ask me this in a month;
"Hello Lana, how are you today?"
"Still alive."
"Oh? What have you been up to?"
"Not much hey. I work in a call centre and bludge my way through life. It’s great. All my short term goals for a career have pretty much crumbled. Yeah. Blame the recession and the high unemployment rate (that’s why I don’t watch the news) but hey, I’m still alive. That’s got to count for something right? I mean, I have a roof over my head, a home cooked meal (almost) everyday, at least once. And I have an income – not centrelink payments – money that I work for.
And so I’m not doing what I want to do. Really I don’t know what to do anymore. But that’s why I quit Star City – I had bigger dreams to pursue. I had plans and goals to travel and work abroad in the next three or four years, only to realize it’s impossible. Not because it may be difficult, or I have restraints or lack of self confidence, I’ve had opportunities presented to me, but I didn’t take them up for more important things.
I love my mum. She’s not the healthiest person, but I do love her.
I have learnt so much in the past 4 years and I guess that’s what keeps me going. No, I’m not learning what I want to learn to build a career – I don’t even know what career to pursue now. But I live. Not to the fullest, I just live.
I go to a dead end job, work in an office and talk to strangers on the phone who really don’t want to talk to me. Heck I wouldn’t want to talk to them. But I make enough to get by. I see my friends, they tell me their problems I try to fix it. I go home, listen to my mum’s crappy day at work, try to talk to my father about something that isn’t online poker, and I sleep. Sometimes when I feel like crap I sit and drink red wine (not because I’m a booze hound but because I probably really need the endorphins to keep me alive) and either look at art/design, or create my own. Yes, there is a lot that stops me from creating my own art, ie. Lack of self confidence yet again, or just that my computer is a shitbox and plagued with problems. But I’m still alive. And my mum’s still alive. That’s all well and good, isn’t it?
And I sleep, 8 hours like the health freaks recommend. I wake to face all the melodramas of my life again. Isn’t that what life is about?
God blesses people with talents, and maybe he skipped me because he had a lunch date or something. (then again I don’t believe in god so, someone who created me skipped the talent part – thanks mum!) or maybe I haven’t found my talent? I know I have passions. That’s good enough. And I have friends, who, for the most part, are good company. I don’t think I want to be rich. I do want to be financially stable but I live with my parents and my psychotic brothers and I don’t much rent. I guess that’s enough. Right?
I could be rich, never work a day in my life and complain about what to do with the $10,000 daddy put into my bank account this month, but I don’t think I’d have the appreciation and love (if you can call it that) of life that I currently (mildly) possess.
And I’ll probably grow up sometime, get married and die happy. But right now and in the near future, I probably won’t look back and say “I worked hard for this, followed my dream, knocked down all those walls and I would not have changed a thing.”
I’m getting no where fast; I am a product of anti-depressants, but I don’t think I would change a thing. I try to be the strongest person I could ever meet. And yes, I hate the lifestyle I live but I love what it’s made me become.
Sometimes I cry. Rarely. And sometimes, or all the time rather, not crying hurts more than crying.
But that’s life. I guess I did waste $15k on college. But it’s good to remember why I studied it – it’s what I want to do. I just have to find the talent.
And as long as I have an income, even if it’s not what I want to do and it might not take me anywhere, I’ll be able to make art, surround myself in good company, and live.
Depressing, I know, but I’m off those anti-depressants! I still manage a smile everyday and my mother is still alive."
"Oh well uhhh, that’s good to hear."
"Yeah and when I look back that’s about all that stops me from killing myself..."
