My Uprising

If there's any age that's most appropriate to have a quarter-life crisis, it would be 25. How 'bout that, I'm 25!!

This post isn't meant to be me boasting. It isn't meant to shine any pride I may have. But today is a very important day, and I have much to be happy and grateful about.

For a decade I fought anxiety and depression. I was struck in vicious circles and never-ending negative patterns that I couldn't recognize, patterns I believed would bring me optimal results and continued to bring me pain. I had faith in them so I kept feeding the patterns, like a gambler, hoping just one time, just ONE TIME it would work, nullifying all the times it didn't.

Comparably, I didn't have an awful upbringing. My teenage years were bright and so were my college years. But they were haunted by negative thought patterns and distortions. I had very close friends, friends who had similar patterns that I did, but my patterns started destroying relationships around the age of 16 and continued to do so up until very recently. And with each relationship they burned, they burned worse. I was a failure more and more each time.

I always saw myself as a good person. Someone who tried their best in everything that they did, someone who treated every human being with as much respect as I could muster, and for that I couldn't imagine why anyone wouldn't like me, or worse, why the people I loved would turn on me.

Well, growing up has taught me at least two things. One: No matter what, there are going to be people that don't like you...they might even hate you. This applies to the people you want to like you. And two: The people you love might stop loving you one day.

I'm not going to list the throngs of hardships I've been through since college. But they hit me like bullets: relationship problems, financial problems, living problems, health problems, until I finally collapsed under the pressure several months ago and found myself living at my parent's with no money and the danger of developing agoraphobia due to post traumatic stress.

I truly thought things were over. No matter how many times my family, my friends, and my doctors told me this all would pass, I thought my life was over and there wasn't a whole lot to do to stop it. All I had worked for, all I had dreamed of...the love of the right woman, a family, children, great works of writing and film enjoyed by the masses, traveling and experiencing the world...I thought it was being stripped from me.

And now I'm here. Where is "here" you may ask...

For two years I struggled trying to find a job that would pay me enough to cover my bills. I was either unemployed or underemployed, working for psychos or serving coffee to psychos, 3000 miles away from the dreams I had left in Los Angeles, lost in a cloud of uncertainty. I was 24 without a direction, without any money, living with my parents, nothing to show, nothing to offer a woman...I truly hated myself. I couldn't move on from Firefly, and then OAOA came into my life only to replace Firefly with the same problem I had before. It was a glimmer of hope that ended up being a repeat nightmare.

Two months ago I developed debilitating symptoms that made every day a struggle. Every day they were the same, persistent, and showed no sign of letting up. OAOA wasn't there to comfort me, my friends didn't understand, and even though I had finally landed a temp job that was paying me enough money, I could hardly make it through the day and I was out at the doctor's so much that I feared my job, the only stability in my life, would leave me too, and then I'd truly be fucked. I didn't have the energy for another loss like that.

So here's why today is important. Today, I am no longer at temp. Today I become an official employee at Comcast, where I'll be getting paid more than I've ever been paid in my life, where I'll have benefits that I've never had, where I'll work in the biggest building in the city, and where I'll have the opportunity to create a career in the arena where my dreams lie. I stand up tall because through everything...through the nightmare that was OAOA, through my sickness, through the greatest economic recession of our time, through the mental warfare that life put me through, from standing at the bottom of the deepest, darkest hole I'd ever stood in, I reached up to the light and said "No, I'm not giving up."

And I succeeded. I have a wonderful job. I have a place of my own with wonderful roommates. My symptoms are subsiding. I feel secure without OAOA. I feel secure on my own. This blog itself has given me structure and motivation. I have regained faith in my dreams. I'm writing every day, I'm developing every day, and I'm growing every day.

I feel renewed. I feel rejuvenated. And I welcome the possibilities once more.

2010 started off as if it were the end. The rest of 2010 is just the beginning.

-Spontaneous K

My 20th Post

That's the music I want to play every single time I receive something awesome in my life. I want it to play and I want to be able to hold the item up really high with a delirious expression of achievement on my face, just like Link does. (If you can't see the above video, wait a minute, I'm working this post remotely.)

I have a confession to make. I'm a bigger nerd than you all think I am. And Scrubs is not my number one passion. So what takes the cake? What's my number one love that surpasses Scrubs and even OAOA?

Video Games. Mmmm. Particularly old school ones.

While life would be fun if it were like Scrubs, life would be even MORE awesome if it were like video games. If I could touch a flower that would allow me throw fireballs, or shoot a hookshot to the signpost across the street and have it pull me across, shit would be amazing. Life, of course, isn't like that, so I live vicariously. And that's why I have this blog with my internal commentary! Because when I do receive fun trinkets or great objects, the above sound plays in my head.

 
 

So what did I get? Well, it's a little boring compared to something like the Mirror Shield, but I've received some medication that's going to help me with some chronic symptoms that have been plaguing my life for the past eight weeks. Plaguing is not a hyperbole...I haven't talked much about it in my blog, because it's a little deeper than I'd like to get here, but the fact that I'm on the path to recovery is a happiness I can't explain. When I would feel really ill, it didn't matter who was thinking what about me, it didn't matter what OAOA was up to...it really wouldn't have mattered if she were there and comforting me because nothing could make it better. When it comes down to the hierarchy of needs, things regarding health, like thirst, hunger, breathing, and illness or physical pain, surpass all other "needs", including the "need" of another human being. As someone who has been perfectly healthy his whole 25 years, and for the first time thought life was potentially over, this is a great lesson for me to learn.

MY KARMA

The universe is not without it's irony. While I sit here day after day complaining and wondering about what to do with OAOA, I'm not the only human being that's having problems with their loved ones. For the past week or so, I've been receiving daily calls from my friend Edward in LA, not only to check on me, but to commiserate since he is also going through a tough break up. Then, at around 3:30am last night, I receive a phone call from my friend Katie (my actual best friend, not someone on and off), who had moved to Chicago back in August. When I answered the phone, she was crying. She had just broken up with the boy she moved there with, the boy she planned to marry. The love, it seemed, was no longer there, and they were no longer able to continue working at it. So I thought to myself: "She's one of my best friends, and this is the universe's way of telling me to pay it forward. She needs my help, and it doesn't matter that it's three in the morning. Comfort her and be there for her."

So I was. And she wished that he (her boyfriend) could sit there and comfort her when she needed it, just like I would at 3am.

I have what it takes to be an amazing boyfriend. I've got what it takes to be an amazing friend. So I'm taking these opportunities, especially ones like with OAOA, to improve flaws that keep romantic relationships from occurring.

I spent several hours talking to my new roommate Jess last night. She's very attractive, don't get me wrong, but I had no romantic attraction to her when I moved in, just a slight physical one. But the more we talked, the more we realized we have in common, as far as goals and dreams are concerned. We have a lot of fun. And it's nice to be able to come home to someone who says "Hi! How was your day?" or "Good morning!" when you wake up or "Good night!" when you go to bed.

Romantic roommate relationships are trouble. But we're only going to be roommates until May 31st. I'm not going to pursue anything, because I'm certainly enjoying what I've got...but there really is a time limit, and because of that, anything can happen.

And remember Tara from My Small World, the girl I met during snowmageddon? Well, I'm having drinks with her tonight. Not necessarily in a romantic manner, but still...new friends are great. :) And it's going to be during another snow storm no less.

As clearly stated by the title, this is my 20th Post. That's a small milestone for me, and I'm glad I made it here. I'm excited to see where posts 40, 60, 100, 200, and so forth bring me. As of right now, things are looking bright.

Thanks to all my readers and to all the new friends and old friends in my life. Going back one more time to my health...if I can manage to overcome what I've been through in the past two months...then there truly isn't anything I'm not capable of doing.

-Spontaneous K