Have you ever noticed that little kids question everything but themselves?

They just don’t have any self doubt.

I have a feeling every parent out there is going, “Well, duh,” but it has me wondering about something very important.

At what point did we trade in perfectly rational childhood fears like the monster-under-the-bed or flesh-eating-clowns for the completely irrational, maniacal fears of failure, rejection, and loneliness?

To Put Soul Searching on Hiatus

I’ve spent the better part of the last three months in a spiraling depression. I’ve talked about it before. I’ve complained about the sadness, and fear. I’ve analyzed the root and causes. I’ve obsessed endlessly with my own pathos. In the end, I just ran out of steam and stopped really caring. It left me in a place where I had to make a decision, with my bag of fucks-to-give empty, it made the world seem lighter and easier to handle. I’m still pondering the decision. I’m waiting to see how the whole thing plays out, but I’ve also given myself a time limit.

No matter what, I am leaving my job in June of this year.

I’ll have been employed here for six years and nine months at that point. In those six years, I haven’t done anything worth being really proud of myself for. I think I’ve told you guys in the past that I am actually pretty bad at my job. In retrospect, it isn’t really the case. It’s hard to be bad at a job that could be performed by decently priced scanner and a trained labradoodle. Still, I get no satisfaction from it at all, and have no incentive to be good at it. I really don’t have any incentive at the moment to even do my job. I’ve been experimenting with doing less and less work each day for the last couple of weeks, and at this point I’m, call it 85%, sure that I could just go into the office and stare at the wall for 8 hours and get paid to do it.

As much as I like to think that I’d “do nothing,” if I was a bajillionaire, the truth is, I hate every moment that I’m not working. It makes it hard to commit to the silent protest I’ve been waging against the man in the form of civil laziness.

I do like having a job.

I like having a reason to put leave the house. Hell, when I’m not working I have a hard time finding a reason to leave bed, but no job is worth losing your hair, mind, and soul over.

I’m not entirely certain I can blame my job for my hair loss, but it seems like as good a target as any. Most of my coworkers are going bald, also . I don’t think that is a coincidence.

It is noticeable enough for us to joke about it around the water cooler.

Metaphorically.

We don’t actually have a water cooler.

I am done worrying about what I will do in the future, and begun to think about where I’m going to do it.

I can survive anywhere. I can do anything I need to do. By the time June rolls around, I should be pretty close to debt free, with the exception of my car payment. The car payment isn’t that high, so, really, if I can find a full time job making minimum wage doing anything, I’ll be fine. If I’m not…

Well, I’ve been worse off in the past. I’ve learned how to recover.

What My Readers Should Know

I’m sorry that I’ve been away for so long. I know that I’ve posted, but it wasn’t me that was doing it. It was my depression. That fickle bitch is almost impossible to keep under wraps. I hope that I haven’t lost too many of you to my self-indulgent whininess.

I wish I could say that it will never happen again. I wish I could say it wouldn’t happen anytime in the near future.

I can’t say that.

Mental Illness doesn’t work that way. Depression and anxiety are constantly hanging out in the corner of the room, waiting for a moment of weakness when they can pounce and tare the flesh from the bones of my defenders, Ego and Humor.

The last few months have been the worst I’ve experienced since I started blogging, and I’m so incredibly indebted to those of you that have stuck around and supported me.

I don’t think I could ever express how much it has meant to me to have the friends I do.

All of you are amazing, and you should take a bow.

A New Project in the Works

In the spirit of, “Get your fat ass off the loveseat and do something,” I started a new project tonight. I’m already about 1000 words in, which isn’t a lot considering the size of this article, but I’m enjoying it in a way I haven’t in a long time.

I’m finally taking some advice from a very wise woman and writing a book of humorist essays.

I’ll be going back through my old blog posts and looking at the most popular and most underappreciated posts and giving them another crack of the pen.

If there is anything you guys would like to hear (ie read) my take on, just let me know.

I’m still here and writing because you guys carried me on your shoulders. This is the absolute least (literally, anything less would be nothing) I could do to repay you.

 

Also, Safety Dance,
M.A. Brotherton

Tags: Depression, projects, Writing