take my own advice

 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021. 

how many times do you try something and fail until you realize you can't do it? spend a whole life chasing something you badly want but also badly hurt yourself to get? at what point does futility become the reality?

there's nothing poignant or psuedo-witty here. the answer escapes me. tens of thousands of dollars, hours, and angst. 3 different locations. 3 different methods of learning. 3 similar results. 

the other day i tweeted that when i completed my current class i'd be a college junior, something i truly never, ever, ever thought i would be able to say. i was, for a very, very brief moment of time, feeling pride in my accomplishment. 

i spoke too soon.

another dropped class. two in a row. 3 in 4 semesters. the writing was on the wall. another flameout. it was my most consistent effort - 3 years straight of part-time university pulling me all the way from a freshman with a 0.25 gpa to the cusp of upperclasshood with a gpa higher than my high school gpa of 3.4. but it was over, just like that.

im searching for more answers. i can go to community college tuition free now! and for sure, that is a burden lifted. if i fail a class or drop late it's wasted time, but it's no longer burning a whole in my wallet. i've taken $22000 in loans in 14 years now all with, quite literally, not a single piece of paper to show. at least i won't be throwing away money when i go to a tuition free school.

but i will throw away time. my credits mostly don't transfer. i'd be resetting all the way back to a freshman with about 3 classes done. right back where i started when i started, the same time i started thinking about killing myself 24/7, the same time i started skipping class, the same time i gave up on everything and everyone.

and with 14 years in between, the successes are ethereal. i've moved up a pathway slightly. i have moved slightly closer to a goal i won't reach. 

there's an optional pathway i have considered. i could self-study acca. maybe i'd have to drive to chicago to take the tests. it's a rigorous pathway of study, with incredibly long, challenging exams/papers, of which there are 19. 

but 19 is just 19. they're 19 ass busting, study intensive, advanced college classes that would easily be four credit hours in US parlance, but that's still just 78 credit hours. the average student finishes those classes and a required internship in 3-4 years. the average cpa + masters student takes 6. and not having to take another 1000 level english or history or math class (and i love all of those subjects) would be a godsend, which i'd have to do much of in community college. 

an acca isn't a college degree, but there are universities that let you send in your records and do a capstone project for a bachelors. and same for masters. and it basically grants you automatic CMA.

so why haven't i done this? self-study. key phrase there. same reason for a lot of other things i suppose. there are economics certificates and english language ones for teaching english abroad i used to dream of and consider when i hadn't given up on everything including getting the fuck out of here, and they're all hard when they exist free from the confines of a college system that actively murders me every time i go. so i guess either way it's hard. but one is hard and never starts and one is hard and never finishes. hah.

this was a long, pointless way to ask why bother? how many attempts? how many "didn't even get around to it?" how much should i claw desperately for another thing i want but can't have?

i've said before in this blog many times that adulthood is learning to give up on your dreams and wants and goals sooner rather than later, so that you don't hold on to false hope that becomes that much more crushing when it slips through your fingers. the earlier you realize you can't, you won't, the earlier you can move past the sense of incompetence, the sooner you can adjust to mono no aware. maybe for once, i should take my own advice.

dream state

it exists, somewhere. the person i want. the person you want. it may be imagined. it may be unrealistic. it may be an always moving target. it might be a dream you never fall asleep to. the person i want blogs every week. finishes getting an acca certification, an economics degree, and an english one. travels more. doesn't need a job. plays video games like i still have time for them. 

anyways. that person exists only as a concept. the real me is too tired to move from the couch because 4 hours a night of sleep and a stress filled job renders me exhausted. i will get up soon though. there are dishes to do.

i used to dream about being a programmer. I hated it. not all my dreams have to know what is best.

value proposition

if, as the common english idiom states, "a picture is worth a thousand words," and, concurrently, that "a formula is worth a thousand pictures," as put forth by seminal computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra, then it demonstrates that some of the wealthiest people on earth, historically, were Albert Einstein, and the Wabanaki Confederacy. at this point, dear reader, one might be inquiring as to what these two have in common, if anything at all. to that, the present author simply states that i have yet to find a consistent quip that combines the two. alas, this too leaves me, much like Einstein, searching for a unified field.

impetus

 it had been bad for awhile. i knew it deep down. i had for months. 

so much of my life has been spent fighting for some semblance of control. carving out a space that's mine. my clothes. my media. my time. my time, my time, my time. decades of none of those - all orchestrated instead by those who occupied bodies outside of mine, minds who thought they knew better.

years of fighting has let me make a bit. i still feel the pull of obligations; socially, familial, work and school based. go above and beyond or fail. 

on my fourth counselor now. and it's finally one of my own impetus. i made the choice to go on meds, and what meds to go on. i chose the counselor, when and where and how often. never before had these options been granted to me. the hospital was dangled over my head like a threat. the doctors and counselors were all chosen by authority. referrals or recommendations from powers that be. my psychiatrist was eventually picked up by my mom, seemingly so she could try to find one more way to watch over me, devour my sense of self.

i haven't really had a bad counselor before, and i bare much of the blame for being so resistant a client. but i never really had a counselor before. they were all counselors who ostensibly were for me - they spoke to me, met with me, worked with me - but were for my parents. their fears. their comfort. their idea of how i should be. i wasn't angry enough, happy enough, good enough, enough. 

now i do. i have a conselor for me. and in that, i've found myself more open than ever, willing to challenge myself and be vulnerable. in 4 sessions i've gotten more out of this than 4 years of any previous counselor. i feel safe. i know nothing i say will escape, will somehow be found out. my parents are unaware of this existence, this part of my life, the kind of lack of awareness i've only ever wanted.

it had been bad for awhile, my depression. it had been bad for most of my life, the lack of having myself, my own impetus. but for an hour a week i carve out some time for me, by me. then i go home and hug my wife, who only ever wants to make time for me, make me feel like me, feel like i can take up space. 

linger

other than relationships - like, you know, partners, - you haven't had a one-to-one friend meeting since your trip to Asia, and even that had such a massive context with it (in SE Asia) that it never felt "on the spot." you haven't shot the shit with a friend, just one friend, over coffee for such a long time you struggle to remember when you last did. you haven't gone over to someone's house just to "hang." like many social skills, you wonder if the atrophy has rendered it forever flawed. 

he invites you and another for cigars and whiskey but the 'another' can't make it. just you and him. cigars and whiskey. socially distanced in a garage with the door open. he's kind of an intense dude, you don't agree on everything. you'd find a way out of it if it wasn't for the fact that you need to get out of the house a bit, your wife will be at work anyways, and you can't lie in bed catatonic with sadness if you're smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey.

it's only 80 minutes or so, certainly not a long commitment, but it flies by. conversation is natural. you think for a second how much you've missed this. you think for many seconds how remarkable it is you've done this. it took the kind of support and love only she could offer. she talks you down from thinking you can't do anything, that you'll make a fool of yourself. you feel happy after the chat, look forward to it again. it's cliche and unremarkable but you remember that as flawed as your last counselor was, just literally talking and using human language often lifted your spirits a bit. but then there's a different voice that starts to talk in your head about how you got lucky, you'll run out of stuff to talk about next time, you'll bore him like you'll eventually bore your wife like like like. who knows? that voice will always linger. much like the taste of cigar in your mouth the next day. but in the cold with a sip of whiskey? it all actually felt right.