Mirror, mirror, on the wall

I'm having a really hard day. I'm not sure why. Everything is just not going my way these days. I guess I'm depressed? I don't really know what that feels like so I couldn't tell you for certain. I finally showered today. I also left the house for the first time in kind of a long time. I bring the kids to school but that doesn't really count as leaving the house. I went to breakfast at a restaurant. That counts.

I don't know if it's all my shitty health stuff going on? I don't know if it's my new medications? I don't know if it's changes in the dosages of certain medications? I just don't know...

My brain and my body don't agree with each other. And I feel paralyzed between the two so I just pretty much do nothing. To pass the time I play dumb games on my phone.  It numbs me.

I feel alone. I know I'm not. Obviously. But the people closest that want to help me I just push away. Mostly because they can't help me in the way I think I need to be helped. We've been through it before and the outcome is always the same. So why bother?

I was staring at myself in the mirror this morning... Hating what I see... Reflecting on my life so far and trying to think about the future. But the future is hard for me to see. I have no goals, no aspirations anymore. I just know that I'm not suppposed to be where I am right now. And anytime I think of something my brain is like, nope, that's dumb. You're dumb. Trying to do something like that at your age is pathetic.

I was up really late last night. And there was a Broadway-style show reflecting on the past 50 years of Great Performances on PBS. And it made me really sad for a couple of reasons. One, I miss putting on a show. It feels like you're doing something when you put on a show. And I'm not just talking about acting, although I did enjoy acting when I did it, I just thought I wasn't very good at it. I could have been had I studied it, but it was never something that seemed like I could break into, so why even try? I knew there were many more talented people than I was, so I never stood a chance. But who knows what might have been if I had played pretend a little more often.

The other thing that bummed me out, was reflecting on my younger self. I floundered in High School. I had no direction and no one to help guide me there. My parents were divorced and had a lot of other kids and things to deal with. I was quiet. I went with the flow. So I was easy. As my dad always said "The squeaky wheel gets the oil." I never squeeked. So I never got any oil. So they didn't push me towards college, a career, nothing. Just graduate high school. I managed to make it through. Then it was, you're 18 now. Go. You're on your own. I had people to help me survive, sure. And I'm forever grateful for them. But that's all I was doing, surviving. I didn't know what to do with my future. But, I was a technical theatre person. I've always been that nerd. I've always understood how stuff worked and could figure it out pretty easy. It's also something that I have always really enjoyed. So I thought I had it figured out. I would apply to a pretty prestigious, kind of hard to get into theatre program at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. I "auditioned" and got in. It was for the technical theatre side and they didn't take a lot of people. My mom actually helped me with my application and we even went to look at apartments I could afford in Milwaukee. (She must have been on her meds or something.) I was excited.

But there was only one problem. While I was accepted into the theatre program, I still had to get accepted into the university itself. There were still some basic college classes you would have to take in order to make a well-rounded member of society.

Fuck. That dream was instantly gone once I found that out. I had never taken my SATs or ACTs or whatever college admissions test was required. And there was no time for me to even try. The college admissions process was closing and I was simply too late. I was devastated. "Next Year" was never an option. That door was closed forever. I would never work or be a part of the theatre again, other than to enjoy other people's work. And it's big regret of mine. I think of what could have been. I see what my peers have done and think that it could have been me. But I played it safe and I'm here where I'm at now.

(FWIW, I did get into college without the ACTs. DeVry University (yup, the one from the teevee...) didn't require it. They had cool tech classes, I qualified for their student loans, and it worked for me. I went for 3 or 4 semesters in Chicago and got some basic college classes out of the way. Then life got in the way so I transferred to the University of WI at Parkside. Lynn was going to school and working there in the advising center. So her boss knew some admissions people and pulled a few strings for me. I had solid transcripts and it's not like I didn't deserve to be there, but if you want to split hairs, I didn't tick all the boxes you're supposed to tick for admission. I'm really lucky. Thank you Joyce.)

I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm not asking for anything really. I just need to get some things off my chest. I would ask that you check on your people though. (Not me, I'm probably not one of your people. I have very few people. Matter of fact I don't think I have people like that. Anyway, that's not what this is about.) But check in with them and see how they're doing. Not in any disingenuous way. But in a sincere, actually give a fuck kind of way. They're gonna know if you're bullshitting them.

Again this is not a cry for help... I get frustrated when my "friends" are only in it for themselves and what they get out of things. It just seems to happen a lot lately. And then I look in the mirror and see what kind of friend I'm being and I have to check myself. Because maybe I'm not being a good friend. "To have a friend, you must be a friend." That's still on my radar and I think about it all the time. We can all be better friends to each other. We all need to try harder. U.N.T. - ZMG