The place where my head goes when I’m trying to fall asleep is not pretty. In the dark, before I’ve slipped into sleep I still have those thoughts where I remember embarrassing moments and cringe. I still catalogue regrets, going back as far as college. I find myself angry at myself. I am mad at me for not being able to “snap out of it,” for wasting those years, for missing the quintessential college experience. For not studying hard enough. For not taking advantage of every opportunity. For not even knowing I wasn’t taking advantage of every opportunity.

Even when I’m having these thoughts, I know that by the light of day I can attack them on several fronts. But that doesn’t stop the feelings of regret that bubble up at 1 AM. And then it’s 9:30 in the morning and I’m sitting at work texting with Michael, thinking that maybe I should go get another Master’s degree, to make up for the way I screwed myself out of opportunities with the first one. But as my aforementioned thinking of the college experience shows, in order to feel that I was truly rectifying past mistakes, I’d have to do college over.

See what I mean about this type of thinking being entirely unhelpful?

I know this, and yet sometimes it is still there, and denying that it’s still there dosen’t seem to be particularly helpful either.

I have always been the type to want to take back the past. Even when I was young, as far back as 4th or 5th grade, the things I wished for most vehemently were do-overs.  I used to be far more myopic, part of me convinced that the only way to avenge the old me would be to invent a time machine. Now there’s a part of me which manages to see that the best “revenge” is to live a good life.

But it’s still possible to get tangled up in the possibilites for a good life, or a better life that could have been, had I not done X, or if I had only chosen Y.

It’s too early in the week to be this much of a downer. I have no energy or motivation on the job application front. The enthusiasm with which I attacked Federal Job applications last month seems to have waned. Perhaps it’s another sign that I should not be frentically applying for jobs that I’m not thrilled with the prospect of, but for some of them, all I see is dollar signs, and really, there are worse reasons to do things. But I’m staring at pages of “multiple choice and explain your answer” questions on my experience communicating and scheduling and administrating and while I do have all the requisite experience and can give the clear examples they’re looking for, my motivation to write those perfectly worded explanations of my ability to be a glorified secretary is just not there.

I’d say the only thing I need is a break from the job applications, but I barely did anything last week and this week is going to be equally busy and I can’t get a job if I don’t apply and it’s already a week into March and I’m not closer than I was at the beginning of January.

And then I get this notice about bills that are overdue (at work. Not my own personal bills) from this vendor that keeps screwing up and it just sets off the annoyance.

I know I need patience and gratitude, among other things, but it’s 9:45 on a Monday morning and it’s not happening right now.

The utter laziness of this weekend (in which I did not even do laundry) disgusts me. Occasionally the sloth-ness of my existences gets to me and I spend Monday feeling icky about my hardcore indulgence in one of the seven deadly sins. I am hoping to rectify this by doing my laundry tonight and perhaps straightening my room, but the number of hours I spend sitting on my bed with my laptop is really obscene.

I’m getting punchy. Maybe I would also feel better if I cleaned my desk, but instead I am choosing to whine unattractively.

It’s not that I hate the person I am now. I’m ok with her, the girl who has developed an unhealthy West Wing (or more accurately Josh/Donna) obsession, the girl who reloads her email every 90 seconds, the girl who eats far too many of these delicious crispy pretzel-cracker things. She is better off than the person I was a year ago, even if I have to refer to her in third person. But sometimes, I am just so sick of her, and she is so sick of her surroundings, and we are so impatient for it not to be this way.

I know of all the suggestons and solutions , the if you don’t like where you are or what you’re doing then it is up to you to change that. I’m working on that, I am – the Libertarian fellowship was certainly a huge part of that. But it’s a slow process and it feels like a lot of hurry up and wait and go nowhere fast, and so for now I’m just stuck being the girl I am now, who has nowhere to wear all her pretty new one-size smaller clothes.

In April, I will have been in suburbia for two years, when it was supposed to be for a few months. In May, I will be 27, and before I know it, another summer will speed by. Time is going to fast and I’m not keeping up with it, and while I’m doing as much as I can to find a way to get to a place where I want to be, there are only so many avenues and outlets. There’s a recession, there’s reality, and there’s logistics.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into such an existential angst fest, but my whining should be recorded. For posterity’s sake.

Every year I’ve given thanks for “The 365 changes to start over on the right foot.” I usually referenced the same around New Year’s. I started doing this in 2004, when the dumbest thing I was doing was the occasional drunk dial to HWSNBN.

In 2007 and 2008 I did a number of things that I wish I could forget, culminating with the stupidest of them in March of 2009. If it weren’t for the change to alleged chance to start over everyday, I don’t know how many times I would have made it out of bed.

I have indulged in a great deal of self-sabotage. I kept setting myself back. That is why, for the past year plus my only plan was to not have a plan. Given my obsessing over the Libertarian Fellowship, I may have finally felt it’s safe to start planning again. Without getting too far ahead of myself, even if I don’t get the Libertarian Fellowship, there are other things I plan to go for. Of course, that is easy for me to say right now – I will be devastated if I don’t get it.

But anyway.

I am grateful for all the obvious things – my parents who didn’t kick my sorry, stupid self to the curb and my friends for not judging and being supportive even when I was not someone who deserved it.

This morning, while waiting for my ride (who was late again. Apparently, the fact that school is now in session and thus there is TRAFFIC has not sunk in, or she doesn’t understand the concept of  ‘leave earlier in anticipation of the traffic you will hit’) I had a moment of “God damnit, I can’t DO this anymore!”

It’s very frustrating. I am not patient. I do not like to be late. I do not like things to be out of my control or to have to depend on others.

The reality is that I have no choice but to do this for at least 10 more weeks (here is willing the bureaucracy to function in spite of the furlough days). I have to get to work. I am very, very lucky to have found this solution to morning rides via Craigslist. Very lucky. I really have no right to complain.

I really wish I could post a “Grace in Small Things” list or something similar, and be sincere about it, but to write something like that now would just be a way to try and hide that fact that I am wallowing a bit. I know I have a lot to be grateful for, I know it could be worse, I know there are worse things in life…

But right now, I’m just really sick of being stuck. Literally and figuratively of course, but right now it’s the literal that’s bringing me down.

I am the most impatient person in the world. One of the reasons that I can’t cook is that cooking takes patience, and I have none. I get antsy waiting for water to boil.

I was home last night and I wanted to do some tooling around with my blog, since my endless task of neurotically tagging years worth of entries is still on going. So I go to log in, and I get the message about server dropping the connection, it might be busy, blah blah blah. Now, my tiny presence on 20-something bloggers has not caused my popularity to explode over night, so I knew there had to be something wrong.

Because I can’t just, you know, wait for the problem to fix itself as internet problems are wont to do. No, I’m not only impatient, I’m compulsive. I have to go googling around the internet for a solution and futz around with things on my hosting account.

Around 9, I was talking to my friend (who is also neurotic) about being compulsive, and how being compulsive is a curse, because I can’t relax and be anxiety free like a sane person, and that while compulsivness is sometimes useful, my particular brand of compulsiveness has rarely been channeled towardz anything positive. For example, I was never compulsive about doing my homework.

I’m not sure if it was my actions or if it was automatic, but I got my website up and running again aroud 10:00. While it is more likely the latter (and I am glad it decided to work, because my compulsions would not let me rest until I Found A Solution) I like to think that one of the tweeks I made was what did it.

A girl can dream. Or at least, she can blog. Now that her website is working.

Read Me First

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Chicago was four months ago and still there are moments when I’d like a do-over, because I think of the night before Chicago and how happy I thought I was. There are some moments when I’d give almost anything to feel that way again.

But OLB has seen me tilt my chin, raise my eyebrows, and toss out some line as if I don’t have a care in the world, and what good did it do me?

So Saturday night, I think I will just be quiet. Reserved. I will greet him politely, although I do like the idea of giving him the trademark Rachel Cold Stare. It might throw him off a little. I’ll talk to everyone else of course, but I don’t know everyone there as well as I did at the last gathering, so I will probably naturally be a bit more shy than usual. And I think this is a good thing. Quiet can disarm just as well as a good line.

Beyond that, I am trying not to have a plan, because I always have a plan. I always try to script these things, and then when the curtains up, I miss my cues and forget my lines. It is better to go in without blatant expectations and prepared anecdotes. He should not be important enough to warrant my editing.

I’d like to say I didn’t come this far just to fall apart over him, but if I can even think the thoughts that make this entry possible, I wonder if I’ve even made any progress at all.

Hired.

And to think, I almost blew off going to the temp agency because I didn’t want to drive down the Parkway.

This job is the best, best thing to happen to me in a very long time.

I have been on Livejournal for five years. Five years ago, I started this in McClellan 102, when I was really, really angry about the stupid knee-jerk anti-war reactionaries. That was the semester I took 20 credits, worked 2 jobs, and came out as a conservative.

Five years of my life are on the internet.

So this winter, thanks to O-L-B, I tried ice skating (the ground is a lot further away than it was when I was 9) and despite emerging covered in bruises, it was a lot of fun.

Next winter, I think I want to try snowboarding. I’ve been skiing once or twice (again, when I was about 9 or 10) but despite dating someone who was into snowboarding I never tried it. If I ever get around to making a 101 in 1001 list, that’ll be on it.

Dear 2007,

I’m so glad you’re over.

No love,

Rachel