It’s 2022! And I’m Still Disappointed with My Life
Another day, another year, and I am still disappointed with my life.
Or rather, I’m disappointed with the persistent discrepancy between what I believe my life should be and what I want it to be, and what it actually is. This discrepancy has been hanging around for a long time.
In my view, I should have found a full-time, meaningful profession to devote my life to right out of college…in 2014
I should have some kind of title. I should be presenting academic papers and achieving great success and notoriety within my field. I should have paid sick leave and vacation days. I should be earning, at minimum, $40,000 per year.
I should be making monthly student loan payments handily and on my own. I should be paying for my car on my own. Fuck, I should be paying for my phone bills on my own.
I should have a girlfriend or, better yet, a wife.
I should be an established composer and arranger for harp with works being sold in all the major harp music outlets.
I should be planning a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with all the extra cash I’ve saved up.
I should be living in a house.
I should have a flat stomach.
I should have a cat.
I should feel confident and established and stable and hopeful and less stressed and thrillingly busy and happy.
But I don’t feel any of those things
I’m not any of those things. I don’t have any of those things. And I’m not doing any of those things.
I’m nearly broke with two dinky, part-time, online jobs to barely (and hopefully) keep me afloat month after month. Paid vacation and sick days are a thing of the past. So are employer-provided health care and retirement contributions.
The government provides my health care now. My father provides my car payments. My mother provides my phone payments and half my loan payments.
I can’t even bother thinking about buying a house given my sad financial situation
Purchasing the appliances alone would bankrupt me faster than I could blink. And let’s not forget the cost of fixing all the things that will inevitably break or fail in a house. That’s on top of mortgage payments and mortgage insurance and property taxes and homeowners insurance –
– and, holy shit, I need to stop thinking about all these housing costs before I have another panic attack.
Stop
Inhale
Exhale
Ok, continuing on.
The meaningful profession (music therapy) I was supposed to devote my life to was too stressful and demanding for my delicate, overly-sensitive constitution to handle. So was every other job, meaningful or not, that required me to step outside my front door.
Instead of taking the world by the horns, achieving prestigious things, and making myself known and respected amongst elite figures, I ran away and hid in a corner. I haven’t achieved anything of note since…well, I quit being a music therapist.
True, I am working on a book (series?), but at the rate I’m going, I’ll be lucky to finish it before I die…
…assuming I enjoy the standard 81.3-year life expectancy of a white woman born in the U.S. I haven’t even reached the draft-writing phase as I seem to be sinking in the mire of preparatory research.
Luckily, I do enjoy the research, but it constantly reminds me just how astoundingly out of my depth I am in writing this story. Anytime I try to write even a short passage, just for the fun of writing, I stop after about a half page, bogged down by the intense self-doubt I feel at my capacity to craft a provocative, beautiful, clever story that will take the world by storm.
As far as writing music goes, well, that’s come to a complete standstill, along with all my other musical activities
Tell me, how does one go from annual involvement in multiple music ensembles over decades, and from eating, sleeping, breathing, and adoring music, to wanting to sell her instruments and delete her music notation software forever? How does a bad job experience and a pandemic do all that?
Anyway, it’s not like my harp compositions and arrangements were exactly popular when I was still a gung-ho musician. I tried to get the attention of some big-name publishers, but they either didn’t respond to my inquiries or responded with the dreaded, “Your work just isn’t what we’re looking for right now.”
Oh, so you’re not looking for accessible Christmas music at Christmastime? Fuck you.
Speaking of Christmastime: Hogwarts
More specifically, Hogwarts in fake snow at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I have desperately been wanting to visit this place for the past year, but, of course, money. I don’t know how I am ever going to save up enough money to make this trip happen.
AND now there’s the Harry Potter store in New York.
AND Scotland and Ireland and Great Britain are still begging to be explored.
AND I really want a kitty but my apartment, which I love and intend to stay in for as long as I can, doesn’t allow pets
I’ve been living vicariously through my neighbors, who have two cats (black with a little bit of white and white with a little bit of black). Every time I notice one of the cats lounging on a windowsill, I coo and speak that baby talk to it as though it can hear me.
If I get really despondent, I visit a cat café many miles away – just so I can pet a little ball of fur.
Visiting the cat café would be even better with a beautiful woman by my side
“long dress slender” by xusenru
But, of course, I’m still so lonely I’m finding it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm for (sarcastic tone of voice here) the great adventure that is life. Yes, I’ve tried an online dating site, but all the women on there were so…young and immature. Is there a dating site for younger women to meet older women? I can’t seem to find one.
And is it even possible for an older woman to fall in love with me? It’s difficult to understand what could possibly make someone with wisdom and experience and confidence be attracted to someone still trying (and somewhat failing) to find her footing in life.
Then there’s that little asocial issue of mine. Love is already difficult enough without being terrified of social interaction. Just the thought of once again speaking to a woman I’m interested in makes my hands start sweating and my face heat up.
Nagging me almost as much as my loneliness is this little flab of belly fat I’ve been trying to burn off for almost two years
I’m lean and muscly everywhere else except where I have always wanted to be lean and muscly. I’ve tried altering my diet. I’ve tried altering my exercise routine. Still, the flab DOESN’T BUDGE. It’s maddening and frustrating and disheartening and I don’t know what to do anymore.
Stop
Inhale
Exhale
Ok.
I’m done.
If you are somehow still reading this after the pathetic whirlwind of misery I just laid down, you’re a saint.
Thanks for sticking around.
The next blog will be much more optimistic (or maybe just realistic?) because I’m going to try to propose some solutions to this laundry list of problems. So, head over here if you’re interested in some resolution…New Year’s pun not intended.
I’m going to go watch kitten videos.
Post featured image: “Pros And Cons” by Tumisu