I don’t know where to start.
That’s actually a lie.
Clearly, I have some idea of where to start. I even seem to know how to start. Perhaps I’m having difficulty knowing when to start.
No time like the present.
If you’re anything like me, you’d probably agree that shit’s feeling real scary these days. Everywhere I turn there’s reports of democracy collapsing, humanity deteriorating, but the constant barrage of this information has left me feeling numb. My head, my heart, and my soul are all feeling shrouded in despair, and I often wonder when this feeling will change.
All the while, I have to participate in society. I need to keep my job to pay my bills to live in my house and drive my car, and I need to work with others to do my job well. I need to stay connected to my friends and call my family and make time to interact with them in person, but I also need to be able to occupy myself independently from others. I need to keep my living spaces clean and help my roommates, and I need to honor my commitments to the things I pursue outside of work (namely two choruses I’ve joined).
So many truths are existing at once inside of me, and I don’t know if this is merely a function of adulthood or if these un-fucking-precedented times are what is messing me up so much. But I’ve reached a breaking point, where my fear of the future has grown so large that I cannot merely stay numb to it. I need to do something about it. I need to take action.
Fuck!
More truths: I don’t get paid enough, in my full-time position, to live at the level of means I grew up within. My credit score is tanking. My mother actually pays my car bill every month, and even still I have to ask her for grocery money at least twice a month.
My parents are aging. They don’t seem to want to act like it, but it’s very apparent that, before long, they won’t be able to do the things they’ve done for the last sixty years or so. It’ll be my job to make sure they are well-taken care of when that time comes.
My brother has special needs. With a developmental disability, he requires more attention than your average almost-forty-year old. He loves our family and socializing with all of his friends and acquaintances. He also is accustomed to the things we had growing up, and he gets very anxious about change.
I want the house and land I grew up in and on to stay in my family for as long as possible. My dad built it with help from his brother and friends, and we’ve made a beautiful home in that place. I can’t imagine anyone else being allowed to call that house their home, so I need to be able to keep it for myself, for the sake of my sanity.
Doing something to address these truths requires me to take action. It requires me to make decisions that I’ll need to back myself up on. It requires me to hold myself accountable, which I am not very good at.
That’s why I’m writing this, for you, an audience.
There are few things I despise more than being called out for not delivering on something I said I’d accomplish. The twist that I get in my gut when I’ve let someone down is painful. If I can find a way to make myself create something (anything!) for the sole purpose of not disappointing my audience (which, at the time of writing, does not exist), I may not be as incapable as I have led myself to believe.
The first step really is the hardest. Whoever said that must’ve hated holding themself accountable, too.
I think this post will be created with a comment section underneath – feel free to leave one telling me the things you’ve dragged your feet on accomplishing, or follow me on Instagram (@megisbadat, and linked below) and leave that comment on my first post!
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