tears swelling up inside my eyes as I stared at the pair longingly, craving that same connection of which I was deprived. I searched for it in different people who could give that guidance and love I needed. 

The romanticization of romance is a tricky thing. Because I had seen how poorly it went for my mother and father who had claimed to love each other but in the end amounted to spite and lifelong hatred, it has always been in the back of my mind that it isn't real; however, the idea of a real love that is pure and burns for eternity still was what I hungered. Something to repair that black hole of a heart that was left from my childhood being torn asunder.

Searching for that feeling to meld my soul with someone else has always been something that I search for to complete myself again with someone else, but trust has been a difficult thing for me to give another person. Creating a family of my own that is whole and not broken seems so distant to me now, but I still have hope for that ideal future that cures my disabled heart. 

I haven't been feeling like myself as of late. Emotions wash over me like a rising tide, but each hour it is a different ocean. When I wake, I feel happy to be alive, but the dread of existence sinks in slowly and sours me into feeling forlorn. At times, it fades. Thinking again about starting something new with someone else begins to feel like a spark of hope, but there is something holding me back. The loss of what I had once has begun to creep into my thoughts again to remind me I should never do this to myself again and risk what has become of my parents. I dream about past relationships and how they ended so poorly. Will this doubt ever escape my thoughts, or will it house itself as a squatter not paying rent for my suffering?

On the Mend

I've achieved minimal hours of sleep each night, if any, over the last few months. Every night I was plagued with nightmares or dreams that hurt so badly when I awoke that the nightmares seemed comforting. Haunted by what I lost and what is absent in my heart. I'd sit outside in the cold spring air, puffing on a cigarette, reminiscing in my memories of the last few months. Trying to slake my thirst for happiness by drinking as if the answer is written on the bottom of the bottle or glass only brought on a sea of memories and loneliness. I feel as if I am drowning; gasping for air underneath the ocean of wanting that thinking of her shepherded into my mind. It became harder to breathe, and food lost its flavor. Nothing brings back the warmth I felt inside my chest that I felt being around her. Why get out of bed? I've lost the energy to try caring for myself. I can hear my heart speaking to me: never let this happen again. Stone encases it, slowly becoming jaded. I feel heavy. The sight of people experiencing joy brings me to tears from wanting, craving that same feeling.

I brought this upon myself. I asked for it. I wished to find someone with whom I could connect with. I wanted to synthesize my soul with someone else's. I begged for it, pleading to a God that I don't believe in to help me find someone who would fill the gaping void inside me that was left when my own family was broken as a child. It finally had happened. Years of romanticizing something so simple was finally mine to behold and cherish. I gripped it tightly, suffocated it from fear of it leaving me after my long search. I've learned now that holding onto something that tightly only creates an opportunity to slip between your fingers. The chasm in my heart has only grown wider, swallowing any joy I try to feed it, but its hunger never cases. My face rests in my hands, trying to hold back tears.

There is an adage that states: if you want a lie to be true, say it. Say it again. And again. And again. Say it until you can't remember the truth. Say it until the truth becomes the lie. I tell myself I am happy now. I put on a facade to hide the feelings that are stationed inside me without a boarding pass. Distracting myself with the company of my friends that I live with has afforded some relief. Time heals. I have started to cry less. I sleep longer. Dreams are becoming favorable to nightmares again. Flavor has returned to food. I still think of her, but I am no longer overwhelmed by despondency. I want her to find happiness, even if it is with another man. The stone encasing my heart will erode as the waters of time beat against it and wash away the sediment filling my heavy chest. I know this.