You know, I always think I started this blog in December because the beginning of this blog is tied to memories of murky isolation, the dregs of my mourning, which makes me think of bleak wintry days. But in fact, it was started in February of this year, which is technically still winter, eh? It hurts my pride to realize that I hadn't overcome the lingering affects of Sam's death yet, though, because 2011 always looked like a brighter place from 2010 and that's still how I remember it today.
The point, I guess, is that it's hard to believe I was in the doldrums still when everything now, 7 months later, is so. . . . full up.
I've been talking to my brother a lot lately and I find that I worry about him a lot, Partly because he's living alone and is 21 with 40,000+ dollars of debt hanging over his head and nothing to show for it. It's enough to make you want to cry everyday, knowing that. But also because, he is a philosopher who hasn't yet really found what the purpose of life is. He's a cynic and a skeptic and impatient. And I feel like living alone and floating though life without having any sort of guide or motivation must be the pinnacle of desolation.
That's a tangent though, a very melodramatic one.
What I mean to say is, I was thinking about him and it suddenly dawned on me one of the biggest contributors to my depression and maybe his too was that I didn't have any goals after Sam died. Though the listlessness of my ways was begotten by her death, making it hard for me to muster the inclination to do anything, the change from college student to college graduate didn't contribute help either. I went from being on a planned track of life, freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior year, all rushing in on the coattails of grade school, to having no track whatsoever.
It's a hard enough change normally, I guess, though many students seem to merge into life unscathed, but in addition to the crisis that coincided with my graduation, knowing or even choosing my next steps seemed an enormous challenge. Throughout my life, when guidance counselors, teachers, and parents weren't there to guide my steps, Samantha was. She didn't do it intentionally, of course, but one can't help but adore and follow her best friend. I knew that one of the reasons we were friends was our likeness in mind, so it made sense that we'd do similar things in life, though hers was much more full and vivacious than mind.
And when she died and I graduated, my only guides were parents. It didn't really matter, though, that parents where there, because at that point in my life, I wasn't really ready to even think about my next steps. I was just tired and wasted and anything but capable.
The truth, is, though, that guides aren't always going to be there. Like my Papa told me last week, "missing" is a part of life. It's something that never stops once it begins, because departure, change, and death are imminent always. So when you lose your guides, whether it be by departure, change, or death, you can't just slump up and coddle yourself by doing nothing. You have to take charge.
And you have to come up with your own goals.
It was a memorable epiphany, because here I am over a week later still musing over it.
But it's so true, isn't it? People who stop giving themselves goals are stuck in dead-end jobs, but it doesn't matter because there's no goal, no ambition towards a final outcome, except maybe retirement.
And the funny thing is, I must have known this before I realized it, because my life began changing the minute I began to give myself goals. Like this blog, for example. And pottery class. And finding a better position in work. And painting a painting a month to be in a show. And making my own comics. All the way up until I begin to have the goal of selling paintings and joining in on a tv show, and making BETTER comics.
I gave myself goals, and clambered up out of the gorge of depression I'd begun to call home, and here I am. Feeling more myself than ever, though a tiny bit overwhelmed.
It's very .. neat to look back and understand myself. To understand really... anything about me at all is nice, because I was lost for so long.
I'm getting a bit too busy, though, I can tell. Studying is really taking up a TON of time, but hopefully it'll be worth it in the end. It better be. I'm going to be livid if I still make a score lower than 1200, because then I would have wasted all this time. And working for that TV show is becoming tedious. I've decided it's because it isn't my dream, so i'm not nearly as actuated to work on it as I would be for my own dream...though..I also feel the same way about my current strip.
I suppose I'm "working" more than I'm playing. But I'll fix that this weekend with Edisto adventures and forest hikes with my older sister and friends. This weekend is the first weekend I spend alone in our apartment since we've moved here, and thank god for that. Had it been earlier this year..like..before February, I would have been a maudlin, crying mess.
I'm glad to see my progress. It feels good, tiring, but good.
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