… but none the wiser

Following up on my last post, I’m still stuck on that same question. The question was: what do I do when I don’t know what I’m doing?

I found a new excuse to tell myself: when you have nothing going on for you, you can head anywhere. When you are at your rock bottom, you can only go up, but like – instructions unclear. I throw that veil of generality over everything, and think it’s good enough. At least there’s hope, right? There’s a want, so that means I’m not staying in this position.

But want isn’t work. I rehearsed a whole script of justifications and excuses for whenever I’m asked about my life or future – all sounding good and believable, but, I mean, I can only use it so much.

I was asked the other day if I’m okay with being [at my current post], given I used to live abroad, and was generally known as someone on the move. (You know, like, a small town girl making it out there.) I was well-practiced by then, so I immediately went into my monologue, internally disgusted with my hypocrisy.

So I let the time pass, kept ignoring my heart’s reminder that I’m impatient, and where has that daring woman gone? I used to be such a dreamer! Every goal I had was just, of course! No dream is big enough! Of course I can do it! Not that I had anything served on a silver platter, but I was not afraid to dream. And yes, I made some of my dreams come true, because I thought them so believable and realistic that they became real. I loosened the grip on dreams, and they aligned to come true.

Now, I’m scared and insecure just going through job postings. I’m full of doubt and with no direction. That’s why it was so easy for me to make other people’s suggestions my chosen paths. I don’t even know who I am, or what I want. Maybe I’ve always sensed that. I think my mind was always quietly whispering this warning: that I’m not where I want to be. That I’m walking the wrong path.

Another excuse was that a job is just a means to live the life I want. So whatever job will do. It doesn’t have to be in my branch. I can work in something totally unrelated to my degree, because I don’t want a job to consume my life. I’m not a careerist. That has come to bite me in the *ss.

Because where has that brought me? I couldn’t, for the longest time, admit to myself that I’m actually doing badly. I couldn’t deal with it. I kept telling myself that this is temporary. And it is! I will find a job, and my life will get going, but I still won’t know who I am or what I want… a person who was afraid to try. I am afraid to ask, and mortified to take.

It hurts so much to admit that I’m ashamed of myself. I’m lost completely. But I can only go up from here, right?

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