Unemployment Day 49

Joan Didion’s collected nonfiction is titled We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. This phrase is constantly floating around in my brain, coloring my world. I feel like I exist in an alternate reality, in my head, where the stories I create – both real and imagined – are an integral part of my survival.

I am sometimes unsure of who I am. I read essays and short stories {by Didion, Lorrie Moore, and Amy Hempel} and recognize parts of myself. These are all words I have read before and I don’t know if these recognizable characters have always reminded me of myself or if I have molded myself into a copy of them. What is real? What is me?

I am at a place in my life where everything is changing. There is little stability in my day to day existence. I am without a job, without a relationship, without all of the things that generally make me feel safe. I yearn for safety. I want someone to take care of me, hold me when life is scary, force me to get out of bed when everything seems bleak and meaningless.

Sometimes the thought of taking care of myself is overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like too much responsibility. I ask myself how I can be expected to keep myself afloat when my world has fallen apart. One fear slowly becomes amplified and takes over my entire body. I become essentially incapable of functioning.

And yet sometimes I can be so positive. I have it in me to look on the bright side, to employ the Power Of Positive Thinking, to stand on my own two feet and remind myself that Things Are What You Make Of Them, that The Journey Is The Destination.

I am trying to reconcile all the facets of my personality into one static thing. I am a depressive, anxious sort with the ability to stay positive when she puts her mind to it.

I need to remember to get out of my own head. Writing helps, it always has. I have felt strangely ashamed and shy about expressing how difficult life has been for me lately, but that’s only making things worse, so I’m opening back up.

Life is scary but I’m going to be okay. I promise.