EVERYBODY PANIC!

I called in sick to work today. Or more accurately, I called in panic attack.

I had intended completely on spending my entire day in a florecent-lit basement. I was all dressed and ready to go, headphones on, ready to hop on my bike (I know thats a bad combo, but cruising through midtown with music in my ears is so beautifully addictive) but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. I tried, but seriously it was like the place was surrounded by a force feild.

I went back inside.

I looked in the mirror for a long time.

I looked at the clock. 

I called to say I’d be late.

I looked in the mirror again (this second look, I think, was my downfall).

I stared hard into my own eyes and imagined myself at work. No big deal. My job is not difficult. Its very auto-pilot-y, and I like that. I get a lot of work done.

But I couldn’t look away from my own internal struggle. Those headphones were in. Tune-yards was overtaking my world, and I was launched back into New Jersey jaunts to the train station and a sudden resurgence of what it felt like to be free.

What a strange month July was. I was undeniably lonely, but is it really much better now? I can’t shake the feeling that I made a mistake coming back. Nothing has changed in my California life. I feel unimportant and pointless and creatively stunted. Just like I did before, only now I feel like a failure too. Awesome.

I’m not stuck here. I have my exit strategy, but these weeks that blend into eachother never seem to end and I feel sad and lost and ohhhhhhh my goddddddddd.

How can “normal” people work full time for other people their entire lives? Or is it actually easy and for some reason I am just incapable of it? I may not be the most responsible (obviously) or logical girl, but I think I’m relatively functional. Are there a bunch of lessons I missed on adulthood? Like How to Cope with Bullshit 101?

Just for the record, I have been asking myself this question since I was about 12. Its coming up more intensely now because I always assumed that by 26 I would have a fucking clue as to what was going on. 

I still don’t even understand how people keep up on current events and music and art and fashion for that matter. I sincerely hope that everyone else that seems to know anything is just talking out of their asses, because if I’m actually this far behind, I might as well crawl into a cozy cave full of down comforters and french bread and the scent of rain on sidewalks and never get up. Fucking ever.

Will I ever overcome this lack of motivation plague? Will going back to the state I was born in (the physical US state of Arizona, not naked in fetal position) finally snap me out of my contstant burden of laziness? JESUS CHRIST, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? 

Easy cop-out answer? Panic attack. 

So I called back my employer and pathetically dropped those two words, apologizing profusely. Her response?

“Uhh.. okay. Feel better.”

I feel like I should be a little ashamed. I could have come up with so much more of a bad-ass excuse, but I am honest to a fault.

My honesty often makes me sound like a loser. Very often, and in all capacities.

I can’t possibly be the only one that feels like this. My theory is that all of you feel trapped and uninspired and claustrophobic and insecure and unhappy and like you’re wasting your time. At least sometimes? 

Well if so, please stop fucking pretending that you’re on top of your shit. Please tell me you don’t understand what the fuck is going on either and you just want to hang out in grassy feilds with me and build little huts out of sticks for frogs to live in.

It would make me feel a lot better.

xox