(originallly posted on my AFF blog)
Don’t let work run my life? I think, at this point, I’m just trying not to get eaten alive. No special plans for my birthday. I never do anything special for it, not for several years now. It just means I’m a year closer to 40. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those people who freaks out about getting older, I certainly won’t start lying about my age. And my mom doesn’t look like she’s in her 50s, so I can figure I’ll age alright. I’m not afraid of getting older. What I am afraid of is, waking up on June 12, 2015 and realizing that I spent the last 7 years with nothing to show for it; no relationship, no money, no career (that I give a damn about). I’m afraid I’ll have spent that time the same way I’ve spent this last 7 years, just getting by. On some levels, I feel so arrogant for that. Most people are perfectly content to do exactly that. But then again, many of those people have some of the things they need, like someone to share the time with.
An email conversation with Joe, my local pen pal, is making me feel more frustrated than ever. He views everything that I feel trapped by as an excuse not to try for what I really want. He doesn’t get it, I’m not even sure you could. Motivation isn’t easy for you, but it’s not the struggle it is for me. And it’s also a self perpetuating curse, because my life has so little to offer, that I’m even less inclined to waste a few minutes of escape into fantasy or fiction, when I see so little potential in using that time for more long term pursuits. I’m even starting to doubt that I could make it as a writer, even if I got that lucky break. I think I have the raw talent to be really good, but I’m not so sure that I’m really that good now. Maybe it’s why I feel like I can’t articulate it right, but let me try.
I’ve spent many years trying endlessly to get somewhere. And every time there’s a glimmer of hope that things will get better, it gets blinked out of existence. We’re finally getting ahead in money, and something big breaks. I finally get a possibility of a better job, I get laid off when I take it. We start to pull out financially again, my car needs replaced, and the heat bill is topping $300 a month in fricking April (and then we had to turn on the AC today) ,and gas prices are insane, and the savings is slipping away again. Things aren’t going awful yet, but I’m getting scared. And what I want to do, more than anything else in this world, is to walk into work and tell them all to go to hell, but I can’t.
So I have a choice. I can hunker down even more, write everything that I can think of, hope and try and work my ass off, only to see something else go wrong and find myself back where I started. Or I can watch a movie and try not to feel as awful as I feel right now, at least for a few hours. When history has shown me that nothing I do makes any difference, why should I waste my life working hard only to feel miserable, when there’s so little likelihood of a reward at the end of it? Is that really so wrong? Is it even that illogical? If it really is, then maybe I am just making excuses, and I’m completely deluding myself. But I’m a fairly intelligent person, and as far as I can see, my argument makes a very fair point. Isn’t the definition of insanity repeating the same action and expecting the opposite result?
Incidentally, I do know that’s not the real definition of insanity. I also know it’s not a Benjamin Franklin quote. It’s appropriate that it actually belongs to a fiction writer. However, someone online made a good point of just why that quote is legitimate. The point being…
If you saw some guy repeatedly touching a hot stove, and he was surprised every time he got burned, wouldn’t you think he was a few fries short of a happy meal?
Thanks for enduring the maudlin moment, my fellow bohemians. Even the faerie queen has her. 
Also, the blog title is the title of a new song by OneRepublic. Have a listen.
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